USD/JPY volatility: average range by hour and session
US Dollar / Japanese Yen · 2016–2025 · 2,595 trading days
USD/JPY moves 100.5 pips in an average day. The busiest hour is 14:00 UTC at 27.8 pips, followed by 13:00 UTC at 27.3. London is the busiest session, covering 71% of the daily range on its own.
What sets USD/JPY apart
At 100.5 pips a day USD/JPY is not especially wide — about two-thirds of GBP/JPY's 153.9. What sets it apart is how much that width changes. The yearly average ran from 57.5 pips in 2019 to 138.4 pips in 2024, a 2.41× swing; the next most changeable pair, GBP/JPY, managed 2.17×. 2025 came in at 133.4 pips.
The mean of 100.5 pips is 1.21× the median of 83.3 — a wider gap than GBP/JPY at 1.17×. A handful of days carry the average. The three widest were December 20, 2022 (690.8 pips); June 24, 2016 (671.2 pips); November 10, 2022 (638.4 pips). Half of all days finish inside 83.3 pips.
The three busiest hours, 12:00, 13:00 and 14:00 UTC, fall in the London–New York overlap, as they do for every dollar pair. What sets USD/JPY apart is 00:00 UTC, its fourth-busiest hour at 24.4 pips; only USD/JPY and AUD/JPY have that hour among their four busiest. It holds the Tokyo fixing at 09:55 JST and is the only peak that forms before Europe arrives.
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 | 24.4 | 2,595 | |
| 01:00 | 21.9 | 2,595 | |
| 02:00 | 17.3 | 2,595 | |
| 03:00 | 15.4 | 2,595 | |
| 04:00 | 14.7 | 2,595 | |
| 05:00 | 15.4 | 2,595 | |
| 06:00 | 19.2 | 2,595 | |
| 07:00 | 22.2 | 2,595 | |
| 08:00 | 20.9 | 2,595 | |
| 09:00 | 17.8 | 2,595 | |
| 10:00 | 15.8 | 2,595 | |
| 11:00 | 16.5 | 2,595 | |
| 12:00 | 25.3 | 2,595 | |
| 13:00 | 27.3 | 2,595 | |
| 14:00 | 27.8 | 2,595 | |
| 15:00 | 24.0 | 2,595 | |
| 16:00 | 18.2 | 2,595 | |
| 17:00 | 16.1 | 2,595 | |
| 18:00 | 16.2 | 2,595 | |
| 19:00 | 14.2 | 2,595 | |
| 20:00 | 12.1 | 2,595 | |
| 21:00 | 10.7 | 2,255 | |
| 22:00 | 12.2 | 2,070 | |
| 23:00 | 15.4 | 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 | 56.1 | |
| London | 07:00–16:00 | 71.5 | |
| New York | 12:00–21:00 | 67.3 |
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 | 88.4 | 518 | |
| Tuesday | 97.9 | 520 | |
| Wednesday | 106.4 | 518 | |
| Thursday | 105.6 | 520 | |
| Friday | 104.0 | 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 | -0.37% | 3/10 | 105.3 | |
| Feb | -0.19% | 5/10 | 97.4 | |
| Mar | +0.51% | 4/10 | 109.2 | |
| Apr | +0.49% | 6/10 | 100.8 | |
| May | +0.24% | 5/10 | 94.7 | |
| Jun | +0.94% | 8/10 | 98.4 | |
| Jul | -0.99% | 3/10 | 105.6 | |
| Aug | 0% | 5/10 | 105.7 | |
| Sep | +1.04% | 7/10 | 97.0 | |
| Oct | +1.85% | 7/10 | 88.0 | |
| Nov | -0.07% | 4/10 | 104.3 | |
| Dec | -0.56% | 5/10 | 98.1 |
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 | 120.9 | 260 | |
| 2017 | 89.1 | 259 | |
| 2018 | 70.4 | 259 | |
| 2019 | 57.5 | 259 | |
| 2020 | 71.4 | 260 | |
| 2021 | 57.5 | 260 | |
| 2022 | 136.2 | 260 | |
| 2023 | 129.8 | 259 | |
| 2024 | 138.4 | 260 | |
| 2025 | 133.4 | 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 | |
|---|---|---|
| 690.8 pips | Open the chart | |
| 671.2 pips | Open the chart | |
| 638.4 pips | Open the chart |
Frequently asked questions
What time of day does USD/JPY move the most?
14:00 UTC, which averages 27.8 pips of range — about 2.6× the quietest hour at 21:00 UTC (10.7 pips). Measured across 2,595 trading days, 2016–2025.
What is the average daily range of USD/JPY?
100.5 pips, with a median of 83.3 pips. The mean sits above the median because a handful of outsized days pull it up; the widest single day in the window was December 20, 2022 at 690.8 pips.
Is USD/JPY more volatile in the Tokyo or the London session?
London. Tokyo averages 56.1 pips of range against London's 71.5 pips.
Which weekday does USD/JPY move the most?
Wednesday, averaging 106.4 pips. The quietest is Monday at 88.4 pips. Direction is a different question: no weekday closes higher often enough to separate it from a coin flip.
Does USD/JPY show seasonality?
Across 2016–2025, October was the strongest calendar month at +1.85% on average, closing higher in 7 of 10 years. July was the weakest at -0.99%. With only 10 observations per month this is a tendency, not a tradable edge.