Forex Market Hours
When discussing market hours for the Forex market, there tends to be some confusion. Most investors are first attracted to trading currencies due to the fact that the market is open for 24 hours. Then why are references still made to market hours?
When we trade currencies, trading begins on Sunday for a couple hours Greenwich Time and continues 24 hours a day through all but the last few hours of Friday Greenwich Time. At this point on Friday, trading is halted until Sunday. We can trade any time during the week 24 hours a day during the market open. The question we need to ask is, “Who are the traders?” Well, traders are individuals like you and me, but also many more. Not only are there individuals throughout the world trading, but major institutions. These institutions come in all sizes across the world: including banks, central banks, commercial companies, Forex brokers, hedge funds, investment firms, etc.
These major players will trade during local business hours. Some of the confusion is defining business hours. Different websites will list different business hours. Most consider the business hours to be from 8am to 5pm. Another area of confusion is when Daylight Savings Time is taken into account, since not all countries follow it, or don’t follow a uniform starting and ending date.
Anybody, any institution, is welcome to trade at any time; but the majority of trading will be during business hours of the major areas across the world. Most consider the major Forex markets as London, New York, Sydney, and Tokyo. Some will also include Singapore, Hong Kong, and Frankfurt as major markets.
You can look at sites like http://www.worldtimezone.com/ to see what the current time is in various locations throughout the world compared with your time zone.
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