Forex Trading Times for South Africans

The Forex market trading time is actually 24 hours a day from 5pm EST on Sunday until 4pm EST Friday. The reason being that currencies are always in high demand 24/7. The international scope of currency trading means that there are always traders worldwide who are buying and selling a particular currency. The best Forex trading times from South Africa will be:

The four major Forex market trading sessions are as follows (all in  SA Time)

1. New York (USA) opens 14:00 PM to 22:00 PM the same day.

2. Tokyo (Japan) opens 01:00 AM to 09:00 AM the next day.

3. Perth (Australia) opens 11:00 AM to 07:00 AM the next day.

4. London (Britain) opens 9:00 AM to 17:00 PM the same day.

Normally the best times to trade is at the start of the trading session e.g. the first 3-5 hours of the above mentioned opening times, because the major currency pairs tend to move the most in a particular trend or direction in this time band.

Especially when new economic news is due to be released. We have found that the best trading time is between 3 AM and 11 AM EST. The New York and London trading sessions overlap between 7 and 11 am EST. which results in higher volatility and more trading opportunities with bigger moves in these four hours of trading.

Currency pairs that normally move the most during these 3-5 hours are the USD/CHF, followed by the GBP/USD, the EUR/USD and then the USD/JPY.

To trade in this particular time band you can use the following sources to help you determine and convert the estimated time for South Africa or your own time zone:

• http://www.worldtimezone.com
• http://timeanddate.com/worldclock
• http://www.mapmaker.com/ (We have found this the best to use. You can download this program to your desktop and set it to your local time.)

Important: Before starting your trading day and entering your first trade, always check and note the support/resistance, trend (bullish or bearish), trading range, target highs and lows and economic news release times that can impact your trades.