USD/JPY Average Daily Range
https://fxabsolute.com/stats/USDJPY.json.
How much does USD/JPY actually move in a day?
The average is 105.9 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 89.1 pips, and the middle half of all days falls between 52.9 and 136. One day in twenty exceeds 240.6.
The widest single day in the sample was 690.6 pips; the quietest was 6.9. 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
USD/JPY concentrates its movement into a narrow window. The busiest hour is 13:00–14:00 UTC at 33.6 pips — the London/New York overlap — and the quietest is 21:00–22:00 UTC at 11.9. That is a 2.8× difference between the loudest and quietest hour of the same instrument.
| Hour (UTC) | Session | Avg range | Median | Closed up |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:00–01:00 UTC | Asian | 28.8 | 25.3 | 50.9% |
| 01:00–02:00 UTC | Asian | 25.2 | 21.5 | 48.3% |
| 02:00–03:00 UTC | Asian | 20.2 | 16.6 | 52.8% |
| 03:00–04:00 UTC | Asian | 18.1 | 14.1 | 49.5% |
| 04:00–05:00 UTC | Asian | 17.3 | 14.1 | 53.9% |
| 05:00–06:00 UTC | Asian | 18.5 | 15.6 | 51.5% |
| 06:00–07:00 UTC | Asian | 23.4 | 19.9 | 52.2% |
| 07:00–08:00 UTC | London | 27.2 | 22.9 | 52.8% |
| 08:00–09:00 UTC | London | 25.7 | 21.3 | 50.3% |
| 09:00–10:00 UTC | London | 21.6 | 18.1 | 53.9% |
| 10:00–11:00 UTC | London | 18.9 | 16.2 | 50.3% |
| 11:00–12:00 UTC | London | 19.9 | 17.1 | 53% |
| 12:00–13:00 UTC | London/New York overlap | 31.4 | 24.6 | 52.3% |
| 13:00–14:00 UTC | London/New York overlap | 33.6 | 27.1 | 49.6% |
| 14:00–15:00 UTC | London/New York overlap | 33.2 | 27.9 | 50.1% |
| 15:00–16:00 UTC | London/New York overlap | 28 | 22.9 | 53.5% |
| 16:00–17:00 UTC | New York | 20.2 | 17.1 | 52.6% |
| 17:00–18:00 UTC | New York | 17.9 | 14.6 | 53.1% |
| 18:00–19:00 UTC | New York | 17.6 | 13.2 | 52.3% |
| 19:00–20:00 UTC | New York | 15.1 | 11.6 | 51.3% |
| 20:00–21:00 UTC | New York | 13.2 | 10.2 | 45.3% |
| 21:00–22:00 UTC | Late New York / Asian open | 11.9 | 9.9 | 46% |
| 22:00–23:00 UTC | Late New York / Asian open | 15.4 | 11.6 | 57.9% |
| 23:00–00:00 UTC | Late New York / Asian open | 18.9 | 15.3 | 54.6% |
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, Wednesday is the widest at 125.6 pips; Monday is the narrowest at 104.3. The spread between them is 21.3 pips.
| Day | Avg daily range | Minutes quoted | Days sampled |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunday (partial session) | 37.1 | 151 | 262 |
| Monday | 104.3 | 1,423 | 267 |
| Tuesday | 117.1 | 1,433 | 263 |
| Wednesday | 125.6 | 1,425 | 266 |
| Thursday | 125.1 | 1,425 | 268 |
| Friday | 125.2 | 1,280 | 264 |
Sunday is a partial session — the week opens late, so the file holds about 151 minutes for it against roughly 1,433 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, USD/JPY gaps a median of 0.1 pips, but the 95th percentile is 20.6 and the largest in the sample was 316.5. Across a weekend the 95th percentile is 36.66. 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 USDJPY?
105.9 pips, measured across 1,894,950 one-minute candles from 2021-01-03 to 2026-04-30. The median day is 89.1 pips, which is the more useful number for sizing because the average is pulled up by outliers.
What is the most volatile hour for USDJPY?
13:00–14:00 UTC, averaging 33.6 pips — the London/New York overlap. The quietest is 21:00–22:00 UTC at 11.9 pips.
How wide can USDJPY move on an extreme day?
One day in twenty exceeds 240.6 pips. The widest day in this sample reached 690.6 pips.
Where does this data come from?
From the same historical one-minute candles the FXAbsolute simulator replays — 1,894,950 bars covering 2021-01-03 to 2026-04-30. The computed figures are published as JSON at https://fxabsolute.com/stats/USDJPY.json so they can be checked.