The forex markets open each week starting in Australia and New Zealand on Monday morning (9am in Wellington, or UTC+13) when it is technically still 4pm on Sunday afternoon in New York (UTC-4). As the sun rises and then moves westward, other financial centers in the Asia-Pacific region – such as Japan and Hong Kong – follow. Europe and London are next, with New York opening last as the furthest-west market – that session ends at 5pm EST. At that point, rollover occurs. Markets are usually thin (or even paused) for up to an hour. This 24-hour cycle repeats itself each day until Friday afternoon in New York, when markets close for the weekend. It all starts over again the following week. Pro Tip: When veteran forex traders refer to the time of day within the forex daily schedule, you’ll usually hear them grouped into four trading “sessions.” Some of these sessions overlap each other as they transition from one to the next, as can been observed in the table below (which assumes DST is in effect): The Sydney Session (trading week starts in New Zealand and then Australia) 7am - 4pm AEDT (UTC+11) The Tokyo Session (also referred to as the Asian session) - 9am - 6pm JST (UTC+9) The London Session (includes Europe and Africa) - 8am - 5pm BST (UTC+1) The New York session (for the Americas) - 8am - 5pm* EDT (UTC-4) (Except on Friday when most forex markets close at 4pm EST to prevent rollover). Weekend trading: As more brokers start to offer cryptocurrency trading on weekends, we are starting to see limited forex trading sessions available on Saturdays. However, markets remain thin (and potentially volatile) during those times, and as the full global markets remain closed over the weekend, those times are generally best avoided.