I’ve looked around but there are different answers? On Sunday, is there a set time for the market to open?
Please give the timezone you’re referring to in your answer, thanks.
Markets are closed Sundays. They open Monday morning in Austrailia.
Hello, sandpiper7
The largest banks in the interbank network do not close over the weekend, although on weekends they may be manned by minimum staff. These banks are available to one another, and to their largest customers, to transact essential business regardless of time of day, or day of the week.
The retail forex market — our little corner of the worldwide currency market — closes for the majority of the weekend, because that’s the way retail forex brokers generally choose to do business. They could operate 24/7, if they determined that there was a compelling reason to do so.
Generally, retail forex brokers close trading for the week at about the time that the normal business day ends in New York. Currently, that would be 5pm Friday New York time, 10pm Friday London time, 11pm Friday Zurich time, 6am Saturday Tokyo time, 7am Saturday Sydney (Australia) time, and 9am Saturday Wellington (New Zealand) time. The actual weekly close of retail trading varies somewhat, from broker to broker.
And generally, retail forex brokers open trading for the week at about the time that the normal business day begins in New Zealand. Currently, that would be 8am Monday Wellington (New Zealand) time, 6am Monday Sydney (Australia) time, 5am Monday Tokyo time, 10pm Sunday Zurich time, 9pm Sunday London time, and 4pm Sunday New York time. The actual weekly opening of retail trading varies somewhat, from broker to broker.
If you trade through a U.S. broker, your broker will open his trading platform sometime before 5pm New York time on Sunday. Don’t be surprised if the actual opening time varies from week to week. I have seen FXCM, for example, open their platform at various times between 3pm and 5pm on Sunday.
And don’t be surprised if the various currency pairs do not open simultaneously. FXCM open pairs sequentially, beginning with the EUR/USD, then the USD/JPY, etc., opening them in their order of importance, according to worldwide trading volume.
In the final analysis, the answer to your question — when does the market open on Sunday? — depends on your particular broker.
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When the market opens on Sunday should strictly be as a point of interest, and most definitely not for trading.
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Clint had a good answer to this question but I’ll try to explain in another way. The FX market technically never closes but there are some major global markets that influence when most retail brokers make trading available. The first major market to open on “Sunday” is Sydney, Australia at 5:00 PM EST (21:00 GMT).
For FXCM, our trading desk opens on Sunday at approximately 5:15 PM ET depending on available liquidity (if there are price providers available quoting enough to fill client orders).
Here’s a list of Market Open times:
The Sunday trading day begins in Sydney, Australia at 5:00 PM ET (21:00 GMT). Two hours later, at 7:00 PM ET (23:00 GMT),Tokyo then opens. Next, Singapore and Hong Kong open at 9:00 PM ET (Monday at 01:00 GMT), followed by the European markets in Frankfurt (02:00 ET / 06:00 GMT) and then London (3:00 AM ET/ 7:00 GMT). By 4:00 AM ET (8:00 GMT) the European markets are in full swing, and Asia has concluded their trading day. The US markets open first in New York around 8:00 AM ET (12:00 GMT) Monday as Europe winds down. By 5:00 PM ET (21:00 GMT) Sydney is ready to re-open.
- Jason
Jason,
I hate to nit-pick your post, but I think some confusion has been introduced into the discussion of “when the retail forex market opens”.
The portion of your post quoted above should read:
“The Sunday trading day begins in Sydney, Australia at 6pm ET (2200 GMT). One hour later, at 7pm ET (2300 GMT), Tokyo then opens. Next, Singapore and Hong Kong open at 8pm ET (midnight GMT), followed by…”
These times are based on an “opening” time of 8am (local time) in each market.
Currently, time zones are: Sydney - AEST (Australian eastern standard time) = GMT+10; Tokyo - JST (Japanese standard time) = GMT+9; Singapore and Hong Kong - SGT (Singapore time) and HKT (Hong Kong time) = GMT+8; and New York - EDT (eastern daylight time) = GMT-4.
The Sydney time zone will change on October 2, and the New York time zone will change on November 6. After these changes have taken place, Sydney will open at 4pm EDT (New York time), Tokyo will open at 6pm EDT, and Singapore and Hong Kong will open at 7pm EDT.
Your point about Australia being the first “major” market to open for the week is well taken. New Zealand (which opens 2 hours ahead of Australia) should be [I]de-emphasized[/I] in this context, because its contribution to daily forex trading volume is tiny compared to the other markets.
