GBP/USD volatility: average range by hour and session
British Pound / US Dollar (cable) · 2016–2025 · 2,595 trading days
GBP/USD moves 108.1 pips in an average day. The busiest hour is 14:00 UTC at 32.5 pips, followed by 13:00 UTC at 31.0. London is the busiest session, covering 82% of the daily range on its own.
What is distinctive about GBP/USD
A wide pair, and the one whose range has shrunk most steadily. Its loudest year was 2016 — the first in the window — at 149.1 pips, against 78.2 in 2024 and 91.2 in 2025. Most pairs on this site peaked around 2022; this one peaked before the window really began.
Its widest day, 2016-06-24, reached 1423.0 pips — 13.2× the average, and the day the EU referendum result was counted. Only GBP/JPY has produced a larger single day. Sterling pairs spend long stretches behaving unremarkably and then move a year's worth in an afternoon.
London carries 81.9% of the daily range against Tokyo's 43.7%, which follows from UK data and Bank of England decisions all landing in European hours.
When it moves — average range by hourUTC
How far price travels in an average hour, measured high-to-low on hourly candles across every trading day in the window.
| Hour | Avg range | Hours | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 00:00 | 15.0 | 2,595 | |
| 01:00 | 15.1 | 2,595 | |
| 02:00 | 12.7 | 2,595 | |
| 03:00 | 10.7 | 2,595 | |
| 04:00 | 10.4 | 2,595 | |
| 05:00 | 12.8 | 2,595 | |
| 06:00 | 20.7 | 2,595 | |
| 07:00 | 27.4 | 2,595 | |
| 08:00 | 28.7 | 2,595 | |
| 09:00 | 26.0 | 2,595 | |
| 10:00 | 24.3 | 2,595 | |
| 11:00 | 25.3 | 2,595 | |
| 12:00 | 29.7 | 2,595 | |
| 13:00 | 31.0 | 2,595 | |
| 14:00 | 32.5 | 2,595 | |
| 15:00 | 29.7 | 2,595 | |
| 16:00 | 22.8 | 2,595 | |
| 17:00 | 19.2 | 2,595 | |
| 18:00 | 18.3 | 2,595 | |
| 19:00 | 15.3 | 2,595 | |
| 20:00 | 12.6 | 2,595 | |
| 21:00 | 11.9 | 2,255 | |
| 22:00 | 10.6 | 2,071 | |
| 23:00 | 10.8 | 2,071 |
Tokyo, London or New York — where the range happens
High-to-low across each session window on the same day. The London and New York windows are left overlapping rather than cut apart, because the hours they share are the busiest of the day and splitting them would hide that. Windows are fixed in UTC, so under daylight saving they sit an hour off the local clock.
| Session | Window | Avg range | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tokyo | 00:00–08:00 | 47.2 | |
| London | 07:00–16:00 | 88.5 | |
| New York | 12:00–21:00 | 75.8 |
Which weekday moves most
Range only. Whether a given weekday closes higher is not shown, because for every pair published here it stays within sampling noise of a coin flip — 3 of the 50 pair-and-weekday combinations clear the usual significance bar, and 2.5 would clear it by chance alone.
| Weekday | Avg range | Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | 96.3 | 518 | |
| Tuesday | 109.8 | 520 | |
| Wednesday | 108.6 | 518 | |
| Thursday | 115.9 | 520 | |
| Friday | 109.7 | 519 |
Is there seasonality? Month-by-month
Average change from the first open to the last close of each calendar month, and how often that month closed higher.
| Month | Avg change | Closed highern = 10 | Avg range | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | +0.61% | 5/10 | 112.8 | |
| Feb | -0.74% | 3/10 | 108.2 | |
| Mar | +0.32% | 5/10 | 121.5 | |
| Apr | +0.47% | 7/10 | 100.8 | |
| May | -0.43% | 4/10 | 95.7 | |
| Jun | -0.98% | 5/10 | 117.8 | |
| Jul | +0.09% | 6/10 | 103.7 | |
| Aug | -0.43% | 4/10 | 94.3 | |
| Sep | -0.72% | 4/10 | 113.0 | |
| Oct | -0.42% | 4/10 | 115.6 | |
| Nov | +1.3% | 6/10 | 107.1 | |
| Dec | +0.67% | 7/10 | 106.6 |
Ten years means ten observations per month. That is enough to describe what happened and not enough to predict what will: across all 120 month-and-pair combinations published here, not one is lopsided enough to rule out chance.
How much the range changes year to year
The ten-year average hides how much the market changed inside it. Sizing a position off the number at the top of this page, without checking which of these years it resembles, is how a stop that looks generous turns out not to be.
| Year | Avg range | Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 149.1 | 260 | |
| 2017 | 101.4 | 259 | |
| 2018 | 108.4 | 259 | |
| 2019 | 101.0 | 259 | |
| 2020 | 128.8 | 260 | |
| 2021 | 90.2 | 260 | |
| 2022 | 132.9 | 260 | |
| 2023 | 99.5 | 259 | |
| 2024 | 78.2 | 260 | |
| 2025 | 91.2 | 259 |
The three largest days in the window
Named rather than merely counted, so the figure can be checked. Each is a real session: open the pair on the chart, scroll to the date, and the high-to-low should match.
| Date | Range that day | |
|---|---|---|
| 1423.0 pips | Open the chart | |
| 820.1 pips | Open the chart | |
| 729.4 pips | Open the chart |
Frequently asked
What time of day does GBP/USD move the most?
14:00 UTC, which averages 32.5 pips of range — about 3.1× the quietest hour at 04:00 UTC (10.4 pips). Measured across 2,595 trading days, 2016–2025.
What is the average daily range of GBP/USD?
108.1 pips, with a median of 94.7 pips. The mean sits above the median because a handful of outsized days pull it up; the widest single day in the window was 2016-06-24 at 1423 pips.
Is GBP/USD more volatile in the Tokyo or the London session?
London. Tokyo averages 47.2 pips of range against London's 88.5 pips.
Which weekday does GBP/USD move the most?
Thursday, averaging 115.9 pips. The quietest is Monday at 96.3 pips. Direction is a different question: no weekday closes higher often enough to separate it from a coin flip.
Does GBP/USD show seasonality?
Across 2016–2025, November was the strongest calendar month at +1.3% on average, closing higher in 6 of 10 years. June was the weakest at -0.98%. With only 10 observations per month this is a tendency, not a tradable edge.
How these numbers were produced
Built from the Dukascopy public historical feed (ticks → M1 → H1) over 2016-01-04 to 2025-12-31. One pip is 0.0001. Weekends are excluded, as are days with fewer than 18 hourly candles — holidays, half sessions and the few hours around the weekly open. Days are bounded in UTC. Last regenerated 2026-07-26.
Source
Price data: Dukascopy Bank SA — historical data feed. Formiq does not originate these prices; it aggregates hourly candles from that feed and publishes the result. The same data drives the Formiq chart, so any figure in the tables above can be checked by opening the date and hour it refers to.