How Markets Work · Beginner · 5 min

Trading hours, time zones, holidays

You can read trading hours across time zones and explain why prices behave differently at the open, the close and outside regular hours.

Markets sleep

Not every market is open when you are. A share in New York cannot trade on its main exchange at nine in the morning in Berlin. A currency pair trades through the night. A crypto coin trades on Christmas Day.

Every market runs on its own trading session, its own time zone and its own holiday calendar. Knowing them saves you from orders that wait for hours, prices that jump overnight, and the surprise of a market that is simply closed.

Hours, zones and holidays

Exchanges trade at fixed hours in their local time. Two examples:

Xetra, Deutsche Börse's trading venue in Frankfurt, trades Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 17:30 Central European Time.
The New York Stock Exchange trades its core session from 9:30 to 16:00 New York time. In Central European winter time that is 15:30 to 22:00.

Some markets never really stop. The currency market trades around the clock on weekdays, as trading moves from Asia to Europe to America. Most crypto platforms trade 24 hours a day, every day.

Many exchanges open and close with an auction: for a few minutes, orders are collected and then matched at one price that clears as many of them as possible. The opening and closing prices on a chart usually come from these auctions.

Outside the core session, some exchanges and brokers offer extended hours, such as pre-market trading in the morning or late trading in the evening. Fewer participants are active then. The SEC points out that extended-hours trading tends to come with wider spreads, larger price swings and sometimes no quotes at all.

Time zones shift too. Europe and the United States change to and from daylight saving time on different dates, so for a few weeks each spring and autumn the gap between them is one hour smaller than usual. And every exchange publishes its own holiday calendar: on a US holiday, New York is closed while Frankfurt may be open.

News that waits for nobody

A fictional US company reports strong results after the New York close. Its share closed at 60.40.

Through the evening and night, the news spreads. Buyers who want the share can only trade in extended hours, at thin volumes and wide spreads.
The next morning, the regular session opens with an auction at 63.20, almost 5% above the previous close.
On a daily chart, the jump shows up as a gap: no trading took place between 60.90, the previous day's high, and 62.80, the new day's low.

For anyone in the market, the move happened while the main session was closed. Someone who had bet on falling prices, with an order to buy back at 61, would have been filled near 63.20 instead, a topic for the lessons on gaps and order types.

Common mistakes

Forgetting the time zone. An order for a US share placed in the European morning usually waits until New York opens.
Ignoring the daylight saving switch. For a few weeks a year, US markets open an hour earlier or later in European time than usual.
Trading the first minutes without a plan. The open is often the most hectic part of the day, with wide spreads and fast moves.
Assuming a holiday is a holiday everywhere. Each exchange has its own calendar. Check it before you plan around a date.

The takeaway

Know when your market opens, closes and rests. The edges of the trading day are where prices jump and spreads widen.

Check yourself

Quick quiz

4 questions. Instant feedback, nothing is saved.

1Tap the session of the New York Stock Exchange.

Tap the chart.

The NYSE core session runs from 9:30 to 16:00 New York time, which is 15:30 to 22:00 in Central European winter time.
2The NYSE trades from 9:30 to 16:00 New York time. What is that in Central European time in winter?

In winter, Central European time is six hours ahead of New York. For a few weeks around the clock changes the gap is five hours.
3Why are spreads often wider outside regular trading hours?

With fewer participants, the order book is thinner. Spreads widen and prices can jump.
4A US holiday falls on a weekday. What happens to US stock exchanges?

Each exchange publishes its own holiday calendar. Markets in other countries may be open on the same day.

of 4 correct.