The forex market runs 24 hours a day, but it doesn't move the same way every hour. Most of the real movement happens during two overlapping windows — and if you're trading from Pakistan, knowing exactly when those windows fall in your own clock changes how you plan your day.
The three sessions, in PKT
Asia session — roughly 4:00 AM to 12:00 PM PKT This is the quietest window. Price often trades in a tight range here, building up the levels — highs and lows — that get tested once London opens. Many experienced traders use this session to watch and plan, not to enter trades.
London session — roughly 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM PKT This is where things usually start moving. London is the single largest forex trading center in the world, and its open is often the moment the Asia session's range gets broken — sometimes for real, sometimes as a trap (see what a fakeout actually is if you haven't run into one yet).
New York session — roughly 5:00 PM to 2:00 AM PKT London and New York overlap for a few hours in the evening PKT — historically the highest-volume window of the entire trading day. NY can extend a London move, or reverse it entirely once London traders start closing positions for the day.
(Exact start times shift by about an hour twice a year with UK/US daylight saving changes — London's open moves between 12PM and 1PM PKT depending on the time of year.)
When the market is completely closed, not just quiet
The Asia session above is the quiet part of the day, but it's still open — genuine closure is a separate, weekly event worth knowing on its own. Forex and gold trading stops entirely from Friday evening (around the New York session close, roughly 2:00 AM PKT on Saturday) until Sunday evening, when Asia reopens (roughly 9:00–10:00 PM PKT, depending on the time of year). If you check a chart during that window and price looks completely frozen, that's not the quiet Asia session — the market is genuinely shut, and nothing will move until it reopens.
A handful of public holidays in major financial centers — Christmas and New Year's being the most common — can also shorten trading hours or close specific sessions early, though this happens far less often than the regular weekend close.
Why this actually matters for a Pakistani trader
If you're only watching charts in the evening after work, you're likely catching the tail end of London and the start of New York — which is honestly a reasonable window, since it's historically one of the most active stretches of the day. But if you're checking charts at 9 AM PKT expecting a big move, you're watching the quietest part of the whole session, and a lack of movement isn't a sign nothing's happening — it just isn't that time yet.
A simple way to think about your day
- Morning (Asia): watch, don't chase. Ranges form here.
- Afternoon (London open): the first real moves of the day. Levels from the Asia session often get tested here.
- Evening (NY overlap): usually the most active window — and often where an earlier London move either continues or reverses.
What to actually do with this
You don't need to trade every session. Most traders do better picking one or two windows they can actually watch consistently — for a lot of people in Pakistan, that's the London-to-NY overlap in the evening, since it lines up with time after work and covers the highest-activity stretch of the day.
SonaPips scans continuously through these sessions and only surfaces a signal once a move has been confirmed on the higher timeframe — so you're not stuck watching every candle yourself to catch the moment London opens.