Forex Trading Hours | Forex Market Hours
The Forex market is open 24 hours a day in different parts of the world, from 5 p.m. EST on Sunday until 4 p.m. EST on Friday. The ability of the Forex to trade over a 24-hour period is due in part to different international time zones.
Before looking at the best times to trade, we must look at what a 24-hour
day in the Forex world looks like.
The Forex market can be broken up into four major trading
sessions: the
Summer (approx. April - October)
|
Time Zone |
EDT |
GMT |
|
|
6:00 PM |
10:00 PM |
|
|
7:00 PM |
11:00 PM |
|
|
3:00 AM |
7:00 AM |
|
|
8:00 AM |
12:00 PM |
Winter (approx. October - April)
|
Time Zone |
EST |
GMT |
|
|
4:00 PM |
9:00 PM |
|
|
6:00 PM |
11:00 PM |
|
|
3:00 AM |
8:00 AM |
|
|
8:00 AM |
1:00 PM |
Actual open and close times are based on local business hours. This
varies during the months of October and April as some countries shift
to/from daylight savings time (DST). The day within each month that a
country may shift to/from DST also varies.
You can see that in between each session, there is a period of time where two sessions are open at the same time. During the summer, from 3:00-4:00 am EDT, the Tokyo session and London session overlap, and during both summer and winter from 8:00 am-12:00 pm ET, the London session and the New York session overlap.
Naturally, these are the busiest times during the trading day because there is more volume when two markets are open at the same time. This makes sense because during those times, all the market participants are wheel in' and deal-in', which means that more money is transferring hands.
Now, you're probably looking at the Sydney open and thinking why it shifts two hours. You'd think that Sydney's open would only move one hour when the U.S. adjusts for standard time, but remember that when the U.S. shifts one hour back, Sydney actually moves forward by one hour (seasons are opposite in Australia). You should always remember this if you ever plan to trade during that time period.
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