Why do places list open hours for London, New York, Sydney etc… when the market never closes or open?
When they say London is open between 3am and 12pm EDT (8am to 5pm London time) do they mean this is the time when the majority of london business people are in the office trading? hence action will happen at this time?
If so then the times aren’t set in stone correct? eg everyone could get to work at 7am that day and all the action could happen an hour early?
the markets do close and open, but they are all around the world. In effect its a 24 hour a day market. But that’s because Sydney opens first then Tokyo, when tokyo is about to close London opens, then London to new york. Then the cycle repeats itself. Its not 1 exchange open 24 hours a day, its the net effect of all the exchanges around the world. The times that the exchanges open and close are set in stone per say. But when the market action will occur isn’t. Now London and New York have the greatest liquidity and volatility. So those are the most likely candidates to see the largest moves, but Asia can have large moves but usually ranges (in cable and fiber anyway, Asian based pairs are obviously more active).
It still doesnt make sense. What do you mean by close? how does the market close in London? do all the traders stop trading at 5 oclock local time?
If so why do they have to stop trading but we can trade 24/7? I’m missing something here because its not making sense.
Some of the major market movers are banks, who change money from one currency to another.
Multinationals and cross border companies are another who change vast amount of money from one form to the other.
These are the guys who move the market the most.
These guys dont operate 24/5. They open shop at about 9 am and we can expect major moves around the time.
That is what people mean by market times. Most traders wait for these hours so that they can cash in on the big moves.
Like most businesses, the exchange offices are open during normalish business hours. However, when one exchange closes, another has already opened…like a tag team if that helps. The opening and closing of those exchanges is seamless as far as traders are concerned, and some are open at the same time (overlap).
I’m sure traders on the east coast stay up all night to trade during the London market session because it sees some of the most active trading and they may prefer it over the US exchange that’s open during their day time. Trading does stop Fridays to most, and begins again when the New Zealand exchange opens their office Monday morning …which is actually Sunday afternoon to those of us on the Pacific coast. It’s not 24/7…it’s 24/5.
Hope that helps 
There are no forex exchanges.
[B]There are retail forex brokers,[/B] who operate around the clock (in one location) from approximately 8am Monday morning in New Zealand until 5pm Friday afternoon in New York.
[B]And there are major banks[/B] (the interbank network) which operate around the clock (in multiple locations) essentially 24/7. Each major bank — Deutsche Bank, for instance — has offices and trading rooms in all the major financial centers (London, New York, Tokyo and others), and they pass their order-book from office to office, as the business day winds down in one location and gears up in the next location.
You guys are going to confuse the hell out of PAG24, if you keep talking about “exchanges”.
There are no forex exchanges.
ok…just substitute the word “exchange” for “bank”. How the brokers (retail, stock, forex, etc) operate shouldn’t confuse him/her any…lol 
Yes so its what I thought, when people talk about exchange open hours they just mean the time that most of the major traders are in, ie business open hours for that time zone. That’s what I thought it meant but not one of the “forex open hours” explanation I’ve read here or on another site explains this.
[B]PAG24,[/B]
You might enjoy reading these articles from the [I][B]T2W[/B][/I] newsletter, a couple of years ago:
Trading Articles - Markets - Forex - A Day in the Life of a FX Spot Desk Trader (Part 1) | Trade2Win
Trading Articles - Markets - Forex - A Day in the Life of a FX Spot Desk Trader (Part 2) | Trade2Win
The author of these articles is not identified. Nor is the bank that he works for. But, the editors of [I]T2W[/I] seemed to vouch for the authenticity of his story, so I’ll accept it at face value, as well.
That being said, the articles describe a day’s activities for a prop-desk trader in a major London bank — one of the member banks in the so-called “interbank network”. This interbank network is basically a group of the largest 100, or so, banks in the world, which are all connected electronically to one another, for high-speed trading.
Anyway, enjoy the articles. They’re pretty entertaining.
Very interesting read. I was literally drawn to the trading room…
Pag24, I recommend you take the quizzes in the classroom. They will help a lot
For our purposes, its like there is a main office that flies with the sun around the world and has some hot times. It never closes, but the people who work there are different based on the time of day