Every trading course says the same thing: "London open is the best time to trade." But what does the actual data say? We ran an EMA crossover strategy on all 9 forex pairs available in FXAbsolute, filtering entries by the hour they occurred in (UTC), across 5 years of real M1 data. Here is every hour, ranked.
| Rank | UTC Hour | Session | Avg Trades | Win Rate | Profit Factor | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 15:00-16:00 | US Open / NY | 87 | 47% | 1.62 | Best |
| 2 | 14:00-15:00 | US Open | 94 | 44% | 1.48 | Excellent |
| 3 | 13:00-14:00 | US Pre-Open | 91 | 42% | 1.42 | Strong |
| 4 | 20:00-21:00 | US Late | 34 | 55% | 1.38 | Low volume |
| 5 | 9:00-10:00 | London Open | 156 | 38% | 1.12 | Breakeven |
| 6 | 10:00-11:00 | London AM | 148 | 36% | 1.06 | Breakeven |
| 7 | 8:00-9:00 | London Pre | 112 | 35% | 1.01 | Breakeven |
| 8 | 16:00-17:00 | US PM | 82 | 32% | 0.94 | Loser |
| 9 | 7:00-8:00 | Asian End | 67 | 31% | 0.88 | Loser |
| 10 | 1:00-2:00 | Asian | 41 | 30% | 0.81 | Loser |
This is the finding that surprised us most. London open (8-9 UTC) — the most hyped trading hour in forex education — ranked 7th with a profit factor of 1.01. That is effectively breakeven before spreads. London AM (9-10) did slightly better at 1.12 but still nowhere near the US session numbers.
Why? Because London open sees maximum fakeouts. Liquidity floods in, price spikes in both directions, stops get hunted, and trend-following strategies get chopped. The hour has the most volume — and the most noise.
Use FXAbsolute to filter trades by session and know exactly which hours your strategy works. 5 years of real M1 data. Automatic stats.
▶ Start Free BacktestingEvery profitable hour from rank 1 to 4 sits in the US session. The 15:00-16:00 UTC window produced a 1.62 profit factor — the highest of any hour — followed by 14:00-15:00 at 1.48. This is the New York open and the first hour of full US participation. Prices trend cleanly. Fakeouts drop. The data does not lie.
We ran the same hour filter on BTCUSD and ETHUSD. The result: crypto shows no session bias whatsoever. Win rates are flat across all 24 hours, ranging from 28-33%. Crypto trades 24/7 and does not care about London or New York. Your forex session knowledge is worthless on BTC.
If you trade a trend-following strategy on forex, your highest-odds hour is US open — not London. If you trade crypto, forget session filters entirely. If you trade on FXAbsolute, you can test all of this yourself for free in an afternoon.
9 forex pairs. 5 years of data. Filter by session. See your real win rate by the hour.
▶ Start Free Backtesting