Sessions, news and the calendar

A session is a block of hours when one financial centre is open. The three that matter for AUD/USD are Sydney, Tokyo, London and New York. In Australian eastern time, Sydney runs from about 7am to 4pm, Tokyo from about 10am to 7pm, London from about 5pm to 1am, and New York from about 10pm to 6am. These times shift by an hour when daylight saving changes in any of those cities, so check your platform clock rather than a fixed wall chart.

The overlap between London and New York, roughly 10pm to 2am Australian eastern time, is when the most money changes hands. That does not mean price always moves further, only that more orders are being filled. A wider range is more likely, and so is a faster move against a stop. The quietest hours are usually late Sydney and early Tokyo, when few large players are active.

Your platform may label sessions differently or not at all. Some show a shaded band on the chart, some show a clock, and some show nothing. If no label appears, you can still see the effect: look at the size of the candles during your own evening compared with your own morning. That tells you which hours are busy for the pair you are watching, without relying on a label.

An economic calendar lists the times when official numbers are published. For AUD/USD, the ones that often move the pair are the Reserve Bank of Australia cash rate decision, Australian employment and inflation figures, and the equivalent US releases such as the Federal Reserve decision and US inflation. The calendar gives a time and a name, not a direction. It tells you when the market may become less orderly, not which way price will go.

The spread is the gap between the price at which you can buy and the price at which you can sell. In the minutes around a scheduled release, that gap can widen sharply because there are fewer resting orders and more people trying to trade at once. A spread that is normally one or two pips on AUD/USD can become five, ten or more for a short period. Your broker sets these terms, so the exact widening varies between brokers and even between account types.

A stop order becomes a market order when the level is touched. It is filled at the next available price, which may be further away than the level you set. That is why a tight stop left through a release can be filled at a worse price than expected. The calendar does not prevent this. It only lets you decide whether to wait until the spread settles or to size the position so a wider fill is still within your plan.

You can estimate what one hour of movement is worth in Australian dollars before you place an order. Take the pip value in A$ and multiply it by the number of pips you expect that hour to move. For one standard lot of AUD/USD at 0.6640, one pip is worth A$15.06. If a quiet hour moves 10 pips, that is 10 x A$15.06 = A$150.60. If a busy hour moves 40 pips, that is 40 x A$15.06 = A$602.40. The difference between those two hours is A$451.80.

The pip value itself changes when the AUD/USD rate changes. At 0.6640 it is A$15.06, but at a different rate the same 10 pips would convert to a different A$ amount. Your broker may also round the pip value or add a commission, and the spread you pay on entry and exit reduces the figure further. Treat the calculation as an estimate, not a promise of what you will make or lose.

Use the estimate to compare hours, not to predict an outcome. If your plan risks A$100 on a trade, an hour that typically moves A$600 is very different from one that moves A$150. The same stop distance will be hit more often in the busier hour. The point is to match your position size and your stop to the hour you are trading, not to assume every hour carries the same risk.