Forex closed hours

Just Because Trading is Closed, It Doesn’t Mean You Have to Be.

Price action and Macro.

One of the greatest aspects of the FX Market is that it is a true 24 hour a day market. As business is closing at 5:00 PM Eastern Time in New York during the business week, Sydney is preparing to open for the day; and then Tokyo; and then London; followed by the US. As a speculator in the FX Market, I have access to all of these market centers through my trading platform.

Traders wishing to speculate at all hours of the night can certainly do so. This allows traders to arrange their schedules and working hours around the commitments in their lives; whether that be taking care of children or working at a ‘day job.’ For traders like me that think about prices and charts all day, this can become a comfort blanket.

Can’t get to sleep?

That’s ok; the trading platform has numerous currency pairs with prices moving around-the-clock. Sleep can wait.

You have plans with a friend, and they cancel?

Who cares? Charts can furnish a much more productive use of time, even if it’s just practicing on the demo.

The benefit of this relationship can also be a challenge. After getting acclimated to constant opportunity; of continuous access to the largest market in the world, those periods in which I cannot trade become especially torturous. And on most retail FX platforms, that time is the weekend.

But just because trading is closed – it doesn’t mean you have to be. This is where practice can come into play. The weekends are opportunity; an opportunity to prepare for, and strategize around the week ahead.

Below is a list of potential activities for the Weekend Warrior; the trader that doesn’t want to take weekends off.

This is one of the more common ways to spend trading time over weekends when most FX brokers are closed for trading. Many education services are open while trading may be closed, and this allows traders to access materials for weekend study.

I encourage you to revisit these materials. Trading education can work much like education in general, in which the more experience and knowledge that we have gained can drastically enhance the manner in which we perceive the material.

I recently re-read Moby Dick by Herman Melville, and was able to understand the book on an entirely different level than when I had read it in 7 th grade.

When I read the book in 7 th grade, it was a story about a man and a whale. After re-reading as an adult, I can understand the layers of symbolism intended by Herman Melville. The book is now entirely different after I was able to incorporate these elements and appreciate the work for the masterpiece that it really is.

This is my personal favorite activity to fill time on the weekends. The process of Manual Back-Testing involves ‘simulating,’ a market environment of past, historical prices.

This can function as an excellent way of testing a strategy before actually employing it in live conditions. The process of Manual Back-Testing involves literally scrolling to an earlier date and time on the chart (to a period in which you are unfamiliar with price action), ‘locking the view,’ and scrolling forward one candle at a time to ‘simulate,’ price action.

The Trading Station 2 platform is built with this capability in place, by default.

Now, an important note is in order: Just because a strategy performed in a particular manner in the past, it doesn’t mean that it will perform in that way in the future. The goal of Manually Back-Testing is to simulate the variability that happens when we trade live, the fact that nobody knows what the next tick is.

If you would like more information on Manual Back-Testing, the article I had authored ‘Manual Back-Testing; Practicing the Art of Trading,’ should help with some additional information.

Strategizing for the Week Ahead.

One of the benefits of trading being closed is the fact that it allows us, as traders, to take a step back to evaluate the week that has just passed. This can be a phenomenal time to account for the week’s trading activities and grade performance.

Many traders keeping and following a ‘Trading Plan,’ may use this time to review, edit, and modify their plans based on recent observations. If you don’t yet have a Trading Plan, the weekend can be a great time to build one. The article linked below can certainly help in that process:

For traders that are already comfortable with their plan, they can look to the week ahead in an effort to best focus their approaches given the expected economic docket. The DailyFX Economic Calendar allows for traders to organize events based on release date, importance, and currency pair. Below is an example of a filtered Economic Calendar. In this particular case, I am only looking at European, Japanese, and American economic releases deemed of ‘high importance.’

The filter button, located to the top right of the calendar, includes the areas with which I can specify what data I want to see.

By analyzing the scheduled slate of announcements, I can begin building in expectations for which strategies might be operative given the expected news. The economic calendar is another service that is available around-the-clock, 365 days a year whether trading is open or not.

You are more than welcome to navigate there from the link below to begin strategizing for the week ahead.

--- Written by James B. Stanley.

To contact James Stanley, please InstructorDailyFX. You can follow James on Twitter JStanleyFX.

To join James Stanley’s distribution list, please click here.

DailyFX provides forex news and technical analysis on the trends that influence the global currency markets.

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Forex Economic Calendar.

Past performance is no indication of future results.

DailyFX is the news and education website of IG Group.

Forex Market Hours.

DEFINITION of 'Forex Market Hours'

The term forex hours refers to the time in which forex market participants can buy, sell, exchange and speculate on currencies. The forex market is open 24 hours a day, five days a week. International currency markets are made up of banks, commercial companies, central banks, investment management firms, hedge funds, and retail forex brokers and investors around the world. Because this market operates in multiple time zones, it can be accessed at almost any time.

BREAKING DOWN 'Forex Market Hours'

The international currency market isn't dominated by a single market exchange but involves a global network of exchanges and brokers around the world. Forex trading hours are based on when trading is open in each participating country. While the timezones overlap, the generally accepted timezone for each region are as follows:

New York 8am to 5pm EST.

Tokyo 7pm to 4am EST.

