AUD/USD trading hours: when AUDUSD actually moves
24,883 fifteen-minute AUDUSD bars from the last 12 months, 2025-08 to 2026-08, sorted by the hour they belong to. No forecast and no advice — just how far this market has tended to travel at each hour of the day, and how often it has done something far out of the ordinary.
Best and worst hours to trade AUD/USD, by measured range (UTC)
Each bar is the median distance between the high and the low of a fifteen-minute candle at that hour, in pips. The median rather than the average, because a handful of violent bars would drag an average upwards and describe an hour nobody has ever traded.
These hourly figures as a table
| Hour (UTC) | Median 15-minute range |
|---|---|
| 00:00 | 4.5 pips |
| 01:00 | 5.3 pips |
| 02:00 | 4.6 pips |
| 03:00 | 3.9 pips |
| 04:00 | 3.5 pips |
| 05:00 | 3.8 pips |
| 06:00 | 4.8 pips |
| 07:00 | 5.2 pips |
| 08:00 | 5.0 pips |
| 09:00 | 4.4 pips |
| 10:00 | 4.0 pips |
| 11:00 | 4.0 pips |
| 12:00 | 4.9 pips |
| 13:00 | 6.1 pips |
| 14:00 | 6.9 pips |
| 15:00 | 6.4 pips |
| 16:00 | 4.7 pips |
| 17:00 | 4.0 pips |
| 18:00 | 3.6 pips |
| 19:00 | 3.1 pips |
| 20:00 | 2.6 pips |
| 21:00 | 3.2 pips |
| 22:00 | 2.8 pips |
| 23:00 | 2.8 pips |
The busiest hour is 14:00 UTC at 6.9 pips; the quietest hour is 20:00 UTC at 2.6 pips. That is a spread of 2.7× between the liveliest and the deadest hour of this market's day.
AUD/USD volatility by hour and weekday
The same measurement, split by day of the week. Darker is a larger median fifteen-minute range. Blank cells are hours the market was closed.
The weekday grid as a table
| Hour (UTC) | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:00 | 5.2 | 4.5 | 4.3 | 4.4 | 4.3 | — |
| 01:00 | 5.5 | 5.3 | 5.8 | 5.4 | 4.7 | — |
| 02:00 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 4.3 | — |
| 03:00 | 3.9 | 3.9 | 4.0 | 4.2 | 3.7 | — |
| 04:00 | 3.5 | 3.7 | 3.5 | 3.8 | 3.2 | — |
| 05:00 | 3.4 | 4.3 | 3.6 | 4.1 | 3.6 | — |
| 06:00 | 4.5 | 4.8 | 4.9 | 5.1 | 4.7 | — |
| 07:00 | 5.4 | 5.2 | 5.1 | 5.4 | 4.9 | — |
| 08:00 | 4.7 | 5.3 | 4.9 | 5.2 | 5.1 | — |
| 09:00 | 4.2 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 4.4 | 4.5 | — |
| 10:00 | 3.7 | 4.1 | 4.1 | 4.0 | 3.8 | — |
| 11:00 | 4.0 | 4.0 | 4.0 | 4.1 | 3.9 | — |
| 12:00 | 4.5 | 4.7 | 5.2 | 5.3 | 5.0 | — |
| 13:00 | 5.2 | 6.4 | 6.2 | 6.7 | 6.2 | — |
| 14:00 | 6.1 | 7.0 | 6.9 | 7.7 | 7.1 | — |
| 15:00 | 5.2 | 6.7 | 6.3 | 6.8 | 7.1 | — |
| 16:00 | 4.2 | 4.7 | 4.8 | 5.0 | 4.9 | — |
| 17:00 | 3.3 | 3.9 | 4.3 | 4.6 | 4.1 | — |
| 18:00 | 3.0 | 3.4 | 4.0 | 4.0 | 3.7 | — |
| 19:00 | 2.6 | 3.0 | 3.4 | 3.6 | 3.0 | — |
| 20:00 | 2.1 | 2.3 | 2.9 | 2.6 | 3.1 | — |
| 21:00 | 2.5 | 3.0 | 3.2 | 3.3 | 3.6 | 4.7 |
| 22:00 | 2.3 | 2.4 | 2.4 | 2.6 | — | 4.6 |
| 23:00 | 2.3 | 2.6 | 2.8 | 2.7 | — | 3.8 |
Which AUD/USD session carries the movement
Sessions overlap and are not equal in length, so the last column is the one worth reading: how much of the market's total measured travel happens in an average hour of that session.
