You see, the global currency market is dominated by large banks, commercial companies taking part in import and export of goods and services, central banks, hedge funds, and retail forex traders. Imagine that a deal was made last week between Mitsubishi in Japan and a car dealer in Australia who wants to import units of Mitsubishi's latest Sports Utility Vehicles SUVs.

According to the contract between two parties, the Australian car importer would settle the invoice amount on the first hour of Monday. As soon as the banks open in Tokyo, the Australian importer will need to convert its Australian Dollars to Japanese Yen in order to pay for the cars to the Japanese car manufacturer.

As the payment for cars would a substantial amount, the demand for the Japanese Yen will suddenly go up early on Monday morning, which will turn the Yen bullish. This is just a simple example, but this is the reason why often prices start to move, and trends are created. The point of this illustration is to make a point that when Japanese and Australian banks are open to conducting international transactions, there is a high probability that the respective currencies, such as the Australian Dollar and the Japanese Yen, will experience increased trading volume.

Consequently, the prices of these currencies will fluctuate more compared to outside of the banking hours. Theoretically, it is true that there is no central exchange in the Forex market, and anyone can buy and sell currencies any time of the day or any day of the week. Nonetheless, to trade a Forex pair, you need a counterparty. To buy something you need someone else to sell you want you are trying to buy and vice versa. This is why in practice; you should spend your active trading hours when there are ample buyers and sellers in the market.

Even if some brokers allow trading during the weekends, the prices of various currency pairs hardly move on Saturday and Sunday.

If you are a short-term day trader, who opens and closes trades within a day, trading outside banking hours in major financial centers around the world will also feel like you are trading during the weekend. Because if major financial institutions and professional traders are not placing huge orders that move the market, there is no reason for the solid trends to take place.

Hence, the concept of Forex Market Hours derives from the notion that when major financial markets are open in a given time zone, the volume and liquidity in the market remains high, which in turn reduces the difference between the bid and ask prices and helps traders to fill their orders relatively easily without incurring slippage. After all, as a retail Forex trader with limited capital, you will not be in a position to move the market.

You will solely rely on larger players like banks and institutional investors to create the trends and hopefully catch a few to turn a profit. This is why short-term retail Forex traders should trade only during active banking hours and avoid looking for trading opportunities when the forex market hours clock stops ticking.

Technically speaking, if you exchange U. Dollars to get some British Pound for pocket money at an Airport Foreign Exchange Kiosk after arriving in London, in the middle of the night, it would be also considered as a foreign exchange trade. However, as you can guess by now, large billion-dollar, cross-border, transactions do not happen at 3 a. at the parking lot of the Heathrow Airport. These market-moving transactions happen among large banks during their respective banking hours.

Moreover, not all branches of a certain big bank will do these large-scale cross-border transactions. For example, a small branch of the Bank of America in Louisville, Kentucky. However, its downtown Manhattan branch in New York will certainly engage in large-scale foreign exchange deals. Similarly, a branch of the Swiss multinational investment bank, UBS Group AG, in Bangkok will have a lower transaction volume in the Forex market compared to its branch located in a major Asian financial hub like Singapore.

Hence, banking hours in the time zone of major financial centers like Tokyo in Japan, Singapore City in Singapore, Frankfurt in Germany, London in the United Kingdom, and New York in the United States generate the bulk of the trading volume in the Forex market.

Therefore, liquidity and volatility are usually higher when markets are open in these time zones. Besides banks engaged in commercial cross-border currency transactions, institutional investors and hedge funds speculating in the international stock exchanges also generate a high volume of foreign exchange transactions. Hedge funds with international exposure often buy and sell a large number of stocks across the globe to diversify their portfolios.

Coincidentally, some of the major forex exchange hubs also host the major stock exchanges. For example, the NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange are located in, you guessed it right, in New York; The London Stock Exchange is located in London, and the Tokyo Shoken Torihikijo is based in Tokyo. So, cross-border investments that require moving funds from one end of the globe to another generally contributes to a higher level of trading volume in the global foreign exchange market.

