Bybit perpetual futures | UTC sessions

Session Behaviour Research Dashboard

A compact readout of how Asia, London, and New York sessions create extremes, sweep prior ranges, concentrate volume, and carry volatility into the next session.

Asia high maker 43.4%

Daily high attribution, non-overlap sessions

London/Asia range 1.071

Median session range ratio

Persistence rho 0.460

Strongest pair: Asia->London

Monday week high 31.4%

Share of weekly highs printed Monday

Key findings at a glance

1 · Asia sets the day's extremes

The Asia session creates the daily high 43% of the time and the low 38% - and when any session sets the extreme, it usually happens in that session's first hour.

Watch session opens (00, 08, 16 UTC) for day-range formation.

2 · Prior session levels get swept ~half the time

Each session takes out the previous session's high or low roughly 42-52% of the time; both sides together only 8-13%. Levels are zones to trade through, not walls.

Expect retests of the prior session's high/low - but not necessarily a full double sweep.

3 · Session ranges are near parity, not 2x

London is only ~7% wider than Asia (1.07x), NY ≈ Asia (0.99x), NY ≈ 0.90x London. The "London is twice Asia" belief comes from overlapping definitions.

Size each session with its own history, not folklore ratios.

4 · Volatility persists session to session

Today's session range predicts tomorrow's: ρ ≈ 0.45-0.47 across all handoffs, and your range-ratio idea (Asia vs its own 30-session mean → London) hits ρ ≈ 0.35.

A big session hands off to a big session - plan risk accordingly.

5 · ROC predicts size, not direction

Opening-gap z and 20-day MA z predict session/day range (ρ ≈ 0.21-0.35) but direction is a coin flip (~49%). Magnitude yes, sign no.

Use momentum for expected range sizing; get direction elsewhere.

6 · Monday defines the week

Monday prints 31.4% of weekly highs and 23.1% of weekly lows; Mon-Wed accounts for 55% of weekly highs. Early-week action dominates.

The weekly framework is usually set by Wednesday.

H1

H1: Daily Extreme Maker

Compares high and low attribution against a uniform 33.3% baseline.

In plain English

The Asia session (00-08 UTC) creates the day's high 43.4% of the time and the low 37.8% - well above the 33.3% expected if all three sessions were equal. Strikingly, when a session does set the day's extreme, it almost always happens in the very first hour of that session's open: the three tall bars sit exactly at hours 0, 8 and 16 UTC.

Takeaway: Watch the first hour of each session - that's when the day's high or low is most likely to be printed.

H1: Daily Extreme Maker

H2

H2: Adjacent Session Sweeps

Shows high, low, and double-sweep rates for each adjacent session handoff.

In plain English

A "sweep" means the next session breaks through the previous session's high or low. Asia→London sweeps London's high 47.1% of the time and low 52.2%; London→NY 41.8%/46.7%; NY→Asia 46.4%/45.6%. Both extremes being swept in one session is rarer (8-13%). Day-to-day, about 44% of highs and 48% of lows get taken out.

Takeaway: Previous session highs and lows are real battlegrounds - they get tested and broken roughly half the time, so treat them as zones, not walls.

H2: Adjacent Session Sweeps

H3

H3: Relative Session Ranges

Uses medians plus interquartile bands to avoid implying unavailable raw distributions.

In plain English

With equal 8-hour blocks, London's typical range is only ~7% larger than Asia's (median ratio 1.07), NY is nearly identical to Asia (0.99), and NY is ~10% smaller than London (0.90). The popular idea that London is 2x Asia comes from overlapping FX-style definitions - with clean non-overlapping sessions the sizes are remarkably similar.

Takeaway: Don't assume London dwarfs Asia: on equal footing, session ranges are close to parity - differences are modest, not multiples.

H3: Relative Session Ranges

H4

H4: Range Persistence

Ranks adjacent-pair Spearman correlations for prior versus next session range z-scores.

In plain English

Volatility strongly persists from one session to the next: Asia's range predicts London's with ρ=0.47, London→NY 0.46, NY→next Asia 0.45 (all highly significant). Your original idea also holds - today's Asia range vs its own 30-session average predicts tomorrow's London range with ρ≈0.35. A big session tends to be followed by another big session.

Takeaway: Size your risk for the next session off the current session's range: unusually large sessions usually hand off to unusually large ones.

H4: Range Persistence

H5

H5: Magnitude Predictors

Summarizes the predictive-magnitude correlations present in the results file.

In plain English

Rate-of-change signals predict how far price will move, not which way. A session's opening gap (z-scored) correlates ρ≈0.21 with its own range; today's close vs the 20-day MA correlates ρ≈0.35 with tomorrow's range. Direction prediction sits at ~49% - a coin flip. ROC tells you the size of the expected move, nothing about its sign.

Takeaway: Use ROC/momentum signals to size expected range for the session or day ahead - then rely on other tools for direction, because ROC has none.

H5: Magnitude Predictors

H6

H6: Weekday Extremes

Shows whether weekly highs and lows concentrate early or late in the UTC week.

In plain English

Monday prints the week's high 31.4% of the time (vs 14.3% expected) and the week's low 23.1%. The first three days (Mon-Wed) account for 55.1% of weekly highs and 48.8% of weekly lows. The weekend still matters - Sat/Sun combined set 25.9% of highs and 26.6% of lows - but early week action dominates.

Takeaway: The week's directional framework is usually decided by Wednesday - Monday's move in particular often defines the week.

H6: Weekday Extremes

H8

H8: Volume Share

Compares median and mean daily-volume share across the three sessions.

In plain English

London is the volume leader: median 36.9% of each day's notional trades during its 8 hours (mean 37.8%), versus Asia 29.3% and NY 29.2%. Volume also predicts range: session volume z-score vs next session range z ρ≈0.43 (SIG***) - high-volume sessions beget wide next sessions, mirroring the H4 persistence finding.

Takeaway: London carries the most flow - when volume spikes in any session, expect an outsized range in the next one.

H8: Volume Share

H9

H9: Open Location

Pairs open-location direction rates with the median range-z response.

In plain English

Opening above the prior day's high, inside it, or below the prior low gives almost no directional edge: continuation rates are 47.9% / 48.7% / 49.3% - effectively coin flips. But open location does matter for range: opens outside the prior day's range (above high / below low) produce larger-than-normal days (median range z near 0 vs -0.38 inside), consistent with gap-extension behavior.

Takeaway: Don't chase gaps for direction - but a gap open signals a wider-than-normal day, so adjust expectations (and stops) accordingly.

H9: Open Location

Reading Notes

Charts use aggregate statistics from the committed result JSON. No synthetic observations are drawn. Session definitions are computed in the analysis pipeline; the dashboard presents the current result file without re-estimating the underlying study.