Anyone think the Euro and London Opens Choppy?

A lot of the time I see choppiness in the Euro and London opens for about one to two hours. It seems to trend a little more after 3 am or so. If you noticed this choppiness why do you think it is?
Here are my thoughts
Its the battle btwn the bulls and bears fighting for position.
Is positioning by traders before significant news releases later on in the sessions.
Banks use this time to buy and sell currency for nonspeculative transactions.

My trending strategy usually gets whipped during 1-2:30 am central time. And if I know that there will be choppiness I'll just not trade at those times.

You can find a good explanation of what happen in the London session here:

Thanks I will be reading it right away.

I think you answered your own question. Like you said, it seems to trend more after London opens. There is, indeed, a lot of indecision between the Europe open and the London open, so why not just wait for the London open to use your trending strategy?

The funny thing is, I never really thought the whip was concentrated during the London and Euro opens. Actually, I thought I just got whipped across all timeframes until I started looking over my old trades during off trading times. This was the only way I saw the pattern that trades got whipped mainly in the first 2-3 hours of trading(not always but a lot of the time). So this really is a new revelation for me.
Observing and trading around this is only part of solving my problem. Understanding why this happens is where I fall short. This knowledge I am sure will help me time the market better. A lot of strategies on this board and everywhere else teach the technicals but do not say much in regards to time other than: "the advantage of the forex market is that it is traded 24 hours a day". To a novice like me that sounds like the forex market is not as sensitive to timeframes as much as other markets. This I am learning is far from the truth and in fact it is even more time sensitive than the stock market. If anything a 24 hour market complicates things b/c of all the different sessions that occur global effect the market in different ways.

Anyways, if anyone on this board has any input do hesitate to contribute to this topic.

a lot will depend on the current (price level) scenario thn5625.....given the many varied participants in the FX marketplace, & their specific agenda's - price will often get shunted according to the flow from the larger cap players.......

much of the volume is dictated by London....approx 60% of NY Bank/Wholesale activity transacts during the european a.m shift..... + you have the 'sweeping' overlap from Tokyo taking place, where large corporates are looking to step up into the London flow.......little wonder price gets blown around inside this tunnel (usually up to 9.00-9.30am GMT)........

consider also, much of the retail money is "warehoused" or managed internally via the broker firms desks - in other words, the vast majority is 'below normal market size' & retail shops will only clear (into the wholesale market) that which they need to hedge to offset their order book exposure?......most of the genuine firms (retail shops) can see the "proper" activity from Hedge/CTA etc participants, or at the very least, have contacts to assess the % shift at varying levels......this offers them directional bias at certain levels on the technical stage.......

this is where the misconception of stop-gunning & the broker "trading against you" generally surfaces LOL.....sure, they run stops - as does the wholesale market! wouldn't you, if you knew where the majority of order protection was stacked??.......and Cable is a peach of an instrument to engage that particular ploy, specially given it's attractive magnetism from the retail community & the fact the majority run tight stops on micro timeframes........

so, there's a whole bag of agenda's at play during the London Open which impacts the initial day's kick-off........long as you stay away from the stampede long enough to allow it to 'show it's hand'.....you should be ok majority of the time

Spend your time "trading around your problems". It is much better invested than trying to "understand" why something happens.