How to Find Your Best Trading Hours Using a Trading Journal

Your Best Hours Are Not What You Think

Most traders assume volatility equals opportunity. They trade the London open, the New York overlap, and news events — because "that's when the market moves." But for your specific strategy, the highest volatility sessions may actually be your worst performers. Only data tells the truth.

How to Analyze Trading Hours from Your Journal

Step 1: Export or Filter by Hour

Group your trades by the hour of entry. Don't have too few trades per hour to be statistically meaningful — you need at least 20–30 trades per time slot before drawing conclusions.

Step 2: Calculate Win Rate per Hour

Create a simple bar chart: X-axis = hour of the day (00:00–23:00), Y-axis = win rate %. Most traders are surprised to find their best hours are not the high-volatility sessions.

Step 3: Calculate Average P&L per Hour

Win rate alone is not enough — a session with 80% win rate but tiny gains and one large loss still net negative. Calculate average P&L per trade for each hour.

Step 4: Calculate Profit Factor per Session

Gross profit ÷ gross loss for London session, New York session, Asian session. This is the most robust measure of which session truly suits your strategy.

What Traders Typically Discover

• Asian session is highly profitable for range-based strategies but terrible for breakout strategies
• The first 30 minutes of London open has high volatility but poor R:R due to wide spreads
• London–New York overlap (13:00–16:00 UTC) is often the single best period for trend-following
• Trading after 20:00 UTC tends to be the worst period for most retail strategies

These are averages — your data may tell a completely different story. That's the point.

Take Action: Stop Trading Your Bad Hours

Once identified, create a rule: "No trades outside 08:00–16:00 UTC." Track rule compliance in your journal. This single change improves most traders' results within one month.

Treydly's analytics dashboard shows your performance broken down by day of week, trading session (London, New York, Asian), and symbol — all calculated automatically from your imported trade history. Treydly is $9.99/month with a 14-day free trial, no credit card required.

Discover your best trading hours →