I’m seeing conflicting info on some websites. One says there can be a 1-2 hour overlap of the Sydney open at certain times of the year to the NY close.
The info here in the School says the closest they get is NY closing at 5PM EDT and Sydney opening at 5PM EDT.
Could these other sites maybe be using NZ time as their open time? I think that’s a couple hours ahead of Sydney.
During Northern Hemisphere summer, the EDT time zone in New York is UTC-4, and the AEST time zone in Sydney is UTC+10. That’s a 14-hour time difference between New York and Sydney. When New York is “closing” at 5 pm New York time on Monday (for example), it is 7 am Sydney time on Tuesday. So, if you consider Trading Sessions to be 8 am to 5 pm local time everywhere in the world, then
New York “closes” before Sydney “opens”, during New York summertime.
I put quotation marks around “closes” and “opens”, because technically markets are open around the clock, 24 hours per day, everywhere in the world. What we call a Trading Session is simply the portion of each 24-hour day when trading volume is highest.
During Northern Hemisphere winter (which is Southern Hemisphere summer), the EST time zone in New York is UTC-5, and the AEDT time zone in Sydney is UTC+11. That’s a 16-hour time difference between New York and Sydney. During this time of year, when New York is “closing” at 5 pm New York time (say, on Monday), it is 9 am Tuesday in Sydney, and the forex market there has been “open” for an hour.
So, nominally, during Northern Hemisphere winter, there is a one-hour overlap between the last hour of the New York session and the first hour of the Sydney session.
But, don’t place too much importance on this overlap. The last hour of the afternoon in New York is not marked by high trading volume, compared to, say, the London/New York Overlap period. As the trading day in Sydney is ramping up, traders there are less focused on what’s winding down in New York, and more focused on what the rest of Asia is likely to do, as markets in Tokyo, Singapore and Hong Kong prepare to open (one or two hours after the Sydney market has opened). Bear in mind that the Tokyo, Singapore and Hong Kong markets – which are almost totally overlapped – dwarf the Sydney market in trading volume.
Thanks Clint! Best to stick with where the volume is and not worry about overlap.
That time zone stuff gets crazy!
Hi Beez,
I think your statement is too generalized.
If you’re searching for high-volume periods during the 24-hour trading day, the two highest-volume periods happen to be (#1) the London / New York Overlap, and (#2) the Tokyo / London Overlap.
The New York / Sydney Overlap, by contrast, just doesn’t have the same high trading volume.
I captured this image several years ago. Unfortunately, the image is not labeled with the name of its creator – and I failed to label its source when I did the screen-capture.
All that being said, the data portrayed in this graphic matches my own research into trading volume over the 24-hour trading day. I think you can rely on this graphic.
Hi Clint
I don’t think there is any overlap between Sydney and NY. ASX opens at 9 am and NYSE closes at 4 pm. These are official times as there would still be some trading before and after hours.
You are comparing the trading hours of major stock exchanges (the ASX and the NYSE), and you
(correctly) find no overlap.
This thread is about comparing the nominal 8 am to 5 pm forex trading day in each country
(US and Australia), and we find a brief overlap of one hour during northern hemisphere winter.
