Gold Trading Hours: When the XAUUSD Market Opens, Closes and Moves Most

Gold trades almost around the clock from Sunday evening to Friday evening, New York time, with a one-hour pause each day. Knowing the exact gold trading hours matters because the price behaves very differently at 3 a.m. in Asia than it does when London and New York are both open. This guide gives the open, close and daily break in New York, GMT and London time, shows which hours move XAUUSD most, and explains how daylight saving time shifts everything twice a year.

Gold Trading Hours at a Glance

The gold market opens at 6:00 p.m. New York time on Sunday and closes at 5:00 p.m. New York time on Friday, with a daily break from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. New York time. These hours follow the CME Globex schedule for COMEX gold futures, and spot gold CFDs track the same rhythm.

XAUUSD is the symbol for the price of one troy ounce of gold in US dollars, where XAU is the currency-style code for gold. Unlike a share, gold as an investment trades through a global network of dealers and exchanges rather than one venue, which is why the market barely sleeps.

US winter time (Eastern Standard Time) runs from early November to mid-March, and US summer time (Eastern Daylight Time) covers the rest of the year. In 2027 the US is on daylight time from 14 March to 7 November.

Why Gold Trades Nearly 24 Hours a Day

Gold trades nearly 24 hours a day because its main markets sit in different time zones and hand over to one another. Asian trading in centres such as Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo leads into London, the centre of the over-the-counter bullion market, which then overlaps with New York, home of COMEX gold futures.

Spot gold is not traded on a single exchange. Banks and dealers quote it over the counter, and those quotes stay live as long as one of the major centres is open. COMEX futures, which trade on the CME Globex platform, provide the reference price and much of the volume during US hours.

For anyone involved in commodities trading through CFDs, this means gold is available almost every hour of the working week. Tradin, for example, lists gold as tradable 24 hours a day, five days a week. "Available" is not the same as "active", though, and the busiest hours make up a small part of the day.

When Does the Gold Market Open and Close Each Week?

The gold market opens each week on Sunday at 6:00 p.m. New York time, which is 23:00 GMT in the northern winter and 22:00 GMT in the summer. It closes on Friday at 5:00 p.m. New York time, which is 22:00 GMT in winter and 21:00 GMT in summer.

The Sunday open is often thin. Asian dealers are only just arriving, spreads are wider than usual, and any news from the weekend gets priced in at once. That can produce a weekend gap, where gold opens well above or below Friday's closing price.

Weekend gaps matter for anyone holding positions from Friday into Monday. A stop loss cannot fill inside a gap, so a long position stopped at $3,950 when gold opens on Sunday at $3,930 closes near $3,930, a $20 per ounce shortfall or $2,000 on a 1-lot position. Gold CFD hours follow the underlying market, so even the best forex broker cannot quote a price where none trades over the weekend. What a broker controls is how it publishes its session times and how its execution handles the reopening.

How Gold Behaves Before the Friday Close

Gold liquidity drains through Friday afternoon in New York. Once the London session ends and the COMEX settlement has passed, many traders square positions rather than carry weekend risk, and the final hours before the 5:00 p.m. New York close are often thin and choppy.

That thin market can produce sharp, short moves on little volume. Closing or reducing positions before the last hour, rather than in it, usually means a better fill.

The Daily Gold Market Break From 5 to 6 p.m. New York Time

Gold stops trading for one hour each weekday, from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. New York time, while CME Globex closes for its daily maintenance window. In GMT that break runs from 22:00 to 23:00 in US winter and from 21:00 to 22:00 in US summer.

The minutes either side of the break are the least liquid of the day. Spreads on XAUUSD widen noticeably before the pause and again just after trading restarts, and stops placed close to the market can be triggered by a spread spike alone rather than a genuine price move.

The break also lines up with the daily rollover, when overnight swap is charged or paid on open positions. Most CFD symbols apply a triple swap once a week to cover the weekend, and you can see which day in the symbol's specification under the three-day swap setting. Traders who hold gold for weeks at a time and want to avoid swap charges altogether sometimes use a swap-free account, which handles overnight positions differently.

Gold Trading Sessions: Asian, London and New York

Gold trading splits into three sessions that overlap: the Asian session, the London session and the New York session. Each has a different character, and the overlap between London and New York is the busiest stretch of the day.

Session boundaries are not official. They describe when each centre's dealers are at their desks, so treat the times as a guide rather than a timetable.

How Gold Behaves in the Asian Session

The Asian session usually produces gold's narrowest ranges. Volume comes mainly from Chinese, Japanese and other regional buyers, and the price often drifts within the previous New York session's range. Strong Chinese demand or regional news can break that pattern, so a quiet session is common but not guaranteed.

