US30 and NAS100 Trading Hours: Cash Session vs CFD Session Explained

The US30 and NAS100 have two sets of trading hours: the cash session, when the stocks inside the Dow and the Nasdaq-100 trade on Wall Street, and the much longer CFD session, which runs almost around the clock from Sunday evening to Friday evening. Knowing which session you are trading in changes how the price behaves, what drives it and how wide the spread is. This guide lays out US30 and NAS100 trading hours in New York and GMT time, explains why index CFDs keep trading after Wall Street closes, and shows how daylight saving time moves every session twice a year.

US30 and NAS100 Trading Hours at a Glance

The US30 and NAS100 cash session runs from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. New York time, Monday to Friday. Index CFDs, which follow the US index futures market, trade from Sunday 6:00 p.m. to Friday 5:00 p.m. New York time, with a daily pause around 5:00 p.m. New York time.

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. Index CFD providers set their own exact start and end times around this schedule, so the CFD session on your platform can open or close a few minutes, or up to an hour, differently from the futures market.

What US30 and NAS100 Track

US30 is the common CFD name for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, a price-weighted index of 30 large US companies. NAS100 is the common CFD name for the Nasdaq-100 index, which tracks the largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange, weighted by market value and dominated by technology names.

Platforms use different symbols for the same markets. The Dow appears as US30, DJ30 or WS30, and the Nasdaq-100 as NAS100, US100 or USTEC. The underlying index is identical; only the label changes, so check the symbol description in your platform before you trade.

For anyone getting into indices trading, the key point is that an index CFD is a contract that tracks the index price. You never own the 30 or 100 shares inside it. That is why the CFD can keep trading when the stock exchanges themselves are closed.

Cash Session vs CFD Session: The Difference

The cash session is the period when the shares inside the index actually trade on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. New York time. The CFD session is the period when your broker quotes the index CFD, which is far longer because the CFD price can be derived from index futures that trade nearly 24 hours a day.

In CFD trading, a contract for difference lets you exchange the difference between the opening and closing price of a market without owning the underlying asset. During the cash session, US30 and NAS100 CFDs move in line with the live index calculated from the constituent shares. Outside it, the official index value stops updating, and the CFD follows the futures market instead.

This difference explains a pattern that confuses many new index traders. The NAS100 CFD on your chart moves all night, yet financial news reports that the Nasdaq-100 "closed at" a fixed number. Both are correct: the cash index closed at 4:00 p.m., while the futures and the CFD kept trading.

Why Index CFDs Trade When Wall Street Is Closed

Index CFDs trade when Wall Street is closed because their prices can be taken from US index futures on CME Globex, which trade from Sunday evening to Friday evening with only a short daily break. The E-mini Dow and E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures carry overnight reactions to Asian and European news, US economic data released before the open, and company earnings released after the close.

How a CFD provider builds its out-of-hours price, which hours it quotes and how its spreads behave overnight all vary from one provider to another. Whichever regulated forex broker you use for index CFDs, the session times and contract terms in its specification are the ones that govern your trades, not the exchange's.

Liquidity is the catch. The overnight futures market is active but far thinner than the cash session, so index CFD spreads usually widen outside 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. New York time, and a single headline can move the price sharply.

Cash Index CFDs vs Futures-Based Index CFDs

There are two kinds of index CFD, and they handle time differently. A cash index CFD, sometimes called a spot index CFD, has no expiry date and tracks the cash index level; holding it overnight usually incurs a daily swap. A futures-based index CFD tracks a specific futures contract, expires when that contract does, and carries no daily financing charge because the cost is built into the futures price.

That built-in cost is called the basis, and it explains why futures-based CFDs trade above the cash index most of the time. Roughly, the futures price equals the cash index plus interest over the period to expiry, minus the dividends paid by the index's shares over the same period.

Here is a worked example with round numbers. Suppose the Nasdaq-100 cash index stands at 25,000, interest rates are 4% a year, the futures contract expires in 60 days and the index yields about 0.7% in dividends.

Interest adds 25,000 × 0.04 × 60 ÷ 365, or about 164 points. Dividends subtract 25,000 × 0.007 × 60 ÷ 365, or about 29 points. The fair futures price is therefore around 25,135, roughly 135 points above the cash index, and that gap shrinks toward zero as expiry approaches.

What Happens at the US Market Open at 9:30 a.m. New York Time

The 9:30 a.m. New York open is usually the most volatile moment of the US index trading day. Orders that built up overnight hit the market at once, opening auctions set the first price for each stock, and US30 and NAS100 often move more in the first 15 to 30 minutes than in the next two hours.

The open frequently starts with a gap between the previous 4:00 p.m. close and the first trades of the day. On the CFD chart, which traded overnight, this gap is usually much smaller than on the cash index, because the CFD has already moved with the futures. The cash index, however, jumps straight to the new level.

