USD/CAD volatility: average range by hour and session
US Dollar / Canadian Dollar (Loonie) · 2016–2025 · 2,595 trading days
USD/CAD moves 86.3 pips in an average day. The busiest hour is 14:00 UTC at 30.3 pips, followed by 13:00 UTC at 27.5. New York is the busiest session, covering 81% of the daily range on its own.
What sets USD/CAD apart
At 86.3 pips a day this sits closest to AUD/JPY's 90.6. The resemblance ends there: its widest day, March 18, 2020, reached 484.6 pips — only 5.6× the average, against 8.4× for AUD/JPY, and second only to EUR/USD for a well-behaved tail. Large days happen; days of a different order do not.
Its intraday character is the genuinely unusual part. This is the only pair here where New York (69.6 pips) beats London (67.8). Pairing two North American currencies makes that unsurprising in principle, but London wins for every other pair here without exception, which makes the reversal a fair summary of what this pair is.
The mirror image is Tokyo at 41.3% of the daily range — below even London-driven EUR/USD at 44.4%. Very little that moves this pair happens during the Asian session.
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. Hours are UTC all year; UTC has no daylight saving, so they do not shift in summer.
| Hour (UTC) | Avg range | Candles | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 00:00 | 13.0 | 2,595 | |
| 01:00 | 13.9 | 2,595 | |
| 02:00 | 11.5 | 2,595 | |
| 03:00 | 9.4 | 2,595 | |
| 04:00 | 8.2 | 2,595 | |
| 05:00 | 9.9 | 2,595 | |
| 06:00 | 13.8 | 2,595 | |
| 07:00 | 17.4 | 2,595 | |
| 08:00 | 17.5 | 2,595 | |
| 09:00 | 15.5 | 2,595 | |
| 10:00 | 14.8 | 2,595 | |
| 11:00 | 16.3 | 2,595 | |
| 12:00 | 24.2 | 2,595 | |
| 13:00 | 27.5 | 2,595 | |
| 14:00 | 30.3 | 2,595 | |
| 15:00 | 26.8 | 2,595 | |
| 16:00 | 20.3 | 2,595 | |
| 17:00 | 17.7 | 2,595 | |
| 18:00 | 17.7 | 2,595 | |
| 19:00 | 15.9 | 2,595 | |
| 20:00 | 13.9 | 2,595 | |
| 21:00 | 11.6 | 2,255 | |
| 22:00 | 9.2 | 2,071 | |
| 23:00 | 8.8 | 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 (UTC) | Avg range | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tokyo | 00:00–08:00 | 35.6 | |
| London | 07:00–16:00 | 67.8 | |
| New York | 12:00–21:00 | 69.6 |
Which weekday moves most
Range only. How often each weekday closed higher is not shown, because for every pair here it cannot be told apart from a coin flip: of the 50 pair-and-weekday combinations, 3 stand out, and about 2.5 would be expected to by chance alone.
| Weekday | Avg range | Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | 76.9 | 518 | |
| Tuesday | 85.9 | 520 | |
| Wednesday | 92.8 | 518 | |
| Thursday | 86.1 | 520 | |
| Friday | 89.9 | 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 | -0.42% | 6/10 | 96.5 | |
| Feb | +0.58% | 6/10 | 88.4 | |
| Mar | -0.1% | 4/10 | 103.5 | |
| Apr | -0.32% | 5/10 | 93.4 | |
| May | -0.13% | 4/10 | 86.5 | |
| Jun | -0.61% | 4/10 | 85.5 | |
| Jul | -0.19% | 5/10 | 83.0 | |
| Aug | +0.16% | 6/10 | 77.4 | |
| Sep | +0.83% | 7/10 | 85.5 | |
| Oct | +0.99% | 7/10 | 78.4 | |
| Nov | -0.13% | 6/10 | 79.8 | |
| Dec | -0.53% | 4/10 | 78.2 |
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
A ten-year average hides how much conditions changed within those ten years. Set your position size or stop from the average at the top of this page without checking which of these years today's market resembles, and a stop that should have had room to spare may not.
| Year | Avg range | Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 119.1 | 260 | |
| 2017 | 89.0 | 259 | |
| 2018 | 86.8 | 259 | |
| 2019 | 64.2 | 259 | |
| 2020 | 97.4 | 260 | |
| 2021 | 84.3 | 260 | |
| 2022 | 104.0 | 260 | |
| 2023 | 79.8 | 259 | |
| 2024 | 63.7 | 260 | |
| 2025 | 74.4 | 259 |
The three widest 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 (UTC) | Range that day | |
|---|---|---|
| 484.6 pips | Open the chart | |
| 406.8 pips | Open the chart | |
| 380.3 pips | Open the chart |
Frequently asked questions
What time of day does USD/CAD move the most?
14:00 UTC, which averages 30.3 pips of range — about 3.7× the quietest hour at 04:00 UTC (8.2 pips). Measured across 2,595 trading days, 2016–2025.
What is the average daily range of USD/CAD?
86.3 pips, with a median of 76.3 pips. The mean sits above the median because a handful of outsized days pull it up; the widest single day in the window was March 18, 2020 at 484.6 pips.
Is USD/CAD more volatile in the Tokyo or the London session?
London. Tokyo averages 35.6 pips of range against London's 67.8 pips, though the busiest of the three sessions is New York at 69.6 pips.
Which weekday does USD/CAD move the most?
Wednesday, averaging 92.8 pips. The quietest is Monday at 76.9 pips. Direction is a different question: no weekday closes higher often enough to separate it from a coin flip.
Does USD/CAD show seasonality?
Across 2016–2025, October was the strongest calendar month at +0.99% on average, closing higher in 7 of 10 years. June was the weakest at -0.61%. With only 10 observations per month this is a tendency, not a tradable edge.