Phase 3: Practice · 7 min
Understand session conventions, daylight-saving shifts, scheduled events and why OTC timing must be logged separately.
By the end, you can:
- Treat Asia, London and New York as conventions, not entry signals.
- Verify current local time and instrument availability.
- Separate platform-labelled OTC observations from weekday markets.
There is no single global session clock
Foreign exchange is decentralized and trades across financial centres during the weekday. Traders commonly group activity around Asian, European/London and North American/New York business days. These are useful context labels, not official openings for one worldwide exchange.
Tokyo does not currently observe daylight saving time. London and New York do, and their changeover dates are not always the same. That means memorized UTC windows—and the overlap between centres—can shift during the year. Holidays, a platform’s server clock and the specific instrument schedule add more variation.
| Reference label | What to verify | Do not assume |
|---|---|---|
| Asia / Tokyo | Current Tokyo business day, regional holidays and the instrument’s own hours. | That every instrument becomes quiet or range-bound. |
| Europe / London | Current UK clock and whether daylight saving is active. | That higher participation creates a profitable setup. |
| North America / New York | Current US Eastern clock, holidays and scheduled releases. | That a session label overrides news or product rules. |
| London–New York overlap | The two current local clocks; DST transition weeks can alter the UTC relationship. | That more activity means lower risk or a certain direction. |
A durable timing routine
- Record your local time and time zone, including the UTC offset.
- Check the current city clocks instead of relying on a saved screenshot.
- Confirm the instrument is open in the platform and read its current schedule.
- Check scheduled economic events relevant to the instrument.
- Label the context in the journal; never use the session name as the entry reason by itself.
IQ Option OTC session timing
An IQ Option or other platform label containing “OTC” should be treated as a product-specific schedule. The quoted price, available assets, payout or spread, expiry choices and settlement method may differ from the corresponding weekday market and may change. The platform’s live instrument panel and current terms are authoritative for availability.
Keep OTC demo observations in a separate journal group. A result collected on a weekend or off-hours OTC product should not be presented as evidence about the weekday underlying market. Likewise, a weekday session pattern is not automatically transferable to an OTC contract.
Session overlap, an opening bell or a scheduled announcement may change activity and execution conditions. None predicts direction. If conditions are fast, unclear or costly, skipping the observation is a complete decision.
Use the live market-hours reference as a convenience, then verify the instrument inside the platform because schedules and daylight-saving offsets can change.
Demo exercise
Practice: create a timestamp that survives DST
For one demo screenshot, record the date, your local clock, your UTC offset, the relevant financial-centre clock, instrument status and whether the product is labelled OTC. Repeat after the next daylight-saving change and compare the offsets.
Knowledge check
Answer two questions
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