| Session (UTC) | Hours with data | Share of all travel | Per hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asian hours 00–07 | 7 | 29.2% | 4.17% |
| London 07–12 | 5 | 21.7% | 4.34% |
| London and New York overlap 12–16 | 4 | 23.3% | 5.84% ← densest |
| New York 16–21 | 5 | 17.3% | 3.46% |
| Late New York 21–24 | 3 | 8.5% | 2.82% |
An average hour of the London–New York overlap carries 2.1 times as much of AUD/USD's measured movement as an average hour of the late New York hours.
Share is computed from the hourly medians above, so it describes a typical hour rather than the sum of every bar — one violent afternoon does not move it.
AUD/USD hours that go wrong: where the outsized bars cluster
A spike here means a fifteen-minute bar more than three times the median for its own weekday and hour, after each bar has been measured against the preceding month rather than against the whole period — so a market that has simply grown more volatile does not report its recent weeks as one long anomaly. Between 2025-08 to 2026-08 these slots produced the most.
| Slot (UTC) | Bars over 3× | Largest | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wed 19:00 | 22 | 46.5 pips (14.5×) | 2025-10-29 |
| Tue 21:00 | 18 | 46.7 pips (9.7×) | 2026-03-24 |
| Thu 21:00 | 16 | 43.1 pips (8.6×) | 2026-03-26 |
| Wed 21:00 | 16 | 21.4 pips (8.0×) | 2025-10-15 |
| Wed 18:00 | 16 | 38.8 pips (11.0×) | 2025-09-17 |
| Tue 22:00 | 14 | 74.3 pips (18.4×) | 2026-04-07 |
The same bars, grouped by New York time instead of UTC. Where a cluster is tighter on one clock than the other, the slot moves with US daylight saving rather than staying fixed in UTC. For this instrument the UTC grid is the tighter of the two: its busiest slot holds 22 outsized bars against 20 in New York.
| Slot (New York) | Bars over 3× | Largest | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wed 14:00 | 20 | 38.8 pips (11.7×) | 2025-09-17 |
| Wed 15:00 | 17 | 46.5 pips (15.1×) | 2025-10-29 |
| Fri 08:00 | 15 | 37.6 pips (8.2×) | 2026-08-07 |
| Tue 17:00 | 13 | 46.7 pips (8.6×) | 2026-03-24 |
| Wed 18:00 | 13 | 14.1 pips (3.9×) | 2026-03-18 |
| Sun 18:00 | 13 | 36.7 pips (6.4×) | 2026-03-01 |
The largest single fifteen-minute bar in the period was 120 pips on 2026-03-23 (Mon 12:00 UTC) — 26.8× the median bar for that UTC slot. (The New York table grades the same bar against its New York slot, which has a different median, so the two multiples differ.)
Measured from 24,883 M15 bars on one broker's live feed, 2025-08 to 2026-08. This is a description of the past, not a prediction and not a recommendation: nothing here says when to trade, what to trade, or which way. Hours are UTC unless a heading says otherwise, and they do not shift with your local daylight saving.
Turnmarks is chart analytics, not advice. Trading carries risk, including the loss of your capital.
The feed's clock was checked against this market's own week: 148/161 weekly closes land on the New York 17:00 bell (92%), checked on EURUSD.
What Turnmarks does with AUD/USD
Turnmarks watches this market on the hourly chart and marks the bar where a push stops going anywhere. It does not tell you to buy or sell, and it is not a signals group. Every past marker's outcome is measured and published on the AUD/USD page, so you can judge it before paying for anything. There is a free plan and it needs no card.
Trading hours for the other instruments
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