Trading Hours - The foreign exchange market trades 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. This is from 5pm New York (ET) on Sunday through to 5pm New York on Friday. Global Prime quotes on most Forex pairs from the open on Sunday through to the close on Friday. The daily break time of Forex is 23:59-00:01 server time. During this time you are unable to trade. Prices are generally wide and erratic from the low liquidity arising from the end of day processes at all the major trading banks across the world.

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To align the daily chart candles with New York close (5pm ET), Global Prime server time and charts are GMT + 2 or GMT + 3 when daylight savings is in effect.

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The market hours for indices follows the underlying market from which they are based. For instance, US500 will follow the NYSE market hours whereas the ASX will follow the Australian market hours. For more information Market Hours  page.

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Trading outside of market hours generally results in high spreads and increased volatility. This is primarily due to there being less liquidity available in the market during these times. Further, in the case of indices or commodity futures, these products are priced as fair value estimates of the futures underlying markets. Accordingly, after the underlying market closes, LP’s have to formulate a price that represents where the underlying market would be if it was still operating. During these times, there is nowhere for LP’s to hedge their exposure so to account for the increased risk, they must increase spreads to offset their exposure.

Generally speaking, times that involve increased spreads and scarce liquidity are indicative of a more volatile trading environment that carries an increased risk level.

Yes they do, these times are typically GMT +2 for non-daylight savings, and GMT+3 during the daylight savings period.