You have probably heard that online markets are open 24 hours a day, but that doesn't mean they are active the entire time.
For this reason, it is important to understand trading sessions.
A trading session is a period of time in which the markets of a given locale are active.
Each market, such as Forex and Stocks, has different characteristics that define their trading sessions for any given day, and their active hours differ from country to country due to the difference in time zones.
Here is a list of the main trading session hours:
Forex:
Open 24 hours a day, from Sunday 9:00 pm to Friday 9pm (UTC)
Sydney session: 9:00 pm to 6:00 am UTC
Tokyo (Asian) session: 12:00 am to 9:00 am UTC
London (European) session: 7:00 am to 4:00 pm UTC
New York (North American) session: 1:00 pm to 10:00 pm UTC
US Stocks:
Open 5 days a week (excluding weekends)
From 1:30 pm to 8:00 pm UTC
Energies:
UKOIL (Brent): 5 days a week (excluding weekends) from 00:00 am to 9:00 pm UTC
USOIL (WTI): open daily from 12:00 am to 9:00 pm and 10:00 pm to 12:00 am, Sunday from 10:00 pm to 24:00 am UTC
NGAS (Natural Gas|): open daily from 12:00 am to 9:00 pm and 10:00 pm to 12:00 am, Friday 12:00 am to 9:00 pm, Sunday 10:00 pm to 12:00, UTC
Commodities:
Open 5 days a week (excluding weekends)
From 8:45 am to 5:25 pm UTC
* Markets take a 5 minute break every night at 9:00 pm UTC for rollover. They resume at 9:05 pm.
* Trading hours may be affected by holidays such as Christmas and New Year's day
* Trading hours may vary during Daylight Savings Time
💡Tip
Many traders prefer to focus on the 3 peak trading sessions rather than trade the forex market 24 hours a day. This is called the forex 3-session system and consists of the Tokyo, London, and New York sessions.