Forex sessions and killzones: when gold moves, in your time zone
Gold trades almost around the clock during the week, but it does not move evenly. Knowing the session hours helps you decide when to watch the market, and tells you when a quiet chart is simply normal.
The four sessions
Each session is defined in its own city’s local time:
| Session | Local hours |
|---|---|
| Sydney | 07:00–16:00 Sydney time |
| Tokyo | 09:00–18:00 Tokyo time |
| London | 08:00–17:00 London time |
| New York | 08:00–17:00 New York time |
For gold, the London session and the London and New York overlap are usually the most active. Major US economic data is typically released at 08:30 New York time, which often causes sharp moves right at the start of the New York session.
Killzones
In ICT and Smart Money Concepts, killzones are time windows when liquidity and volatility tend to be higher. They are defined in New York time:
| Killzone | New York time |
|---|---|
| Asia | 20:00–00:00 |
| London | 02:00–05:00 |
| New York | 07:00–10:00 |
| London close | 10:00–12:00 |
Different sources shift these by up to an hour. Treat them as a convention for when to pay attention, not as a rule that price has to move.
The daylight saving trap
The US and Europe change their clocks on different dates. The US switches on the second Sunday of March and the first Sunday of November, the UK and the EU on the last Sunday of March and the last Sunday of October. In the weeks in between, London and New York are four hours apart instead of five, and every session and killzone moves by an hour against your local time. A fixed table in your notes is wrong in those weeks.
The weekly and daily breaks
The forex week runs from Sunday 17:00 to Friday 17:00, New York time. Many brokers also pause gold for a short daily break around 17:00 New York time, when spreads can widen. Your broker’s trading hours give the exact times.