Official market hours - spot forex

[JTrader]

Hi

Oanda seem to opeate from 2100 sunday through 2100 friday - UK time.

ALpari & GFT (SB) operate 2300 sunday through 2200 friday - UK time.

CMC operate sunday 2000 UK time, till friday 2200 UK time.

Therefore different spot forex brokers do have slightly different market hours sunday through friday.

I'd like to know what the "official" underlying interbank spot forex market hours are sunday through friday, if such a thing exists.

Things kick off in NZ at 0800 Monday (= 2000 sunday in the UK). So I think 2000 sunday through 2200 (NY close) friday are the "official" hours. http://www.cmcmarkets.com/us/en/content/forex/top_misconceptions_of_forex.jsp

Anyway, regardless of minor variations in operating hours, i think the main thing is to be aware of your broker and your charting providers hours of operation sunday through friday, and base decisions around these two factors.

Many thanks.

 

[Rhody Trader]

I'd like to know what the "official" underlying interbank spot forex market hours are sunday through friday, if such a thing exists.

It doesn't exist. As with all OTC markets the market hours are whenever you can get someone to execute your trade.

As you noted, you just need to base what you do on your broker and/or charting package timeframes.

 

[Rhody Trader]

Not entirely true - there are official interbank times, as these are used to determine what the serious wholesale (i.e. Reuters, Bloomberg etc) providers etc. take as the day's range (as well as for more mundane stuff like determining when the value date ticks over to the new date on automated trading systems like Reuters D2000, EBS etc.

Weekly Close has always traditionally been 17:00 ET on the Friday, but I can never remember exactly what is used for the Sunday night (our time)/ Monday morning (Kiwi / Asia time) Weekly open (as I never worked that time in my life, although I have been around plenty of times for the NY close).

You're right that from an inter-bank perspective where the big boys play, 5pm Eastern is the generally accepted end-of-day. When you consider that the deals are OTC, though, they can and sometimes do get set based on all different times, like 5pm in the timezone of the parties involved. That, of course, really doesn't mean anything to most retail traders, though.

I know what you mean about the opens. I can't ever remember any official time. It seems like traders all tend to come in to the office at about 7am, but the real action doesn't ramp up (unless there's something big going on) until about 8am local time.