Forex Trading Hours - 24 Hours 5 Days A Week

By Steve Maenshel

Forex trading hours are the hours of the opening and closing of the largest market in the world - the foreign exchange market. Forex trading hours overlap each other in various countries around the globe, and one can say that Forex is always open. However, in reality it is not completely so. Forex market is indeed always open, but not everywhere at the same time. As well as, some trading hours are better for trades than others. Forex opening and closing hours depend on the opening and the closing hours of the main financial institutions of various countries.

Basically, there are four major zones with various Forex trading hours: Europe, USA, Australia and Asia. Forex opens in Tokyo at 23.00 GMT on Sunday and then in 5 days it closes on Friday at 10 PM in Chicago, thus ending the so-called Forex trading week.

Forex market does not stop its work even during the biggest holidays, because there will always be a region on Earth, which does not considered that day a holiday. The best examples are the opposing Christian and Muslim holidays. When a holiday starts in the Christian regions of the planet, you may simply concentrate your Forex trading hours on the financial centers of the Muslim countries, and vice versa. Even during the "global" holidays, currency trading usually does not just stop. For example, during the Catholic Christmas, you can still get the currency quotes from Muslim countries and other Asian countries banks.

Small volume of traded currencies (often referred to as thin) also occurs at the Forex market on the weekends, but the weekends spent trading at the Forex market, may not result in anything profitable, since it is very difficult to find a good contractor on the weekends, and it's even harder to find a good price.

Forex trading hours are different around the globe, which makes Forex one of the most colorful and mixed markets. The currencies that are traded on the Forex market include such major currencies like: USD, Euro, Yen, Pounds, Australian and Canadian Dollars and many others.

Forex trading hours are believed to also be present for one simple reason - the employees of various institutions need some time to take care of matters. Frankly speaking, Forex traders probably also need to "relax and get some rest" every once in a while.

Some people ask, why is it that Forex trading hours fall at night in their countries? Well, the reason behind that is that when it is night in one country, it is a daytime in another country. At the time when one country "goes to sleep", financial institutions in another country are just starting to open.

Forex trading hours in the main 4 timezones

As mentioned above, Forex market is open 24 hours a day, five days a week (with inactive trading during weekends), so you can participate in the trade virtually day and night. Below are the Forex trading hours, according to the Eastern Time Zone for the four major financial centers:

Tokyo Trading Hours: 19.00 to 04.00

New York: 8.00 to 17.00 EST

London: 03.00 to 12.00 (noon) EST

Sydney: 17.00 to 02.00 EST

A trader should get familiar with Forex trading hours, since Forex trading hours are often important to know, in order to gain reliable profits in transactions, rather than getting stuck in thin trades. - 23159

About the Author:

Author Steve Maenshel can help you take advantage of the forex trading hours. For more forex trading information, visit his forex resource center.