At 8am Monday morning (here in NZ) it will be 8pm on Sunday in the UK and 3pm in the US (New York).
When my trading platform comes to life and opens at 8am Mon and I can see the bid and ask start flashing away,what market is actually open?
Surely none of the majors have opened at 8pm Sunday UK and
3pm Sunday in the US,so what am I trading?
The markets in a particular country don’t have to be open for that currency to be traded.
Think of the markets like a bank… If a bank in Wellington is open at 8am on Monday I can walk in and trade my USD for Euros, even though the banks in the US and EU are still closed. That NZ bank has USD and Euros on hand, so I can do my trade. 
The forex market works the same way. There are banks in NZ that are open to do the trades, so the forex market is up and running!
Ahh ok I see. Thanks.
SDC where did your message go?
[I]Forex trading starts at Midnight GMT on Sunday so I believe it must be the Tokyo and Sydney markets as they would normaly be open at that time during the week[/I]
Sydney opens at 10am NZ
and Tokyo Opens at 11am NZ time
[B]Kiwi Candles, [/B]
The short answer to your question is:
At 8am Monday morning in New Zealand, the “market” that is open is (1) the worldwide interbank network, (2) all forex brokers in New Zealand, as well as most other forex brokers around the world, and (3) most businesses in New Zealand (except the stock exchange and retail banks).
The interbank network is up and running essentially around the clock, every day of the year. At 8am your time, on a Monday or on any other day of the week, interbank activity is centered primarily in Tokyo (where it is 5am). Forex orders generated anywhere in the world at that hour will be “cleared” through the Tokyo office of one of the world’s large banks. So, even if your broker in New Zealand deals mainly with Deutsche Bank in Germany, or Barclays Capital in the U.K., or Citigroup in the U.S., your early morning forex order will likely be filled in Tokyo.
Around mid-afternoon, Tokyo time, the big banks’ Tokyo offices will begin handing over all trading responsibilities to their offices in London, as the start of the business day in Europe approaches.
Regarding trading volume in the “majors”, it is low — but not zero — at 8am Monday morning, New Zealand time.
As a very rough rule-of-thumb, at any given hour of the day, total forex trading volume worldwide is proportional to the sum of the forex market-shares of all the countries/regions which are open for business at that hour.
New Zealand at 8am on a Monday morning is an interesting special case, because it is the only important country open for business at that time. New Zealand transacts the equivalent of 3 billion USD per day in spot forex volume.
At 8am New York time, on the other hand, central Europe (218 billion USD per day), the U.K. (341 billion USD per day) and North America (185 billion USD per day) are all open. These regions together account for 744 billion USD per day of spot forex volume.
This 744 billion is 248 times as large as New Zealand’s 3 billion. So, according to our rough rule-of-thumb, we would expect world trading volume at 8am on a Monday morning in New Zealand to be tiny compared to trading volume 16 hours later, at 8am New York time.
Here’s a previous post which touches on this same subject — 301 Moved Permanently
Regarding the worldwide interbank network, here’s a Table showing the 10 largest banks ranked according to forex volume transacted, as of about a year ago (there may be more current information available now):
I hope this answers your questions.
Great answer Clint!
good thing it was short answer…
maybe im missing something here but i dont get it why one of my brokers from indonesia
start with trading sunday at 23.01h my local time and other from australia starts at 00.01h monday (one hour later)?
isnt australia ahead of us all with counting the time? sry for my english, hope you understand my question.
and are there brokers that start with the trading week even earlier? who is the first?
cheers, svenstp
it is probably just a time preference of your broker
I believe it is NZ then Australia, and then countries in subsequent timezones come next (from east to west)
I understand that one broker is in Indonesia, and one broker is in Australia. But, where are you?
When you say “my local time”, is that Indonesian time (GMT+7), or some other time zone?
NZ opens first…and then others open shop!
No no, my time zone is UTC+01:00 (eastern europe) and that is why i asked the question in the first place.
So, it should be NZ and AU brokers first starting.
Thx guys.
Cheers, SvenStp
UTC+1 (GMT+1) is the current time zone in the U.K.
UTC+2 (GMT+2) is the current time zone in central Europe.
UTC+3 (GMT+3) is the current time zone in eastern Europe.
So, you’re still confusing me.
