No retail trader sees the real order book — not even in the world's largest financial market, whose daily turnover is documented by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Triennial Survey. What you can measure is the spread now against the usual for the same hour — and that is what we calculate here for all 28 pairs, from our live archive.
The same-hour spread baseline is still being collected — it needs at least three live trading days.
A 3 a.m. spread is not a 4 p.m. spread, so comparing the figure with a fixed number misleads. We store every pair's spread with each reading, and compare the current one with the median for the same hour on previous days.
One trade pays one spread. A basket of seven pairs pays seven. In our measurement across the 28 pairs, the average spread per leg was 12.8 points (roughly 1.3 pips) — about 9 pips for the whole basket before the market moves at all.
The minutes before and after a high-impact release, the hours between the New York close and the Asian open, and the Sunday open. Members see the news calendar next to the ranking, with a countdown to each currency's next release.
| Session | Time (server, EET) | Currencies that move | Liquidity note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asian | 02:00 – 10:00 | JPY · AUD · NZD | Moderate liquidity; spreads are wider on the European crosses |
| London | 10:00 – 18:30 | EUR · GBP · CHF | Deepest liquidity on the majors, and the first two hours set most of the day's range |
| New York | 15:30 – 23:00 | USD · CAD | Heaviest volume during the overlap with London, then thinning gradually |
| Between sessions | 23:00 – 02:00 | — | The thinnest liquidity of the day — spreads double and price action turns random |
A spread on its own misleads: a spread of 4 is cheap on a pair that travels 120 in a day, and expensive on one that travels 25. The ratio here is the current spread ÷ the measured median daily range (22 July 2026 – 18 August 2026) — every 1% means your entry and exit eat 1% of a typical full day's move.
The table appears with the day's first live reading — the collector is running and the page updates on its own.
Around 00:00 server time, liquidity is withdrawn for a few minutes while financing rolls over, and the spread jumps several times over before coming back. Any measurement or entry in those minutes is priced expensively.
The early hours of Monday (Sunday night in Gulf time) open on thin liquidity and possible gaps — spreads stay wide until the Asian session settles.
In the minutes before and after a high-impact release, market makers widen their protection. The move at that point is real, but the cost of chasing it multiplies.
Positions are closed ahead of the weekend and liquidity thins gradually — our measurement of the average spread per leg across the 28 pairs (12.8 points, roughly 1.3 pips) recorded its worst readings in these periods.
The market's ability to fill your order at the quoted price without moving against you. Retail traders don't see the order book, so the closest practical measure available to them is the spread: the tighter it is, the better the liquidity, and the wider it is compared with the usual for the same hour, the thinner the liquidity.
In three main situations: in the minutes before and after high-impact news, in the dead hours between the New York close and the Asian open, and at the weekly open on Sunday evening. Cross pairs (such as GBPNZD and EURNZD) have wider spreads than the majors at all times.
Liquidity is highest during the London–New York overlap (roughly 15:30–18:30 broker server time, EET). The London session moves the euro, the pound and the Swiss franc; the Asian session moves the yen and the Australian and New Zealand dollars; New York moves the US and Canadian dollars.
A basket opens seven trades at once, so the cost is paid seven times. We measured the average entry spread across the 28 pairs at about 12.8 points (roughly 1.3 pips) per leg — about 9 pips for a seven-pair basket — and in our basket tests that was enough to turn strategies that were positive on paper negative after costs.
Measurement, not advice. The spread is a figure about a pair's cost at this hour, not its direction. A pair with a tight spread is not a pair to buy, and a pair with a wide spread is not a pair to sell — the number tells you what you pay to get in and out, not whether getting in is right.
See the pairs themselves. Strongest pairs now shows the ranking by move with each pair's spread, and currency strength tells you which currency is behind the move.