Sydney 5pm to 2am EST.

London 3am to 12 noon EST.

The two busiest time zones are London and New York, and the period when these two trading sessions overlap (London afternoon and New York morning) is the busiest period in the $5 trillion a day market. It is during this period where the Reuters/WMR benchmark spot foreign exchange rate is determined. The rate, which is set at 4pm London time is used for daily valuation and pricing for many money managers and pension funds.

While the forex market is a 24-hour market, some currencies, namely emerging markets, are not traded 24 hours a day.

How does the foreign-exchange market trade 24 hours a day?

The forex market is the largest financial market in the world, trading around $1.5 trillion each day. Trading in the forex is not done at one central location but is conducted between participants through electronic communication networks (ECNs) and phone networks in various markets around the world.

The market is open 24 hours a day from 5pm EST on Sunday until 4pm EST Friday. The reason that the markets are open 24 hours a day is that currencies are in high demand. The international scope of currency trading means that there are always traders somewhere who are making and meeting demands for a particular currency.

[Many day traders are focused on equity markets, but the foreign exchange market has become increasingly attractive due to its leverage, volatility, and 24/6 access. If you're interested in day trading in the forex market, Investopedia's Become a Day Trader course provides an excellent introduction to day trading to help you get started on the right foot.]

Currency is also needed around the world for international trade, as well as by central banks and global businesses. Central banks have relied on foreign-exchange markets since 1971 - when fixed-currency markets ceased to exist because the gold standard was dropped. Since that time, most international currencies have been "floated", rather than pegged to the value of gold.

At each second of every day, countries' economies are growing and shrinking because of economic and political instability and infinite other perpetual changes. Central banks seek to stabilize their country's currency by trading it on the open market and keeping a relative value compared to other world currencies. Businesses that operate in many countries seek to mitigate the risks of doing business in foreign markets and hedge currency risk.

To do this, they enter into currency swaps, giving them the right, but not necessarily the obligation to buy a set amount of a foreign currency for a set price in another currency at a date in the future. By doing this, they are limiting their exposure to large fluctuations in currency valuations. Due to the importance of currencies on the international stage there needs to be round-the-clock trading at all times. Domestic stock, bond and commodity exchanges are not as relevant, or in need, on the international stage and are not required to trade beyond the standard business day in the issuer's home country. Due to the focus on the domestic market, demand for trade in these markets is not high enough to justify opening 24 hours a day, as few shares would be traded at 3am, for example.

The ability of the forex to trade over a 24-hour period is due in part to different time zones and the fact it is comprised of a network of computers, rather than any one physical exchange that closes at a particular time. When you hear that the U. S. dollar closed at a certain rate, it simply means that that was the rate at market close in New York. But it continues to be traded around the world long after New York's close, unlike securities.

The forex market can be split into three main regions: Australasia, Europe and North America. Within each of these main areas there are several major financial centers. For example, Europe is comprised of major centers like London, Paris, Frankfurt and Zurich. Banks, institutions and dealers all conduct forex trading for themselves and their clients in each of these markets.

Each day of forex trading starts with the opening of the Australasia area, followed by Europe and then North America. As one region's markets close another opens, or has already opened, and continues to trade in the forex market. Often these markets will overlap for a couple hours providing some of the most active forex trading. So if a forex trader in Australia wakes up at 3am and decides to trade currency, they will be unable to do so through forex dealers located in Australasia but they can make as many trades as they want through European or North American dealers. With all of this action happening across borders with little attention to time and space, the sum is that there is no point during the trading week that a participant in the forex market can't potentially make a currency trade.

Forex Market Hours.

Use the Forex Market Time Converter , below, to view the major market open and close times in your own local time zone.

About The Forex Time Zone Converter.

The foreign exchange ("forex" or "FX") currency market is not traded on a regulated exchange like stocks and commodities. Rather, the market consists of a network of financial institutions and retail trading brokers which each have their own individual hours of operation. Since most participants trade between the hours of 8:00 a. m. and 4:00 p. m. in their local time zone, these times are used as the market open and close times, respectively.

Time and date: 04:33 AM 22-December-2017 GMT.

Click on a time zone for Daylight Saving Time (DST) transition dates and times.

The Forex Market Hours Converter assumes local "wall clock" trading hours of 8:00 AM - 4:00 PM in each Forex market. Holidays not included. Not intended for use as an accurate time source. If you need the precise time, see time. gov. Please send questions, comments, or suggestions to webmastertimezoneconverter.

How to use the Forex Market Time Converter.

The forex market is available for trading 24 hours a day, five and one-half days per week. The Forex Market Time Converter displays "Open" or "Closed" in the Status column to indicate the current state of each global Market Center. However, just because you can trade the market any time of the day or night doesn't necessarily mean that you should . Most successful day traders understand that more trades are successful if conducted when market activity is high and that it is best to avoid times when trading is light.

Here are some tips for using the Forex Market Time Converter:

Concentrate your trading activity during the trading hours for the three largest Market Centers: London, New_York, and Tokyo. Most market activity will occur when one of these three markets open. Some of the most active market times will occur when two or more Market Centers are open at the same time. The Forex Market Time Converter will clearly indicate when two or more markets are open by displaying multiple green "Open" indicators in the Status column.