I’m going to assume that you know [I][B]where[/B][/I] you live (eastern Europe), but you don’t know [I][B]the time zone[/B][/I] that you’re in (GMT+3). So, let’s use the times you mentioned in your post, together with [I][B]the correct time zone[/B][/I] for your location, to figure out what your two brokers — one in Indonesia, and one in Australia — are doing when they open their trading platforms on Sunday.
Your Indonesian broker opens at 11:01pm EEST (Eastern European Summer Time = GMT+3). [I][B]This corresponds to 8am in New Zealand, where a new week is beginning (for business, banking, and retail forex trading).[/B][/I]
You can check my math on this, as follows: Currently the time zone in New Zealand is NZST (New Zealand Standard Time = GMT+12). Your time zone is GMT+3. The difference between these two time zones is 9 hours (with New Zealand [I][B]ahead[/B][/I] of eastern Europe by 9 hours). So, 11pm in eastern Europe + 9 hours = 8am in New Zealand.
Your Australian broker opens one hour later than your Indonesian broker. That is, your Australian broker opens at 12:01am your time (GMT+3), which corresponds to 9am in New Zealand and 7am in southeastern Australia (where the big financial centers are located).
Retail forex brokers are free to set whatever hours of operation they choose. If it annoys you that they don’t all choose to open for the week at exactly the same time, you should talk to them about this.
The worldwide foreign exchange market rolls on 24 hours per day, 365 days per year, regardless of what retail forex brokers do. This worldwide market (of which retail spot forex is a tiny fraction) is relatively quiet over the weekend, but not totally inactive. Currency transactions which you don’t see (because your brokers are closed for the weekend) can move prices over the weekend, and these weekend transactions produce the opening gaps we sometimes see when retail brokers open for the week.
If you have the [I][B]mistaken[/B][/I] impression that retail brokers in New Zealand open when the business day begins in New Zealand, and retail brokers in Australia open when the business day begins in Australia, and retail brokers in Japan open when the business day begins in Japan, etc., etc. — then, let me try to set you straight.
[I][B]All retail forex brokers around the world[/B][/I] open for the week at [I][B]about[/B][/I] 8am Monday morning New Zealand time, and close for the week at [I][B]about[/B][/I] 5pm Friday afternoon New York time. As you have discovered, there are slight variations in these times, from broker to broker.
In your previous post on this thread, you asked —
At least one retail forex broker that I am aware of remains open all weekend for retail traders like us, albeit with spreads that are much larger than usual. There may be [I][B]some[/B][/I] retail demand for that sort of broker service, but apparently not enough to entice all the other brokers to follow suit.
For most retail forex brokers, the hours of operation discussed above serve the retail trading community just fine.
“I’m going to assume that you know where you live (eastern Europe), but you don’t know the time zone that you’re in (GMT+3).”
First, thank you for assuming that i know where i live. Now i feel almost as smart as you.
About the time zone, i live in Belgrade.
Second, Fxmall and FringFX answered just what i have bin asking:
“it is probably just a time preference of your broker
I believe it is NZ then Australia, and then countries in subsequent timezones come next (from east to west)”
Thx guys.
Clint you also said: “If it annoys you that they don’t all choose to open for the week at exactly the same time, you should talk to them about this.”
What is your problem man? Why would that annoy me?
You think you are helping enyone with your “math” and all of this burst of information?
Think again.
The site is maybe called “babypips” but we are not children.
Bleh… relax Sven… A short temper is a very unattractive quality.
If you want to believe that Serbia is in the [B]Eastern[/B] European Time Zone — fine.
If you want to believe that Serbia’s time zone is currently [B]GMT+1[/B] — fine.
Don’t let the facts interfere with whatever it is that you want to believe.
This may help figure out what time it is in your local timezone given another date for a different timezone (ie: 8am monday morning in NZ is 11am Sunday in California).
Thanks, utuxia!
So more or less,
1-7 April [B]–>[/B] 25-30 September, market opens Sunday 20:00 GMT.
25-30 September [B]–>[/B] 1-7 April, market opens Sunday 19:00 GMT.
Just coz everyone kows their GMT offset
Yay, I can trade on Sunday already!
Peace.
The first market to open is the Asain market and this is very early for my timing. But still i manage this session to make the best out of trading the EUR/JPY and GBP/JPY to get good number of pips.
So Einstein was right all along, time does not exist…