Forex Market Hours: Can You Trade Currency 24/7?

The forex market hours stretch from Monday morning in Sydney, Australia to Friday afternoon in New York. During that time the market is open somewhere around the globe at all hours of the day or night.

However it is not a 24/7 market because it does shut down on weekends. 24/5 would be more accurate.

If you need to know the exact times that the markets open and close, you have to take time zones into consideration. It is very simple when expressed in UTC. This is Universal Coordinated Time, formerly known as Greenwich Mean Time. This is the standard (winter) time in Greenwich, London which is the point of zero longitude on the globe.

So, the normal forex market hours are 22.00 Sunday UTC to 22.00 Friday UTC. This is 10 pm in the UK in winter time.

New York is 5 hours behind the UK so the global forex market opens and closes at 5 pm Sunday/Friday in New York, 2 pm on the US west coast, 11 pm in Germany, 8 am Monday/Saturday in Sydney.

Things get a little complicated when you start to try to take summer time daylight saving into account. This makes one hour difference in countries that observe it. But daylight saving operates in a different way in the southern hemisphere countries such as Australia which have summer time from September to March instead of March to September.

The hours of the different major national markets are as follows:

Sydney: 10 pm to 7 am UTC
Tokyo: 12 midnight to 9 am UTC
London: 8 am to 5 pm UTC
New York: 1 pm to 10 pm UTC

Or we can express that in EST (Eastern US time):

Sydney: 5 pm to 2 am EST
Tokyo: 7 pm to 4 am EST
London: 3 am to 12 noon EST
New York: 8 am to 5 pm EST

You can see that these correspond to 24 hour cover.

However, this does not necessarily mean that trading will be good at all of these times. Just after a major market opens, the prices can be very volatile and unpredictable. Many traders will stay out of the forex market for up to an hour four times a day when the financial markets are waking up in these major cities.

The US dollar is the most traded currency by a long way, involved in 2.5 times as many trades as its nearest rival the euro. This means that events in the USA have a greater impact on the financial markets than events in other countries. The New York market tends to slow down around 3 pm local time (8 pm UTC) and if you are involved in a US dollar pair, this can be a good time to stop trading for the day.

So theoretically you can trade 24 hours a day from Sunday night to Friday night. Automated software in the form of a forex robot can even make this physically possible. However, a cautious trader will choose his times and will not be active during all of the forex market hours.

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Beginner Forex Currency Trading: What Is It All About?

For a beginner forex currency trading may seem to be a whole new world but in fact the basics are quite easy to learn. You just need to understand the buzz words and trading terms and grasp a basic understanding of how the markets work.

Making big money in a short time is what forex currency trading is all about! It is possible for investors to make a lot of money very fast because the rates of exchange on the foreign market can rise and fall quickly. This means of course that it is risky and there is also a chance of losing a lot, just like most things in life that have the potential of big returns.

As you will know if you have ever exchanged currency for a vacation, the rates are constantly changing. For example you may change $100 into another currency planning to travel, and then find that you do not need it and change it back. The rate will probably have changed in the meantime and you may even have made a profit.

Forex traders deal in currencies hoping to make a profit all of the time, but instead of changing money at the bank they use a broker. Most transactions these days are handled online. In many ways it is not so different from stock trading. There is the same potential to trade in margins where a small balance held by your broker can control much larger deals.

One difference from stock exchange trading is that forex traders are not limited to dealing in their own country. You can trade any two currencies regardless of where you live. This also means that the market is international. Because of time zone differences, it is open 24 hours a day from Monday morning in Australia to Friday afternoon in New York.

Each currency is represented by 3 letters: USD for the US dollar, GBP for the British pound, EUR for the Euro, JPY for the Japanese Yen, CHF for the Swiss franc, CAD for the Canadian dollar, AUD for the Australian dollar etc. The exchange rate between two currencies may be expressed like this: USD/CHF 1.14. This means that to buy one US dollar you will need 1.14 Swiss francs.

If you want to start out in forex trading you will need to look for a broker or investment management company that you trust. It is worth shopping around and checking online forums for recommendations. Check out how long the company has been in business and what your rights and liabilities will be. Read all of the fine print.

You will probably also want to use a bot to do your trading for you. This is automated forex trading software that can trade 24 hours a day according to rules that you set for it. There is usually a demo option so that you can test out the whole system for a while before you let it trade with real money. There are many forex robots on the market and most of them come with full instructions for beginner forex currency trading.

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Forex Trading: The Most Common Flaws

Flaws due to multi indicators and due to the principle of confluence:

Many traders are very much attracted to the sophistication offered by the multi indicators and use them in their forex trading systems. Many of the confluence system indicators show the price movement and in no way adds any value to the trade. Due to this, the traders either end up over bought or over sold technical indicators like the stochastic, momentum indicators, candle stick chart pattern recognition, Bollinger band breaks out even neural networks which are supposed to be artificial intelligent systems. The technical indicators just show signals which are similar to buy or sell or hold, making the signal generated to be correct. Theoretically it sounds good but in reality to arrive at a conclusion might be difficult. As a result the traders are confused in making a right decision. They either enter too late or too early or remain still without being able to make a decision to enter the market. The major flaw is due to the use of useless trading system which does not serve the purpose to make profits, but confuses the traders and complicates the forex trading until the trader loses.

Another dangerous flaw found in forex trading is of an emotional nature interwoven into the process. It is fear and greed of the trader. A profitable forex trade can lead to exuberance and over joy, but this is the time when greed comes in and crosses the aspects of risk management. When a trader is hooked to winning, out of greed he over-rides all aspects to see more and more profits, only to see them crash to earth. They wait for the prices to regain, but in dismay may some time and with worst possible losses. This is the time when fear crops up and paralyses the trader not making him to open up any position. Hence while trading, the trader should not override the emotional side of trading, stick to discipline of the trade which can prevent them from committing the flaw of forex trading.

Another kind of flaw can happen when the trader is an unconcerned person or the one who is lazy, or with no drive to gain profits or feels the need to be profitable. These people would have entered into forex trading due to hearing it as an easy game. For them it is not a trade which involves skill, trade management, preparation and re-investment. It is a fun game for them, where loses do not make any difference to them. Such persons make a wrong footing, with a wrong objective.

Flaws in forex trading due to the inadequate knowledge of the trader:

Some of the losers start with good purpose in the trade. Even though they had gained some knowledge from here and there they might find it difficult to apply them practically in the trade. Inadequate knowledge might be the major flaw which stops them from achieving success.

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