Trading Sessions

🕔 What are the Operating Hours of the Forex Market?‍ The forex market is operational 24 hours a day, five days a week, excluding weekends. It commences trading at 5:00 PM EST on Sunday and concludes at 5:00 PM EST on Friday, resulting in a total of 120 trading hours, with a 48-hour break from Friday to Sunday (EST).

The forex market caters to global traders, accommodating their needs irrespective of their time zone. The market is divided into distinct "forex sessions" based on global time zones, which experience varying levels of volume and volatility.

Trading hours are subject to variation depending on daylight savings and holiday schedules. During daylight savings periods, regions utilizing this system will observe a one-hour offset in the winter, which reverts to normal in the summer months.

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‍🕔 What Is a Trading Session? A trading session is a period of time that matches the primary daytime trading hours for a given locale. This phrase will refer to different hours, depending on the markets and locations being discussed.

Generally a single day of business in the local financial market, from that market’s opening bell to its closing bell, is the trading session that the individual investor or trader will reference. The markets for forex, futures, stocks, and bonds all have different characteristics that define their respective trading sessions for a given day, and the primary trading hours naturally differ from one country to another due to contrasting time zones.

Trading session hours can vary by asset class and country. The regular trading session for U.S. stocks starts at 9:30 a.m. and ends at 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time (ET) on weekdays (holidays excepted). These times are primarily driven by the working hours of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), which closes early at 1:00 p.m. ET on several occasions throughout the year associated with holidays. The regular weekday trading session for the U.S. bond market is 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. ET.3 Futures markets, meanwhile, have different trading hours, depending upon the exchange and the type of commodity being traded.