Trading sessions
What it is
Crypto trades around the clock, but money arrives on a schedule: when the Tokyo, London and New York exchanges open, their participants enter the market. The layer shades the hours of each session and marks the open and the opening price. This is not a signal but a map of time: during which hours there are fewer participants, and when new ones come to the market.
More: how we calculate it
- Hours (in settings — “Tokyo”, “London”, “New York”, each with “background” and “background density”) — in local exchange time: Tokyo 09:00–15:30, London 08:00–16:30, New York 09:30–16:00. Daylight saving time is applied for each country on its own date.
- On the chart — a background band over the session hours (denser for the active one), a line at the open, a strip along the time axis, the label “· active”; the dashed “open” line is the sessions' opening price over the last 24 h.
- Only on charts up to 4 hours. Weekends are not cut out.
What it looks like in EVA
How it is read
Typical patterns: how they are read and how they are used. Examples from our history for these patterns will appear later — mechanical search has not found them yet, and we chose not to pick them by hand.
1. London breaks out of the Asian range
How it is read: the Asian session built a narrow range, and with the London open the price leaves it. Many expect that the first breakout may turn out false and watch whether the price holds.
An example will appear later.
2. The New York open changes direction
How it is read: with the opening of US exchanges, new money and news arrive. Many are cautious about a move that started before the open.
An example will appear later.
When it does not work
No pattern works every time: sessions explain better when participants arrive than what they will do.
Common traps
- Daylight saving time: session hours in UTC shift twice a year — we calculate them in local exchange time, with the transitions.
- Weekends: exchanges are closed on Saturday and Sunday, but session bands are still drawn by the clock.
- News comes out on its own schedule, not by sessions.
- Lower timeframes only: the layer is drawn on charts up to 4 hours.
See also
- Day levels — where yesterday's high and low are.
- TPO — the profile of its own session.
- Tape Activity — whether participants really arrived with the open.
- VWAP — from the session open.
In the terminal: Trading sessions and daily levels
Sessions are bands for Tokyo, London and New York in each city's local time; the running one is brighter. The layer is not drawn on 4h and above. The layer settings choose which sessions to show, each with its own colour, background and background density (100 % is the previous look). Daily and weekly levels are the previous day's high and low (PDH, PDL), the previous week's (PWH, PWL), the opens of the current day and week, and the profile of the previous day (pPOC, pVAH, pVAL), week (“POC wk”, “VAH wk”, “VAL wk”) and month (“POC mo”, “VAH mo”, “VAL mo”). Each level is switched on separately in the layer settings; each group has “all” and “none”. Profiles use the same calculation as the Session profile (volume spread over candles — an estimate, not the trade tape): the day uses the chart candles, the week 1h candles, the month 4h candles. Week is light blue, month is amber. Days, weeks (from Monday) and months are UTC.
Everyone sees these places, so other people's orders often sit near them. The archive check gave no stable conclusion about reversals at yesterday's high or low.