Forex Market Hours.
Uncover what is the best and worst time to trade forex. See forex market trading hours at a glance. Check when the forex market opens and closes in London, New York, Sydney, Tokyo. Your time zone is adjusted automatically! Unlike with other tools - national bank holidays and weekends are taken into account.
Check a future date.
Change/search time zone.
Launch market hours.
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How to Use This Forex Market Hours Tool.
View the opening and closing times of the major markets in your local time zone. If you want to switch the time zone, use the search/dropdown menu in the top right corner. To check for future forex market hours and holidays, click on the date at the top left of the tool. View the historical average of hourly trading volumes on the entire forex market. This will give you an idea of the times with the most liquidity and the smallest spreads. Toggle between the three major currency pairs to see the average hourly volatility in pips to further determine the most appropriate time depending on your trading style.
Liquidity shows how active a market is. A currency pair has a high level of liquidity when it is easily bought or sold and there is a significant amount of trading activity for that pair.
During periods of reduced liquidity, currency rates are subject to more sudden and volatile price movements.
The spread is a commission that brokers charge you for making a trade. It is the gap between the bid and the ask prices.
Volatility.
Volatility describes the level of moves of an exchange rate.
When only one market is open, currency pairs can get locked in a tight band of ~ 30 pips of movement.
Two open markets at once can easily push the movement to more than 70 pips, especially when big news are released.
A pip is the smallest measure of change in a currency pair.
As most major currency pairs are priced to four decimal places, a pip is usually $0.0001 for currency pairs with the US dollar.
Why We Made This Tool.
It was a rainy day in October when we got fed up with all the faulty forex market hour charts.
To use one, we had to calculate the conversion from a different time zone.
Another one had a dropdown with hundreds of time zones. However, it had no search function, so we had to scroll endlessly.
The third one did not take the daylight savings transitions into account… Moreover, most of them did not show up-to-date holidays when the markets are closed or have little activity.
"Screw this mess!" we thought and set out to build our own tool which solves the shortcomings of the others.
It's still in beta, so please let us know if you find any issues or have ideas for improvement.
The Big Market Timing Mistake Everyone Keeps Telling Us About.
Have you ever Googled, "When is the best time for trading?"
If you do, you will notice that most of the resources are saying the same thing:
"The best time to trade is during the London/New York overlap and other times of high market volatility."
It sounds so nice and simple. But guess what?
A research study of 24 million real trades showed a surprising fact - this approach is wrong for a large number of traders!
It turns out that most traders are range traders (read along to see if you're one of them) who could increase their likelihood of success from 47% to 55% if they traded during lower volatility times instead of high volatility periods.
Ouch, So When Is the Best Time for Trading Forex?
Contrary to what others may tell you, there is NO universal best time for trading!
The best times depend on what type of trading you are planning to do.
Times of peak market volatility might be good for some strategies and not so good for others.
There are three major types of forex trading strategies:
Range trading Breakout trading News trading.
And here are the appropriate best trading times for each of these trading types:
If you are a range trader then you should trade when the markets are less volatile. Also, you should avoid trading when economic data is coming out. The best time for range traders to trade is during the Asian (Tokyo) session. Breakout traders are the ones who can benefit from volatile markets, so the best time for breakout trading is during the famous London/New York overlap , and also during the opening hours of the London session. News traders should obviously time their trades around news releases. The more volatile the news the better. Usually, the biggest moves are created when the US data comes out. Why? Because the US dollar plays a role in just under 90% of all forex transactions (88% for the US dollar against 31% for the Euro and 22% for the japanese Yen in 2022 according to BIS report). The most volatile news report for the US is the NFP (Non-Farms Payroll). The NFP is usually released on the first Friday of every month at 8:30 AM New York time.
Range Trading.
Range Trading works best if a price is moving within relatively narrow ranges and is not breaking through the support or resistance levels.
This is usually the case during the quiet Sydney and Tokyo session hours.
Breakout Trading.
The goal of a breakout trade is to enter the market right when the price makes a breakout from a previous range and then continue to ride the trade until the trend diminishes.
A sign for a potential breakout can be found using technical analysis or by anticipating or reacting to news.
The Worst 3 Times to Trade Forex.
Certain times can be especially challenging to make money in the forex market.
These times include the days before, during and after a major international holiday, such as Christmas or New Year’s.
Major bank holidays in the United States, the UK or Europe can also adversely affect trading volumes, often leading to sharp moves in thin markets that can trigger Stop-Loss orders.
For most traders, the following are among the worst times to execute forex trades:
The Witching Hour. The loneliest and scariest time in the forex market is when the sun is just rising in Tokyo and traders in Sydney are drinking their first cup of coffee. The time between the New York close and the start of trading in Tokyo has always been a time when investors avoid trading if possible. During these two hours, forex trading volumes can decrease to just 2% of peak turnover. Thus, liquidity is super low. Consequently, the spreads get very high and any transaction completed during that period can influence the market disproportionately. It is during this time that many stop-losses get triggered and flash crashes happen more frequently. Sunday Afternoon Opening. The market opening on Sunday often carries an element of surprise, especially if a major geopolitical event happened over the weekend. Forex currency pairs tend to gap up or down during the start of the Sydney session. Also, dealing spreads are typically so wide that you would usually be wise to wait at least until the Tokyo opening to get a better idea of what the market is like. Wednesday Rollover. In the middle of the week, there is a tricky rollover commission that surprises many novice traders. What is a rollover? If you hold a position open on a weekday night, normally your broker charges or adds an interest rate to your account. This interest is called a “Rollover”.
And now comes the big one - on weekends, the forex markets are closed for trading, but rollover interest is still being counted. As per industry standards, brokers apply an interest equal to 3 days of rollover on Wednesdays.
However, there are some brokers who unify the rollover fees so traders pay the same amounts for every night from Monday to Friday.
For those who don't keep trades open during the night, (intraday traders) rollover is not a concern. If a position is opened after 5:00 PM (New York time) on the previous day and closed before 5:00 PM (New York time) on the current day, then no rollover is credited or debited.
Before trading, it is wise to check the rollover terms of your chosen broker.
Stop-loss Orders.
A stop-loss order protects you from losing more than you are willing to risk. Before opening a trade you can specify a price level at which your position will be automatically closed.
There can be two types of stop-loss orders:
Normal Stop-Loss: it automatically closes your position at the best available price, meaning that sometimes you can lose more than predicted due to slippages. Guaranteed Stop-Loss: it closes your position at exactly the price level you specified, so there is no risk of gapping or slippage. Thus your loss will never exceed your predicted level. But you obviously have to pay extra spread for such an advantage.
Can You Trade Forex on Weekends?
Usually, you can't. The forex market is closed for retail traders on weekends.
The currency market closes on Friday 5:00 PM New York time (10:00 PM London time), when the New York session finalizes, and reopens on Sunday at 5:00 PM New York time (10:00 PM London time).
But…here's the catch #1: The FX market is not closed for everyone! Central banks and related institutions can keep pushing around billions, even on weekends.
Also, when a huge transaction takes place during the weekend, it can create a thing called the weekend gap, which can cause your stop-losses to get triggered and your position to close.
If, on Sunday, the opening-price is higher than Friday’s high price price, you will have a gap up. If the price opens lower, you will have a gap down.
That's why traders usually either set wider stops or close their positions entirely over the weekend.
And here's the catch #2: Some brokers allow you to trade even during the weekend, but spreads will be much bigger during weekends when liquidity is super thin or almost non-existent.