Can we trade at night and on weekends?
Online trading has more and more enthusiasts. However, all traders, amateurs or professionals are not necessarily available at the same time as the main financial centres, traditionally between 9am and 5pm.
Can we trade at night and on weekends?
Just to add to Carlo’s already comprehensive response let me put in my two-penny worth if I may.
The short and simple answer, is ‘yes’ to the former (night) with a very limited ‘yes’ to the latter (weekends) – although this needs to be qualified by several relevant points.
The first and foremost impact is dependent on where you are located and which market(s) you intend to get involved in.
During the weekdays there are natural overlaps between the world markets and, with reference to this pretty comprehensive listing of the world’s formalised stock exchanges, if you are based in the UK you will see that you could in theory, should you so desire, trade your heart out for up to twenty three hours a day in the open markets.
The previous answer has covered weekend working hours with a specific Forex platform (there are a few others to find if you hunt around).
So, yes – you could trade 24/7, apart from various brief interruptions by national public holidays (if you were crazy!).
But why would you want to?
Now that I work for myself I tend to trade for only two to three hours a day for up to five days a week – this schedule allows me to keep focused, efficient and productive with some time to dedicate to my all important homework (AKA due diligence). Thankfully, the grindstone of The City hours is long gone.
Remember that there is no ‘best time’ of day to trade, despite what many may advise.
If you think about it logically, if there were that would mean that every trader knew this (or eventually would learn it) and we would all be buying and selling at the same time thereby flattening the market for this period, completely negating this so-called ‘best time’ and creating an alternative false ‘window of opportunity’.
In closing I’d just add that this sort of trading should be a case of each to his own – it is best to establish trading hours that work best with the strategies you are applying, or vice versa (build a strategy around the times of day you can work the markets).
Oh, and finally, try and enjoy it!