London Session

The London session, also called the European session, is the busiest window of the forex day. It runs roughly from 08:00 to 17:00 GMT, and London remains the largest centre for foreign exchange turnover, so the deepest liquidity and tightest spreads in most major pairs appear here. The first hours after the open often produce the day's widest ranges, as European data, corporate flows and repositioning after the Asian session hit the market at once. Sterling and euro pairs are especially active, and the overlap with New York in the afternoon adds another surge of volume. Because moves are larger, both opportunity and slippage risk rise, and many session-based strategies are built around the London open.