Forex trading hours

How the forex day works

The currency market has no exchange and no single opening bell. It runs from the start of the Sydney business day on Monday morning to the close of the New York business day on Friday, around the clock, because somewhere a bank is open. The four sessions the industry talks about are the business hours of the four largest dealing centres, and the calculator shows them as roughly 07:00 to 16:00 in Sydney, 09:00 to 18:00 in Tokyo, and 08:00 to 17:00 in London and New York, each in its own local time, converted to the zone you choose.

Liquidity follows the sessions. The London hours are the busiest, the London and New York overlap in the early afternoon in Europe is the busiest of all, and the hour or two between New York's close and Tokyo's open is the thinnest, which is when spreads widen and when brokers apply the daily rollover and charge the swap. The rollover is at 17:00 New York time, which the calculator shows in your zone.

Daylight saving

The times shift twice a year because Sydney, London and New York each change their clocks on different dates and Tokyo does not. In late March and October, and in early April and October in Australia, the overlaps move by an hour for a few weeks. The calculator uses the time zone database in your browser, so it follows those changes without any adjustment.

Brokers and platforms

A broker's trading week usually opens a few minutes after Sydney and closes a few minutes before New York on Friday, and its server time is often set to a Central or Eastern European zone so that the daily candle closes at the New York rollover. Some brokers trade a few instruments at the weekend. The platform's market watch shows the exact hours for each instrument, which override anything here.