Here is the comparison (figures gathered from the BIS Triennial Central Bank Survey, December 2010):
[ul]
[li]New Zealand: [B]9 billion[/B] USD per day (in notional value) is transacted in New Zealand
[/li][li]
[/li][li]Australia: [B]192 billion[/B] USD per day
[/li][li]
[/li][li]Tokyo and Seoul (Japan and Korea are in the same time zone, GMT+9): [B]356 billion[/B] USD per day
[/li][li]
[/li][li]Singapore, Hong Kong, China and Taiwan (these are in the same time zone, GMT+8): [B]542 billion[/B] USD per day
[/li][li]
[/li][li]Europe (the euro zone, Switzerland and South Africa, currently GMT+2): [B]918 billion[/B] USD per day
[/li][li]
[/li][li]London and Dublin (the U.K. and Ireland, currently GMT+1): [B]1,869 billion[/B] USD per day
[/li][li]
[/li][li]New York, Toronto and Mexico City (these are in the same time zone, currently GMT-4): [B]983 billion[/B] USD per day
[/li][/ul]
The 7 markets listed above are listed in geographical order from east to west. This is the order in which they open on a daily (and weekly) basis. Notice the dramatic increase in trading volume from one market to the next, as daybreak moves westward — from the relatively tiny 9 billion USD of New Zealand to the 1,869 billion USD of the London Session (the 600-lb gorilla of the forex market).
I think it would be instructive to have a graphic of these Session volumes, showing how they overlap in a 24-hour trading day. I’m going to work on that.
Good info, thanks!
Looks good Clint! Regarding trading hours, we have no plans to change trading hours and I’ll let you know in advance if trading hours do change.
- Jason
[B]Hi, Jason[/B]
[B]We (you and I) need to synchronize our clocks.[/B]
I have just identified serious errors in my last post. I’ll have to drastically edit the thing — and I’ll do that later today.
But, first, I want to make sure that you and I are using the same criterion for the “opening” of a trading session.
I use 8am, local time, as the “opening” time for retail forex in each market. So, the Australian market opens at 8am, Sydney time; the Tokyo market opens at 8am, Tokyo time; etc. Are you basing your time conversions on 8am, local time, as well?
Using the 8am local time criterion, the Australian market currently opens at 6pm New York time (not 5pm, as you stated in your previous post).
Using the same criterion, beginning October 2 when Australia goes onto daylight saving time, the Australian market will open at 5pm New York time (not 4pm, as I stated in my last post).
Finally, beginning November 6 when the U.S. returns to standard time, the Australian market will open at 4pm New York time (not 3pm, as I stated in my last post).
[B]Please let me know whether you are using 8am local time as the “opening” time for the various markets.[/B]
I hope we haven’t created hopeless confusion for sandpiper7 (the original poster). For my part, I should never attempt to grapple with time zones, or do time conversions, when I’m dead-tired.
[B]sandpiper7,[/B]
You’ve opened a can of worms here, because time zones and time conversions always tend to be a can of worms!
But, hang in there for a bit, we’ll get this straightened out.
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The largest banks in the interbank network do not close over the weekend
But why do quotes begin moving only at 1 pm ET on Sunday ? At the Bloomberg website or at any website which displays interbank rates.
At following link “disallowed” (and many others) they show Sydney opening time same as you have pointed above at 6pm ET (2200 GMT). Since GMT does not have Day Light Saving Time My question is: Does Sydney always open at 22:00 GMT or it will open according to Australian Time zone changes.
In other words is the Forex permanently synchronized to GMT/UTC? or is GMT/UTC a conversion result of the various market time zones?
Hello merlin4x,
GMT/UTC never changes.
Countries which do not observe daylight saving time (DST), maintain a fixed GMT-offset throughout the year. For our purposes, that means all the Asian markets, plus South Africa.
Accordingly, at all times throughout the year, Japan is GMT+9; Singapore, Hong Kong, China and Taiwan are GMT+8; and South Africa is GMT+2.
The other major forex markets adjust to DST twice per year.
Accordingly, during northern hemisphere winter (southern hemisphere summer), New Zealand is GMT+13, southeastern Australia is GMT+11, central Europe is GMT+1, the UK is GMT, and the US is GMT-5.
During northern hemisphere summer (southern hemisphere winter), New Zealand is GMT+12, southeasten Australia is GMT+10, central Europe is GMT+2, the UK is GMT+1, and the US is GMT-4.
That’s confusing enough. But, to make matters worse, most of the countries which observe DST change their clocks on [I]different dates.[/I] That’s why newbies are so baffled by all the time shifts, and why we spend so much time in this forum trying to explain it all.
This will help you: 301 Moved Permanently
Welcome to this forum, by the way.
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Thanks Clint, that is really helpful