| The forex market hours stretch from Monday | | | | Tokyo: 12 midnight to 9 am UTC |
| morning in Sydney, Australia to Friday afternoon in | | | | London: 8 am to 5 pm UTC |
| New York. During that time the market is open | | | | New York: 1 pm to 10 pm UTC |
| somewhere around the globe at all hours of the day | | | | Or we can express that in EST (Eastern US time): |
| or night. | | | | Sydney: 5 pm to 2 am EST |
| However it is not a 24/7 market because it does | | | | Tokyo: 7 pm to 4 am EST |
| shut down on weekends. 24/5 would be more | | | | London: 3 am to 12 noon EST |
| accurate. | | | | New York: 8 am to 5 pm EST |
| If you need to know the exact times that the | | | | You can see that these correspond to 24 hour |
| markets open and close, you have to take time | | | | cover. |
| zones into consideration. It is very simple when | | | | However, this does not necessarily mean that trading |
| expressed in UTC. This is Universal Coordinated Time, | | | | will be good at all of these times. Just after a major |
| formerly known as Greenwich Mean Time. This is the | | | | market opens, the prices can be very volatile and |
| standard (winter) time in Greenwich, London which is | | | | unpredictable. Many traders will stay out of the forex |
| the point of zero longitude on the globe. | | | | market for up to an hour four times a day when the |
| So, the normal forex market hours are 22.00 Sunday | | | | financial markets are waking up in these major cities. |
| UTC to 22.00 Friday UTC. This is 10 pm in the UK in | | | | The US dollar is the most traded currency by a long |
| winter time. | | | | way, involved in 2.5 times as many trades as its |
| New York is 5 hours behind the UK so the global | | | | nearest rival the euro. This means that events in the |
| forex market opens and closes at 5 pm Sunday | | | | USA have a greater impact on the financial markets |
| Friday in New York, 2 pm on the US west coast, 11 | | | | than events in other countries. The New York |
| pm in Germany, 8 am Monday/Saturday in Sydney. | | | | market tends to slow down around 3 pm local time |
| Things get a little complicated when you start to try | | | | (8 pm UTC) and if you are involved in a US dollar |
| to take summer time daylight saving into account. | | | | pair, this can be a good time to stop trading for the |
| This makes one hour difference in countries that | | | | day. |
| observe it. But daylight saving operates in a different | | | | So theoretically you can trade 24 hours a day from |
| way in the southern hemisphere countries such as | | | | Sunday night to Friday night. Automated software in |
| Australia which have summer time from September | | | | the form of a forex robot can even make this |
| to March instead of March to September. | | | | physically possible. However, a cautious trader will |
| The hours of the different major national markets | | | | choose his times and will not be active during all of |
| are as follows: | | | | the forex market hours. |
| Sydney: 10 pm to 7 am UTC | | | | |