Trading hours in gold trading

Trading hours for spot gold and COMEX gold futures run almost around the clock on weekdays: from the Sunday open at about 6 p.m. New York time to the Friday close at 5 p.m., with a daily pause of about one hour starting at 5 p.m. New York time. Retail CFD platforms follow a similar schedule, sometimes with a slightly longer break.

How it applies to gold trading

Gold’s day is divided into three sessions: Asia (Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai), London and New York. Activity is lowest in the late New York afternoon and early Asian hours, rises at the London open, and peaks during the London-New York overlap. Knowing the schedule in your own time zone is the starting point for choosing when to trade, when to avoid entries and when spreads will be wide.

Holidays and daylight saving shifts change the schedule. The platform’s specification shows the exact sessions for the symbol.

Worked example

Example (hypothetical numbers): a trader in Sydney (AEDT, GMT+11) wants to trade the London open and the NFP release. London opens at 8:00 a.m. GMT, which is 7:00 p.m. in Sydney. NFP at 8:30 a.m. New York time (GMT-5 in winter) is 13:30 GMT, or 12:30 a.m. the next day in Sydney.

A common mistake

Assuming gold trades at weekends because some prices appear on websites. Those are indications; the market for trading is closed from Friday evening to Sunday evening.

See also: Daily break, Server time, Holiday hours, London-New York overlap.

Frequently asked questions