Spreads on index CFDs also behave differently around the open. They often widen briefly in the seconds before 9:30 a.m. and then tighten as the cash market's liquidity arrives. Placing tight stops in that first minute risks being caught by the spread rather than by price.

Pre-Market and After-Hours: How US30 and NAS100 React Outside the Cash Session

US30 and NAS100 CFDs react to pre-market and after-hours news before the cash index can. The two biggest drivers outside the cash session are US economic data at 8:30 a.m. New York time and company earnings released after the 4:00 p.m. close.

Earnings matter more for NAS100 than for US30. The Nasdaq-100 is dominated by a handful of very large technology companies, and when one of them reports after the close, its shares move in after-hours trading and the NAS100 CFD moves with the futures. A strong or weak report from a single giant can move the whole index by more than 1% before the next day's open.

Traders who prefer to trade the reporting companies directly can do so through stock CFDs during the cash session. On the index, the after-hours reaction is the first sign of how the next cash open will look, but thin liquidity means the overnight move often gets partly reversed once the full market opens at 9:30 a.m.

The Daily Index CFD Break and the Weekly Open and Close

US index futures pause every weekday from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. New York time, and index CFDs pause around the same window. In GMT that is 22:00 to 23:00 in US winter and 21:00 to 22:00 in US summer.

Many CFD providers stop quoting index CFDs a little before the futures break and resume shortly after it. Tradin, for example, lists US30 and US100 with hours of 23:00 to 21:15 GMT, and notes that index hours can change with holidays and daylight saving time. That leaves a short gap each evening when no index CFD price is available.

The weekly open on Sunday evening carries gap risk. News over the weekend gets priced in when futures reopen at 6:00 p.m. New York time, and a NAS100 position held from Friday can open well away from its closing price. A stop loss inside the gap fills at the first available price, not at its level.

How Daylight Saving Time Shifts US Index Trading Hours

Daylight saving time shifts US index trading hours in GMT but not in New York time. The cash session always runs from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. New York time, so it starts at 14:30 GMT in winter and 13:30 GMT in summer.

In 2027 the US is on daylight saving time from 14 March to 7 November, while the UK is on summer time from 28 March to 31 October. During the gaps between those dates, London is four hours ahead of New York instead of five. In those weeks, the US open falls at 13:30 London time instead of 14:30, and US data at 8:30 a.m. New York time lands at 12:30 London time.

Traders in Europe, Asia and the Middle East get caught by this every year. If your trading plan is written in GMT or your local time, recalculate the US open and close each time either country changes its clocks.

Best Times to Trade US30 and NAS100

The best times to trade US30 and NAS100 are the first two hours after the 9:30 a.m. New York open and the final hour before the 4:00 p.m. close. Those windows have the deepest liquidity, the tightest spreads and the largest moves of the cash session.

The middle of the New York day, roughly 11:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., is often slower, with smaller ranges. The final hour picks up again as funds rebalance and closing orders arrive. Days with a Federal Reserve decision are an exception, because the 2:00 p.m. statement can dominate the whole afternoon.

US Index Trading Hours on Holidays and Early Closes

US index trading hours change on US market holidays and early-close days. The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq close on holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas Day and New Year's Day, and close early at 1:00 p.m. New York time on certain days, such as the day after Thanksgiving.

Index futures and CFDs often trade a shortened session on those holidays rather than closing completely. Volume is thin, spreads widen and the price can drift or jump on small orders. Brokers publish their own holiday schedules for each date, and those can differ from the exchange schedule.

The safest habit is to check your broker's holiday notice a few days before each US holiday. Never assume that the schedule you saw last year still applies.

Checking US30 and NAS100 Session Times on MT5

You can see exact US30 and NAS100 trading hours in MT5 through the symbol specification. Right-click the index in Market Watch, choose Specification and scroll to the Sessions section, which shows quoting and trading hours for each day of the week.

Those times are in the broker's server time. Compare the server time shown at the top of Market Watch with GMT to find the offset, then convert the session times into your own clock. Repeat the check after each daylight saving change.

The specification also shows the contract size, the value of one point, the minimum volume and the swap rates. Index CFD contract sizes vary widely between providers, so a 100-point NAS100 move can be worth very different amounts on two platforms with the same lot size.

Planning Trades Around the Cash and CFD Sessions

US30 and NAS100 trade almost 24 hours a day as CFDs, but the cash session from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. New York time is where most of the real volume, the tightest spreads and the biggest moves happen. The overnight CFD session reacts to futures, earnings and global news, with thinner liquidity and wider spreads.

Write your session times down in your own time zone, recheck them every spring and autumn, and check holiday schedules ahead of time. Treat the open, the close and the major data releases as the scheduled events they are, and size positions for the wider spreads and gaps that come with trading outside the cash session.