Furthermore, when banks and stock exchanges in more than one major financial centers are open simultaneously, the trading volume and liquidity go up substantially. This is why the beginning of the New York trading session has usually generated the bulk of the trading opportunities for short-term traders because it opens when the London trading session is also open across the Atlantic.

Hence, if you overlay the trading volatility in a forex market hours chart, you can see that it spikes up when trading begins in the financial center located next in the time zone. And so Overlapping hours of the London trading session and the New York trading session is the best time to trade forex, since the market is most active.

If you are a swing trader or a trend trader who likes to keep positions open overnight or several days at a time, then paying attention to the forex market hours chart in figure 2 may not be that important. However, most Forex traders are day traders and different trading sessions based on the time zone and geographic location of the financial centers around the world will have a substantial impact on the bottom line.

While the actual trading strategy you have may not change, knowing when to trade can certainly help you stop wasting time looking for trades when are no trading opportunities in the market. Furthermore, success in Forex trading in highly depends on timing, as trends can often reverse and wipe out the profits in your open trades. Since most participants trade between the hours of a. and p. in their local time zone, these times are used as the market open and close times, respectively. Forex Market Time Converter.

Time and date: PM November GMT. Refresh page every minutes set refresh to 0 to turn off refresh. The Forex Market Hours Converter assumes local "wall clock" trading hours of AM - PM in each Forex market. Holidays not included. Not intended for use as an accurate time source. Please send questions, comments, or suggestions to webmaster timezoneconverter.

What about your Forex broker? Your broker will offer a trading platform with a certain time frame the time frame will depend on the country where broker operates. If you haven't chosen a Forex broker yet, we recommend Forex brokers comparison to aid your search. We have made it easy for everyone to monitor Forex trading hours sessions while being anywhere in the world:.

Download Free Forex Market Hours Monitor v2. This is a simple program aligned to Eastern Standard Time. Time zone option is added for most of North American and European countries.

Use the Forex Market Time Converter , below, to view the major market open and close times in your own local time zone. The foreign exchange "forex" or "FX" currency market is not traded on a regulated exchange like stocks and commodities. Rather, the market consists of a network of financial institutions and retail trading brokers which each have their own individual hours of operation.

Since most participants trade between the hours of a. and p. in their local time zone, these times are used as the market open and close times, respectively. Forex Market Time Converter. Time and date: PM November GMT. Refresh page every minutes set refresh to 0 to turn off refresh. The Forex Market Hours Converter assumes local "wall clock" trading hours of AM - PM in each Forex market. Holidays not included. Not intended for use as an accurate time source.

Please send questions, comments, or suggestions to webmaster timezoneconverter. The forex market is available for trading 24 hours a day, five and one-half days per week. The Forex Market Time Converter displays "Open" or "Closed" in the Status column to indicate the current state of each global Market Center.

However, just because you can trade the market any time of the day or night doesn't necessarily mean that you should. Most successful day traders understand that more trades are successful if conducted when market activity is high and that it is best to avoid times when trading is light. Event Planner. Zones by Country. World Time. Time Zone Converter. Forex Market Hours. What's My Time Zone?

Forex Market Hours sponsored ads:. About The Forex Time Zone Converter The foreign exchange "forex" or "FX" currency market is not traded on a regulated exchange like stocks and commodities.

Click on a time zone for Daylight Saving Time DST transition dates and times. Home Time Zone Converter World Time Zones By Country Reference Card Link to Us Copyright © timezoneconverter. All rights reserved. Time and date: PM November GMT Click on a time zone for Daylight Saving Time DST transition dates and times.

Forex Market Center Time Zone Opens GMT Closes GMT Status Frankfurt Germany.

com All rights reserved. But, as soon as the market opened at a. SUBMIT QUERY. in New York, the United States at the Eastern Standard Time EST zone, which is 5 hours behind the Greenwich Mean Time GMT or GMT com as an exception in the ad blocker settings. These market-moving transactions happen among large banks during their respective banking hours.

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