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GBPJPY · Measured

GBP/JPY Average Daily Range

GBP/JPY moves an average of 139.3 pips per day, with a median of 119.8. Half of all days fall between 81.4 and 172.9. The figures below come from 1,939,025 one-minute candles spanning 2021-01-03 to 2026-04-30 — not from a broker's marketing page.
139.3average day (pips)
119.8median day
30695th percentile
842.6widest day on record
How this was measured. Computed from 1,939,025 one-minute GBPJPY candles covering 2021-01-03 to 2026-04-30 — 1,626 trading days. Range means high minus low over the stated period, grouped by real clock time in UTC rather than by bar count, so an hour is an hour even across a weekend. Figures are in pips. The underlying numbers are published as JSON at https://fxabsolute.com/stats/GBPJPY.json.

How much does GBP/JPY actually move in a day?

The average is 139.3 pips, but an average alone is misleading for position sizing because the distribution is skewed — a handful of violent days pull it upward. The median day is 119.8 pips, and the middle half of all days falls between 81.4 and 172.9. One day in twenty exceeds 306.

The widest single day in the sample was 842.6 pips; the quietest was 16.7. If a stop is sized off the average rather than the quartiles, roughly a quarter of days will move less than it expects and a quarter considerably more.

Which hours move, and which do not

GBP/JPY concentrates its movement into a narrow window. The busiest hour is 14:00–15:00 UTC at 44.5 pips — the London/New York overlap — and the quietest is 20:00–21:00 UTC at 18.6. That is a 2.4× difference between the loudest and quietest hour of the same instrument.

Hour (UTC)SessionAvg rangeMedianClosed up
00:00–01:00 UTCAsian33.729.250.6%
01:00–02:00 UTCAsian30.425.849.1%
02:00–03:00 UTCAsian24.720.554.5%
03:00–04:00 UTCAsian22.517.749.4%
04:00–05:00 UTCAsian21.717.451.2%
05:00–06:00 UTCAsian23.819.853.3%
06:00–07:00 UTCAsian32.72753.5%
07:00–08:00 UTCLondon40.834.954.1%
08:00–09:00 UTCLondon40.335.152.1%
09:00–10:00 UTCLondon35.229.854.3%
10:00–11:00 UTCLondon31.527.450.4%
11:00–12:00 UTCLondon32.727.349.6%
12:00–13:00 UTCLondon/New York overlap38.532.152.5%
13:00–14:00 UTCLondon/New York overlap40.835.251.8%
14:00–15:00 UTCLondon/New York overlap44.538.551.2%
15:00–16:00 UTCLondon/New York overlap38.432.853.1%
16:00–17:00 UTCNew York29.224.952.2%
17:00–18:00 UTCNew York25.221.552.2%
18:00–19:00 UTCNew York2318.652.4%
19:00–20:00 UTCNew York20.616.753.9%
20:00–21:00 UTCNew York18.614.944.5%
21:00–22:00 UTCLate New York / Asian open21.218.559.1%
22:00–23:00 UTCLate New York / Asian open2318.865.2%
23:00–00:00 UTCLate New York / Asian open2419.457.4%

The "closed up" column is a sanity check as much as anything: across a large sample most hours sit near 50%, and any hour drifting far from it is worth a second look rather than a strategy.

Does the day of the week matter?

Among full trading days, Thursday is the widest at 165.9 pips; Monday is the narrowest at 146.8. The spread between them is 19.1 pips.

DayAvg daily rangeMinutes quotedDays sampled
Sunday (partial session)55.5149268
Monday146.81,425272
Tuesday154.51,434275
Wednesday154.41,426268
Thursday165.91,426272
Friday157.31,282271

Sunday is a partial session — the week opens late, so the file holds about 149 minutes for it against roughly 1,434 for a full weekday. Its range is not comparable to the others and it is excluded from the comparison above.

The gap nobody backtests

Between one session's close and the next session's open, GBP/JPY gaps a median of 0.2 pips, but the 95th percentile is 32.94 and the largest in the sample was 314.7. Across a weekend the 95th percentile is 64.91. A stop sitting inside that distance did not get filled where the backtest says it did.

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Questions

What is the average daily range of GBPJPY?

139.3 pips, measured across 1,939,025 one-minute candles from 2021-01-03 to 2026-04-30. The median day is 119.8 pips, which is the more useful number for sizing because the average is pulled up by outliers.

What is the most volatile hour for GBPJPY?

14:00–15:00 UTC, averaging 44.5 pips — the London/New York overlap. The quietest is 20:00–21:00 UTC at 18.6 pips.

How wide can GBPJPY move on an extreme day?

One day in twenty exceeds 306 pips. The widest day in this sample reached 842.6 pips.

Where does this data come from?

From the same historical one-minute candles the FXAbsolute simulator replays — 1,939,025 bars covering 2021-01-03 to 2026-04-30. The computed figures are published as JSON at https://fxabsolute.com/stats/GBPJPY.json so they can be checked.