With the rise of interest in forex trading, it is not rare to find newbie traders curiously asking questions like “What time is the forex market open?”. When they discover the forex market hours are 24 hours a day, 5 days a week, the next question is, “How is that possible?”.
And the response is relatively not that complex: because the forex market lacks a central exchange, forex trading “follows the sun”, moving from one country to the next as the trading periods continue so that each market overlaps without creating chaos.
As a well-established rule, foreign exchange hours are from weekdays and are paused on Saturdays and Sundays when the major banks are on holiday.
Resultantly, the forex market is often categorized into three prime trading sessions: Tokyo session, London session, and New York session. With these sessions covering diverse time zones, forex traders can take advantage of the benefits of forex trading at a time of their convenience.
Even if you are strapped for time and only have an hour spare each day, there will still be a market that is open and ready for trading!
The Gartley pattern is a harmonic chart pattern, based on Fibonacci numbers and ratios, that helps traders identify reaction highs and lows.
What are the forex market hours?
The forex market operates 24 hours a day, five days a week, across the globe.
The market begins its operations on Monday in New Zealand at 8:00 am local time, followed by the start of one of the crucial market sessions in Sydney at 9:00 am Monday local time, which is 10:00 pm GMT Sunday.
The forex market will then cease its operations over the weekend at 9:00 pm Friday GMT.
Experts often encourage The Sydney session because it is the first session that starts a new week. The three vital sessions where activity is at its peak are the Asian trading session (Tokyo), European trading session (London), and North American trading session (New York).
Following are the opening and closing forex market hours for the four major and most crucial markets:
- Sydney opens at 9:00 pm and closes at 7:00 am GMT, which is 7:00 am and 5:00 pm local time.
- Tokyo opens at 11:00 pm and closes at 9:00 am GMT, which is 8:00 am and 6:00 pm local time.
- London opens at 8:00 am and closes at 6:00 pm GMT, which is 9:00 am and 7:00 pm local time.
- New York opens at 1:00 pm and closes at 11:00 pm GMT, which is 9:00 am and 7:00 pm local time.
These forex trading hours relate to the period between April and October (Summer).
Concluding words:
The best time to trade forex suggested by professionals is when the forex market is open across more than one session which is during an overlap. since the market is more active at this time. With more FX traders active in the market, there are higher windows due to a higher potential for price fluctuation in currency pairs. But remember, this volatility also brings the possibility of greater risk. You should work with axiance and if you want to know the working hours of axiance then follow the link www.tradefx.co.za/review/axiance/
With one forex market session active the currency pairs tend to see tighter pip spread movement, while a trading session with two markets active can feature a higher movement of pips.
Generally, the New York and London sessions between 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm GMT have been considered the best overlapping forex session to trade-in. The two most favored currencies to trade during this time are the US Dollar and Euro, which makes sense given that more than 70% of all trades would happen when the two biggest markets overlap and price activity is likely to be higher.
