Forex
CostForex5 min read

Trading the Clock: Why Session Overlap Is the Cheapest Hour

Execution cost in FX is not constant. It is a function of the time of day, and the time of day is free to know.

Spread is a schedule

The London–New York overlap concentrates the deepest book of the day into roughly four hours. Spreads on the majors compress, depth rises, and the market impact of a given size falls. The Tokyo–London gap is the opposite. None of this requires prediction — it is a property of the calendar.

Where the money is

For a strategy already trading, shifting discretionary execution into the overlap is one of the few genuinely free improvements available: same positions, same signals, lower cost. On a strategy turning over frequently, execution cost is often larger than the signal edge, which makes this the higher-leverage thing to fix first.

The trap

The overlap is also when scheduled data lands, and a tight spread quoted a second before a release is not a spread you will get. Any scheduler that routes to the overlap needs an economic calendar blackout, or it will systematically execute into the worst moments of the best hours.

Educational, not directive. This is analysis of how a market behaves, not a recommendation to act in it. Strategy detail with conviction scoring and live sample sizes lives in the vault.
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