Forex Trading Hours - 24 Hours 5 Days A Week
Forex trading hours are important for anyone who plans to trade currencies at the Forex exchange market. The Forex market operates twenty four hours a day, five days a week, except for national holidays. Forex trading hours differ due to that various major financial institutions operate in different hours in different time zones.
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 is open at the time of major holidays just as well. However, of course, it’s not open in the country where the holiday is celebrated. For example, at the time of a major Christian holiday you can still get foreign currency quotes from the banks of Asian and Muslim countries, and the other way around. Thus, if you feel like trading, you will not have to wait for the holiday to pass in your country; you would just trade with others. It never happens that one holiday would happen in all of the countries all over the world at the same time.
Probably, the only uncomfortable time for your trades is weekends. Even though you can trade on the weekends, the volume of the transactions will be so thin, that you may risk not being able to find a counterpart for your transaction.
Forex trading hours vary all over the world, making Forex market a colorful mixture of countries and currencies, including US Dollars, Canadian Dollars, Australian Dollars, Euro, Yens, Pounds etc. Thus you will be able to trade with any currency at the foreign exchange market.
Why were Forex trading hours established? Why cant the market be open 24/7 without holidays? Forex trading hours are also needed for employees to carry out certain necessary operations to maintain order at the market, as well as for the traders to simply get some “rest”.
The residents of different countries can be surprised that Forex trading hours start and end deep at night in their countries, however you should realize that the foreign exchange market works in different time zones, and thus while in some country Forex might seem to work “at night”, in other countries Forex trading hours match regular working hours.
Forex trading hours in the main 4 timezones
Forex trading hours of various countries overlap one another, together totaling 24 hours each day for 5 days in the row. Thinner trades are also carried out on the weekends. Please take a look at the 4 main time-zones of the Forex trading hours (EST):
Tokyo, Trading Hours: 19.00 to 04.00 EST
New York, Trading Hours: 08.00 to 17.00 EST
London Trading Hours: 3.00 to 12.00 (noon)
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.
About the author: Steve Maenshel can help you take advantage of the forex trading hours. For more forex trading information, visit his forex resource center.
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