Which markets are awake
Spot forex has no exchange and no opening bell. It is banks in four time zones handing the book to each other, and the hour you trade in changes what a spread costs and how far a price will run.
09:00 UTC
London
London is dealing. Spreads are tight and this is where European sessions usually set direction.
Thin. The week starts here, and gaps from weekend news show up first.
Where the yen trades. USD/JPY does much of its real business before Europe wakes.
The deepest session in FX. Spreads are at their tightest and trends often set here.
US data lands at the open. Gold and the dollar move most in the first two hours.
Times are UTC and the windows are the conventional ones — they shift by an hour around daylight-saving changes, which the four regions make on different weekends. Spot FX closes Friday 21:00 UTC and reopens Sunday 21:00 UTC; bitcoin and ether trade through the weekend, more thinly.
Why the hour changes what a trade costs
A spread is what it costs to cross from the bid to the ask, and that cost is set by how many banks are competing to fill you. During the London–New York overlap there are a great many; at 03:00 UTC there are very few. The instrument has not changed — the market around it has.
This is why the same stop loss behaves differently at different times of day. A stop placed ten pips from price is comfortable in London and precarious in the gap between New York closing and Tokyo opening, when a single order can move the price further than it would move in an hour of normal trading.
It is also why the advice to “trade the London open” is half right. Liquidity is genuinely better and spreads genuinely tighter, but the same hours carry the volatility, and a beginner who moves to them without reducing size has increased both sides of the equation.
What is scheduled next
The hour matters most around a release. These are the next few, from each institution’s own published calendar.
- TodayUS jobs report (nonfarm payrolls)12:30 UTC
- In 6 daysECB rate decision12:15 UTC
- Next weekUS inflation (CPI)12:30 UTC
- Next weekFOMC decision and projections18:00 UTC
Common questions
- When is the forex market open?
- Spot FX trades continuously from Sunday 21:00 UTC to Friday 21:00 UTC. It is not one exchange with opening bells — it is banks in different time zones handing the book to each other, which is why "sessions" are a convention rather than a timetable.
- What is the best time to trade?
- The deepest liquidity is when London and New York overlap, roughly 12:00 to 16:00 UTC. Spreads are tightest and the largest moves usually happen there. Deepest is not the same as easiest: the same hours carry the most news and the sharpest reversals.
- Why do spreads widen at night?
- Fewer banks are quoting, so there is less competition to fill your order. Between the New York close and the Tokyo open there may be very little on the other side, and a stop placed close to price is at its most vulnerable then.
- Do these hours shift with daylight saving?
- Yes, by an hour, and not all at once — the United States, Europe, the United Kingdom and Australia change on different weekends. The windows here are the conventional ones and are approximate around those dates.
- Can I trade crypto at the weekend?
- Bitcoin and ether trade through it. Liquidity is thinner, so moves that would be absorbed on a Wednesday can run further on a Sunday — and a position left open over the weekend cannot be managed if you are not watching it.
- What happens to my open position when the market closes on Friday?
- It stays open and reprices when trading resumes on Sunday evening. If news breaks over the weekend, the reopening price can be some distance from Friday’s close, and a stop between the two is filled at the reopening price rather than at your level.
The other tools
Pip value calculator
Work out what one pip is worth in dollars on EUR/USD, GBP/USD, USD/JPY, gold and crypto, for any position size — with the arithmetic shown, not hidden.
Margin calculator
How much margin a position requires at 1:1 to 100:1 leverage, on forex, gold and crypto CFDs. Shows the position value as well as the margin, because the two are not the same thing.
Position size calculator
Work the position size backwards from what you are prepared to lose: account balance, risk percentage and stop distance in, lots out. Rounds down, never up.
Profit and loss calculator
What a trade makes or loses at a given exit, long or short, in dollars and in pips — for forex, gold and crypto CFDs. Costs are excluded and the page says why.
Economic calendar
Central bank decisions and the data releases that move these markets, with the date, the time in UTC and the official source.