WHEN a move happens matters as much as the move itself. The London–New York overlap carries roughly half of all daily FX volume, so moves made there involve real participation — while the late-New-York lull is so thin that moves there are usually noise. Prices drifting into the 4pm London fix, especially at month-end, tend to reflect scheduled rebalancing flows rather than fresh opinion.

When price breaks a level everyone was watching and then snaps back, the traders who chased the break are trapped on the wrong side. That is why several classic trading books rate failed breakouts as more informative than successful ones. Each event starts unconfirmed and is later graded confirmed or failed — forward only, never rewritten with hindsight.

This compares the current run with this pair’s own completed moves — like asking how old a trend is relative to its life expectancy, a veteran trader’s insurance-actuary analogy. Old, stretched moves have historically had less room left, and chasing them is the most common beginner mistake. An old move is a caution note about what may be left, not a prediction that it ends here.

Some markets tend to move first: gold and copper for the Australian dollar, oil for the Canadian dollar, US yields for the yen pairs. When a driver moves hard and this pair has not followed, that gap is worth attention — though it can close in either direction. Legs whose live correlation has broken are muted rather than pretended, because these relationships come and go.