Forex Trading Hours: When are the Best Times to Trade?

Forex is a 24 hour market as you probably know, and forex trading hours are pretty much constant from Monday morning (Sunday evening in many time zones) through Friday afternoon. But if you are trading regularly, you need to know a little more than this.

What times exactly does the market open at the beginning of the week and close for the weekend? And what are the times of the different sessions in the major financial centers of the world? In this article we will explain exactly how this works.

The first thing to understand is that there is a date line running down the Pacific Ocean between Australia/Japan on one side and the Americas on the other.

Generally the time is earlier in the west than the east, but if you cross the date line you change to the next day. So when it is 5 pm Sunday in New York it is 2 pm in California and 8 am in Sydney, Australia – but because of the date line it is Monday morning in Sydney, not Sunday.

So the business week begins in Australasia. The financial centers open up for business in Australia and New Zealand at 8 am on Monday morning their time, although it is still Sunday afternoon or evening in America and Europe.

To be precise, when trading begins in Sydney (the first major market to open) it is 5 pm Sunday in New York and 10 pm Sunday in London. There can be some variations because of different daylight saving times around the world – but that’s the basic opening time of the forex market at the beginning of the week.

Then it stays open 24 hours a day because the business hours in the different time zones cover the full 24 hours. The last major market to close is New York, finishing at 4 pm EST on Friday. That’s 9 pm Friday in London and 7 am Saturday in Sydney.

So you can trade 24 hours a day during the business week. However, if you are involved in forex scalping or day trading which rely on high liquidity and a very fast moving market, you will probably want to be online at the busiest time of day.

The top forex trading time each day is the overlap in the business hours of the two busiest trading floors, i.e. London and New York. These two markets are open at the same time for three hours per day, which is the morning in New York (8 am to 11 am) and the afternoon in London (1 pm to 4 pm). That is when you
would want to be online for forex day trading.

If you are trading on longer term trends then the timing is not quite so important and you can check the markets at times that fit around your other activities. Of course if you have a forex robot trading for you on autopilot, your robot can be online through all of the forex trading hours and cover all 24 hours a day for you.

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When you know WHEN and WHERE the best times and places are to place your forex trades, there’s no need to waste your day (and your life) fumbling around with chart after chart.