Forex Trading Times

Forex Trading Times

One of the main advantages of trading forex online is the flexibility of forex trading times. The currency market is open and accessible 24 hours 5 days a week. The market opens on Sunday 5pm Eastern Standard Time and closes on Friday 4pm Eastern Standard time. Through days in the week when trading is on, there is always at least one market open to business. Forex trading takes place in various countries around the world and as one market is closing for the day another is opening in another part of the world. For this reason forex trading is referred to as a 24 hours currency market.

A forex trader needs to know the forex trading times applicable to the different forex markets and also the best times to trade during the day. Some hours and days of the week are known to present better trading opportunities and more profit.

Forex trading times first opens up in New Zealand, and Australia, followed by Asia starting with Japan, then the Middle East, Europe and then America.

Here is a table of the precise opening and closing forex trading times (EST) applicable to the major markets.

Tokyo is open from 7pm to 3am (EST)
Hong Kong/Singapore is open 9am to 5am (EST)
Frankfurt is open from 2am to 10am (EST)
London 3am 11am (EST)
New York Markets opens from 8am to 4pm (EST)

Based on the forex times above you will notice that as the Asian markets rounds off the European market is open and busy. Around 8 am EST when the European markets are winding down the New York markets kicks off on the other side of the Atlantic. Later in the day the Australian market is opening up in Sidney and the market thus continues until it ends all over the world on Friday afternoon 4pm EST.

When a forex trader in one country decides to trade forex before the market commences in his/her region they will be unable to do so using forex dealers within his country but can still access the market via dealers outside his country.

Forex trading times differ from market to market or country to country due to the difference in time zones and because the international forex market is linked up not by one exchange computer but by a network of computers. So when one particular exchange closes the international forex market does not necessary have to close. For example if the US market closes, dollar can still be traded on other exchanges or markets around the world.

The best forex trading times to enter the market is when a number of exchanges or markets are opened and large volumes of currencies are being traded. This occurs at times during the day when the markets of several countries are open. For each time zone, forex is traded 8am to 4pm and so to get the best forex trading times you need to know when the markets of different countries overlap. At these times there is more activity and fluctuations of rates and that increases the chances of making better profits. The middle of the week has also been noticed to experience more activity and trading in the markets than other days of the week, specifically Tuesday and Wednesday.

Here is list of when the major forex trading times overlap (EST)

The New York and London markets overlap during 8 am to 12 am (EST)
The Australian and Japan markets overlap during 7 pm to 2 am (EST)
The London and Japan markets overlap for only one hour betwwen 3 am to 4 am (EST)