How Gold Behaves in the London Session

The London open, at 8:00 a.m. London time, is when gold liquidity jumps. The London bullion market is the world's main centre for physical gold dealing, and the price often breaks out of the Asian range in the first hours of the session.

When Gold Moves Most: The London and New York Overlap

Gold moves most during the London and New York overlap, from 8:00 a.m. to roughly 12:00 p.m. New York time. In GMT that is 13:00 to 17:00 in winter and 12:00 to 16:00 in summer. Both major centres are active, COMEX futures are trading heavily and the main US economic data comes out inside this window.

Several fixed events cluster in or near the overlap, and each one can move XAUUSD on its own:

The LBMA Gold Price is a benchmark set in two auctions each London business day, at 10:30 and 15:00 London time. The COMEX settlement uses trades in the one-minute window ending at 1:30 p.m. New York time, and activity around that minute can be heavy because many contracts and funds reference the settlement price. "Usually" in the table marks times that shift by an hour during the weeks when US and UK clocks are out of step.

After the COMEX settlement and the London close, gold often quietens through the New York afternoon. The exception is Federal Reserve decision days, when the 2:00 p.m. statement and the press conference that follows can produce the biggest move of the week.

How Daylight Saving Time Changes Gold Trading Hours

Daylight saving time changes gold trading hours in GMT, but not in New York time. The CME schedule is fixed in US Central and Eastern time, so when the US clocks change, every gold session time in GMT moves by one hour.

The UK and US change their clocks on different dates. In 2027, US clocks go forward on 14 March and back on 7 November, while UK clocks go forward on 28 March and back on 31 October. For the two weeks in March and the one week from 31 October to 7 November, London is four hours ahead of New York instead of five.

During those weeks, the gold daily break, the US data releases and the overlap all happen an hour earlier in London time than usual. A trader in London who sets a 13:30 alarm for US data during those weeks will be an hour late. Check the clock change dates every spring and autumn and adjust your plan accordingly.

Finding Gold Trading Hours on MT5

The quickest way to see your exact gold trading hours is the symbol specification in MetaTrader 5. Right-click XAUUSD in Market Watch, choose Specification, and scroll to the Sessions section, which lists the quoting and trading hours for each weekday.

The times shown are in your broker's server time, not your local time. Many MT5 servers run on a time zone a few hours ahead of GMT, and the server time is shown at the top of the Market Watch window. Work out the offset once, write it down, and convert every session time into your own clock.

Here is the conversion in practice. Suppose Market Watch shows a server time of 14:00 when it is 12:00 GMT, so the server runs two hours ahead. A gold session listed as starting at 01:00 server time begins at 23:00 GMT the previous evening, and a daily stop listed at 23:59 server time falls at 21:59 GMT. Some servers also shift their own clock with US daylight saving, so repeat the check after each clock change.

The same specification window shows the contract size, the minimum lot, the swap rates and the three-day swap day. Reading it before your first gold trade answers most questions about how XAUUSD behaves on your account.

Gold Trading Hours Around Holidays

Gold trading hours change around major holidays, and the changes follow the exchanges and banks behind the price. US holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day usually bring shortened or closed CME sessions, and LBMA auctions do not run on weekends or UK bank holidays.

Brokers publish their own adjusted hours for each holiday, and those schedules can differ from the exchange schedule by an hour or so. Check your broker's holiday notice for each date rather than assuming last year's times apply.

Holiday sessions are thin even when gold is open. Spreads widen, gaps are more common, and a large order can move the price more than usual. Many experienced traders reduce size or stay out on those days.

Best Times to Trade Gold for Different Trading Styles

The best time to trade gold depends on your style, because different sessions suit different approaches. Short-term traders who need movement and tight spreads usually focus on the London open and the London and New York overlap.

Range traders sometimes prefer the Asian session, when gold often oscillates between well-defined levels with smaller swings. The trade-off is that a sudden break can catch range positions badly, and spreads are typically a little wider than in peak hours.

Swing traders care less about the exact hour of entry and more about the daily and weekly closes, the Sunday reopening gap and scheduled events. For them, the most useful habit is checking the economic calendar each Sunday for US data, Federal Reserve meetings and holidays in the week ahead.

Choosing Your Gold Trading Hours

Gold trades from Sunday 6:00 p.m. to Friday 5:00 p.m. New York time with a daily break from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., and the hours to watch most closely are the London open and the London and New York overlap. Convert those times into your own clock using the GMT figures above, and redo the conversion whenever the US or UK changes its clocks.

Pick the session that fits your style, avoid the thin minutes around the daily break and the weekly open, and check holiday schedules before they arrive. Gold is open almost all week, but the hours you choose to trade it decide a large part of how it behaves for you.