Trading the Asian Session

I’ve noticed that the Asian session definitely offers me the best return and chance of a profitable trade if I try to day trade a little bit. I just use basic support and resistance when I trade in the Asian session right after the New York session closes and before the European session begins. I know the school of pipsology says this is the time of consolidation and there may be a chance of sudden shifts in the market because there is low liquidity, but I would like other people’s advise on this method.

I looked up an article that seemed to confirm what I have said. It said that from 10 pm to 11 am GMT time traders were the most profitable (basically avoid high liquidity time frame where the European and New York sessions trade). It makes some sense as I could see retail traders taking on the Asian session but again not sure.

I made a few trades just to test and I’ve gotten them all right within the Asian session, realizing that the profit dried up if I tried to enter the European session.

I was trading USD/CAD CAD/HKD AUD/USD and was profiting on them all until European session came and I lost a bit but it was experimentation.

I then traded EUR/USD and although my entry was a bit too late (4:30 AM) I still kind of predicted it’s moves with some accuracy.

What are peoples thoughts?

IMO it depends on what pairs you are looking to trade.

Check the average daily ranges and some pairs have an asian session range that is very close to the range of the other sessions. Like AUDJPY and NZDJPY. Realize that you need some volatility or you cant make any money!

Very true! Thank you!

Putting my hand up that the Asian session is by far my session of choice to trade too. Moves are consistent and predictable, without the event risk that you see throughout London.

Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it :wink:

Yep totally agree! I tested it out using just basic support and resistance and candlestick patterns and it performs so well. The European session screws things up so much though.

I was gaining about 30 pips on all my trades during the asian session and it backfired when the European session came. Glad someone else sees the value in the Asia session though. Really lucrative market that people are missing out on.

Hey guys so I managed to trade the Asia session on the Japane Nikkei 225 and scored 3 consecutive trades. Trend trading works magnificently but you should also be aware that you should watch if trend legs become shorter after every pullback as this is signalling that the imbalance in the market is dissipating. I used this methodology when I traded the Nikkei last night and scored a nice profit on all three trades. Only bought on pullbacks once they successfully tested and just waited.

As you can see on the last trend leg there seemed to be an early pullback. I noticed this because the trend leg drop was quite sharp but it lead to a sharp recovery which made me worry about a trend reversal. Definitely happy that I followed my intuition, but sad that I didn’t buy on the trend reversal. :frowning:


Great trading!

i’ve sort of used the asian session now as a consolidation period for support and resistance strategy. Thank you! :slight_smile:

I thought you were talking about Asian FX market session. :S

Asian session is always annoying for me (EURUSD) most often ranged trading. Bleh…

Nice trades, but how do you determine when to enter or to exit. The stripes are on the most ideal locations but did you anter and exit on those stripes? For example, the supporting long line is probably not drawn afte the two first reversals, or am I wrong about that?

Sorry Oanda let’s people with British accounts to trade stock indexes too. :slight_smile:

Indices during Asia not so much…

I only do it occasionally. Too high spread. I personally love the Nasdaq for low spreads and the ability to just add to my position over time. With nikkei I feel like I either don’t trade or have to go all in.

I Trade AUD and JPY pair varieties for the Asian Session, My favorite is Gold and USD for the NY sessions. I too use the high and lows of both the Asian and NY session (depending) to determine my SRs.

I was trading USD/CAD CAD/HKD AUD/USD and was profiting on them all until European session came and I lost a bit but it was experimentation.

Hi, so I am also looking forward to trading the Asian session. I noticed that the trend starts at midnight( currently trading only the majors) but then starts ranging till somewhere around 6am GMT or follow a trend towards the breakout.

Do you know of any pairs that trends and what time does it start ?

Hi Austerlitzer,
I am trading mostly the asian session with the help of a bot. I do a lot of analyzing of the times and volatility over the year. You have to be quite careful as the market conditions change quite a bit because of daylight savings. You cant just adjust your daylight savings server time. Europe might have 4 hours difference in daylight savings, Singapore has no daylight savings for example. As times change differently around the world the forex markets do not change in a linear pattern. So if what you are doing suddenly stops working, it can be because of these time changes. I always work on local time and change systems to match.( no daylight savings here in Brisbane).
Also be careful of trading too close to the European session times. If the asian is too quiet the trades can get pushed into the European session. That can be very bad :wink:

Results from last couple of weeks trading EU mostly asian session. Its a demo btw.