Thanks Clint and Tommor for your comments.
Junkyard Dog will have his day in court.
Clint, that Date and Time site looks like a keeper.
Hi Clint,
You wrote, “Some of us don’t like to fool around with the Asian market even that early. For us, waiting an additional 2 hours (until 10 am Monday in Tokyo, 8 pm Sunday in New York, and 3 pm Sunday in Hawaii) is much more comfortable.”
Would you recommend a similar wait on other trading days besides the first trading day of the week?
I think that depends on your trading style – scalper, daytrader, swing trader, etc.
Scalpers and most daytraders will generally find the early hours of the APAC (Asia-Pacific) session [I]boringly[/I] slow. So, they will typically look for action later in the morning (Tokyo time).
Swing traders and long-term traders often do their analysis, and place their pending orders, during the lull in the market after the New York close (5 pm New York time). So, while the scalpers and the daytraders are sitting on their hands, or watching TV, swing traders and long-term traders are getting positioned for the next trading day. If I’m not mistaken, that describes the style of trading you intend to do.
To get a feel for the dynamics of the APAC session, it helps to map out the opening times and typical trading volumes of the 8 countries that make up 99% of the forex trading volume generated in the APAC region.
Let’s key them to New York time (currently EST = GMT-5). You can then adjust all the times shown below to HST. And let’s use the (admittedly arbitrary) standard 8 am to 5 pm session time in each market.
2 pm - New Zealand opens at 8 am local time (NZDT = GMT+13)
New Zealand generates [B]$10 billion/day[/B] in forex trading volume.
4 pm - Sydney opens at 8 am local time (AEDT = GMT+11)
Australia generates [B]$135 billion/day in forex trading volume.[/B]
5 pm - New York closes. (EST = GMT-5)
6 pm - Tokyo and Seoul open at 8 am local time (JST, KST = GMT+9)
Japan generates [B]$399 billion/day,[/B] and Korea generates [B]$48 billion/day.[/B]
7 pm - Singapore, Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Taipei open at 8 am (SGT, HKT, CST = GMT+8)
Singapore generates [B]$517 billion/day,[/B] Hong Kong generates [B]$437 billion/day,[/B]
China generates [B]$73 billion/day,[/B] and Taiwan generates [B]$27 billion/day.[/B]
You can do the math, and even create a bar-graph of the hour-by-hour volume generated in this region. Clearly, the 600-pound gorilla, so to speak, in the APAC session is the overlap of the normal business days in the GMT+8 and GMT+9 time zones – that is, the overlap of the big 3: Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo (with the smaller players weighing in, as well). That overlap begins at 8 am in the GMT+8 (Singapore) time zone, which is (currently) 7 pm New York time.
So, traders looking for action in the Tokyo session usually have to wait until 7 pm New York time, or later, to get it on. By that time, many swing traders are finished for the day, having done their chart work and placed their pending orders for the next 24 hours.
Two points, and then I’m done:
The daily volume figures for the 8 major forex-trading countries in the APAC region are taken from:
Table 6, page 14, of the Triennial Central Bank Survey (2016), published
by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, Switzerland.
Between March 12 and April 2, daylight saving time changes in New Zealand, Australia, and the U.S. will change the times shown above. I will post all the details prior to March 12.
Take care,
Clint
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Hi Clint,
I’ve yet to study your post carefully, but it looks very helpful.
By the way, your and Tommor’s comments on TKimble’s Weekly are having their effect. At this point, there seems to be better approaches to occupy my testing time with. As to my style, which you speculated on, I’m looking for a combo of weekly and short-term, so while the weekly is playing out I can trade short-term, keeping an eye on my margin. Also, in addition to trending strategies, I’ll be looking for a good range strategy for when that would be appropriate. Several good strategies for different market conditions and personal time constraints will be good.
Best to you,
Norm