The forex market trades around the clock from Sunday evening to Friday evening, New York time: it opens at about 5 PM New York on Sunday and closes at 5 PM New York on Friday. Each day passes through four main sessions, Sydney, Tokyo, London and New York, and the busiest stretch for the major pairs is usually the London and New York overlap, from 8 AM to noon New York time. On a WhitePips CFD account without the Weekend Holding add-on, anything still open at 4:45 PM New York on Friday is closed by the system.
Session times are conventions, not official hours. No bell rings in London at 8 AM, and different sources shift each session by an hour or so. What follows uses the common local-time conventions, gives the UTC equivalents and flags where daylight saving moves them. The forex market hours tool shows the sessions in your own time zone.
What are the four forex trading sessions?
- Sydney: about 7 AM to 4 PM Sydney time. That is 21:00 to 06:00 UTC while Sydney is on standard time, roughly April to October, and 20:00 to 05:00 UTC in the Australian summer.
- Tokyo: about 9 AM to 6 PM Tokyo time, which is 00:00 to 09:00 UTC all year, because Japan does not change its clocks.
- London: about 8 AM to 5 PM London time: 07:00 to 16:00 UTC in British Summer Time and 08:00 to 17:00 UTC in winter.
- New York: about 8 AM to 5 PM New York time: 12:00 to 21:00 UTC while US daylight time is in force and 13:00 to 22:00 UTC in winter.
Each session has its own character. Pairs that include the yen and the Australian and New Zealand dollars tend to be most active in the Sydney and Tokyo hours. Euro, sterling and Swiss franc pairs usually pick up at the London open. The New York morning brings the scheduled US data releases, many of them at 8:30 AM New York.
How does daylight saving change session times?
The US, the UK and Australia change their clocks on different dates, and Japan does not change at all:
- The US moves to daylight time on the second Sunday in March and back on the first Sunday in November.
- The UK and the rest of Europe move on the last Sunday in March and the last Sunday in October.
- Sydney moves the other way: to daylight time on the first Sunday in October and back on the first Sunday in April.
For most of the year London is five hours ahead of New York. In the few weeks between the US and UK changes, in March and again around the turn of October and November, the gap is four hours, and every session time quoted in London or UTC terms shifts by an hour against New York. The WhitePips deadlines are set in New York time, so they stay put on a New York clock; their UTC and London equivalents are what move.
When is the London and New York overlap?
The overlap runs from the New York open to the London close: 8 AM to noon New York time, which is 1 PM to 5 PM in London. In UTC it is 12:00 to 16:00 in the northern summer and 13:00 to 17:00 in winter. In the weeks when only one side has changed its clocks, it runs an hour longer by these conventions.
For EURUSD, GBPUSD and the other major pairs this is usually the deepest and most active part of the day: both financial centres are open, US data lands inside it, and spreads on the majors tend to be at their tightest. The shorter overlaps, Sydney with Tokyo and Tokyo with London, matter more for yen and Australian dollar pairs.
Activity cuts both ways on a funded account. A busy market fills orders more cleanly, but it also moves further in a given time, so a stop distance that suits EURUSD in the Tokyo hours can be too tight for the New York morning. Sizing from the stop, as the position size calculator does, keeps the dollar risk the same when the distance changes.
When does the forex market open and close each week?
The week opens at about 5 PM New York on Sunday, which is already Monday morning in Sydney and Wellington, and closes at 5 PM New York on Friday. In UTC both ends fall at 21:00 while US daylight time is in force and at 22:00 in winter. Spreads often widen for a few minutes just after the Sunday open and around the daily rollover, when liquidity is thin.
Not every CFD keeps forex hours. Index, energy and metal CFDs follow the hours of their underlying markets, often with a daily break, and crypto CFDs can trade at times when forex is shut, depending on the server. Each symbol's specification in MT5 lists its trading sessions, and it is worth reading for anything you trade outside the main forex hours.
Two times inside the week matter on a WhitePips CFD account. The trading day runs from 17:00 to 17:00 New York, so the Max Daily Loss is measured from the previous day's closing balance at 17:00 New York, not from your local midnight. Separately, positions held through the daily rollover, which forex conventionally places at 5 PM New York, may be charged swaps, unless the account has the Swap-Free add-on. On most forex symbols one weekday's swap, usually Wednesday's, is charged three times to cover the weekend; the symbol's specification shows the day. The post on the daily loss limit and the hour it resets explains why the rollover catches people out.
What happens at 4:45 PM New York on a Friday?
Weekend holding is an add-on on every WhitePips CFD plan, chosen when the account is bought. On an account without it, every position must be closed by 4:45 PM New York time on Friday, fifteen minutes before the weekly close. Anything still open then, or opened after the deadline before the market reopens, is closed by the system at the prevailing price, in the evaluation and once funded.
- The first time is a warning. The positions are closed, the account stays open and trading continues.
- The second time closes the account.
- With the Weekend Holding add-on, nothing happens at 4:45 PM and positions stay open into the new week.
Without the add-on, a reminder email arrives within the hour before the deadline. In UTC the deadline is 20:45 while US daylight time is in force and 21:45 in winter. In London that is 9:45 PM for most of the year and 8:45 PM in the weeks when the two countries' clocks are out of step.
Holding over the weekend, where it is allowed, carries its own risk: the market can reopen on Sunday well away from Friday's close, and a stop can be filled at a worse price than it was set at. The add-ons and gap risk are covered in weekend holding and swaps.
When do futures positions close?
Futures accounts work on the exchange clock rather than the forex one. The session runs from Sunday 5:00 PM to Friday 4:00 PM Chicago time (CT), with a break from 4:00 PM to 5:00 PM CT each day. On every WhitePips futures plan, positions are not held overnight or over the weekend: anything still open at 3:55 PM CT, which is 4:55 PM New York, is closed by the system, five minutes before the daily close, and on Friday before the weekend.
That close is not a breach, and no add-on changes it. Trading can start again when the next session opens at 5:00 PM CT. Chicago and New York change their clocks on the same dates, so 3:55 PM CT is always 4:55 PM New York: 20:55 UTC in the US summer and 21:55 UTC in winter. The futures plans carry the full rules.
Do the news rules depend on the session?
Not directly, but scheduled releases cluster in particular sessions, so it helps to know the rules. On WhitePips CFD accounts news trading is allowed at every stage. The one practice the risk desk reviews is straddling: opening positions in both directions on the same or a correlated instrument within 15 minutes either side of a high-impact release, to catch the spike. A position taken on a genuine view, before or after a release, is fine.
On futures, the One Step evaluation has no news restriction. Once funded, and on Instant from day one, no trade may be opened or closed from 2 minutes before to 2 minutes after a high-impact USD release, on any instrument; a position opened before the window may be held through it. With so many US releases at 8:30 AM New York, that window often falls in the first hour of the New York session. The exact wording is in the trading rules.