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Trade from a timetable copied online and the opening minutes can quickly catch you with a wider spread than expected or leave an order waiting on Sunday for a market your broker has not opened yet. This guide settles the four session times on a UK clock, keeps winter and summer separate, explains why different Sunday-open and Friday-close answers circulate, and shows what changes during the weeks when the UK and US alter their clocks on different dates. In normal aligned weeks, the UK times are GMT (winter): Sunday 22:00 to Friday 22:00; BST (summer): Sunday 22:00 to Friday 22:00, with continuous trading in between as Sydney, Tokyo, London and New York rotate in that order. During the short UK–US clock-change gaps, the New York-based weekly boundary can temporarily move to 21:00 UK time. The London session itself remains 08:00–17:00 on a UK clock all year. The normal weekly boundary is based on 17:00 New York, while the temporary 21:00 UK exception follows from the different UK and US daylight-saving dates. The forex market normally opens at 22:00 on Sunday and closes at 22:00 on Friday in UK time, with a temporary move to 21:00 during the UK–US clock-change gaps. These are practical retail-market benchmarks rather than the opening and closing bell of one exchange, so a broker’s published product hours always take priority. Trading continues through the intervening weekdays because forex is an over-the-counter market with no single central exchange. Banks, dealers and other participants trade across global financial centres, allowing Sydney, Tokyo, London and New York to pass liquidity from one region to the next. One centre is therefore already active as another is approaching its close, although liquidity and spreads can change considerably during each handover. An over-the-counter market is one in which trades are agreed directly between participants such as banks, dealers and brokers, rather than on a central exchange with a single order book. Prices and trading hours therefore depend on who is quoting, which is why forex has no official opening bell. Every time in this article is shown on a UK clock: GMT in winter and BST in summer. If a timetable elsewhere does not match, it is commonly displaying US Eastern time, UTC or the broker’s server time instead. For this reason, UK traders should set their platform to UK time where possible and check their own broker’s contract specifications before leaving an order over the weekend. Timing note: the table converts the widely used 17:00 New York weekly boundary and rollover into UK time. Individual brokers can open later, close earlier or insert short maintenance breaks, so their published schedule is the final reference for an executable trade. The four forex sessions follow the working hours of major financial centres rather than officially announced trading windows. This is why the London session hours quoted across the industry do not always agree. Some timetables use each centre’s local business day, others convert everything from US Eastern time or UTC, and some quietly combine summer and winter hours in the same figure. On a UK clock, the London session is fixed at 08:00–17:00 throughout the year; what changes is where Tokyo, Sydney and New York appear relative to it as the relevant countries alter their clocks. The table below uses a common nine-hour session convention for planning purposes. The Sydney and New York rows can temporarily move by another hour when their daylight-saving dates do not line up with the UK, so those exceptional weeks should always be checked separately. These hours are therefore best treated as practical planning windows rather than exchange-controlled opening and closing times. The Sydney session is the first major session of the new trading week and falls in the middle of the night for UK traders. Liquidity is usually at its thinnest here, with Australasian pairs such as AUD/USD and NZD/USD among the few instruments attracting meaningful regional volume. Orders can sit inside a much wider spread, while the same position size may slip further than it would once Tokyo or London is fully active. Price ranges can look convincing on the chart during these hours but often fail to hold when broader liquidity returns. The Tokyo session follows Sydney and overlaps with it for several hours, bringing the strongest activity in yen and other Asian currency pairs. It still falls in the early morning for UK traders, when sterling and euro pairs commonly consolidate inside comparatively narrow ranges. Breakout traders can be punished by false moves during this quieter window because a brief push beyond support or resistance may lack enough participation to continue. In exchange, range traders often get cleaner boundaries to work with before London volume arrives and changes the character of the market. The London session is the largest forex session by global trading volume, and much of the day’s movement in sterling and euro pairs is commonly completed during it. On a UK clock, it runs from 08:00 to 17:00 all year and does not move on a British trader’s watch when the clocks change; only its relationship with the other sessions shifts. Price can move fastest during the first half hour as London orders arrive, sometimes covering the range built throughout the Asian session in one push. For a UK trader, this is the only major session that requires no mental time-zone conversion. The New York session opens during the UK afternoon, overlaps with London for several hours and contains many of the most closely watched US economic releases. Spreads can widen noticeably in the minutes surrounding figures such as inflation, employment or GDP data, even though the wider overlap usually provides deep liquidity. Once London closes, price often loses direction as European participation drops and the US session moves into its quieter second half. The late New York session reaches into the UK night without the forex market being closed, so anyone holding a position must consider thinner liquidity and overnight financing before leaving it open. London is the only session that connects to both the end of the Asian day and the start of the US day, so a UK trader meets two overlaps of completely different character within one day. An overlap means two sources of market participation are active at the same time. Quote depth generally improves, spreads on major pairs usually narrow and price can cover more ground in a shorter period because more orders are competing around the same levels. The benefit is more efficient execution in normal conditions, but the downside is that a fast-moving market can also reach a stop much sooner. Volatility is therefore not automatically good for profit; it increases both the available movement and the speed at which a trading error can become expensive. The table shows the standard seasonal planning windows used in this article. The London–New York overlap can move temporarily during the weeks when the UK and US change their clocks on different dates. The London–Tokyo overlap falls in the UK early morning, with the Asian session winding down just as London participation begins to arrive, making yen crosses such as GBP/JPY and EUR/JPY the instruments most directly affected. Market depth is still a step below the afternoon London–New York overlap, so an early move may not have the same order flow behind it. For example, GBP/JPY might push above the high formed during Tokyo, retreat briefly and then test that level again as London desks become active. The Asian range is often challenged for the first time in this window, but the move should not be treated as established direction until London volume has properly entered the market. The London–New York overlap falls in the UK afternoon and is normally the deepest-quoted, tightest-spread part of the UK trading day. A large share of the intraday movement in major pairs is concentrated here, while US inflation, employment and growth releases can add sudden order flow to an already active market. For example, a US employment release might drive GBP/USD through the high formed during the London morning and turn a measured move into a rapid breakout within seconds. The available movement and the speed at which a poorly placed stop can be taken out are therefore two sides of the same overlap. Neither overlap is automatically better; they simply have different characters. The morning overlap is a handover, with Asian volume leaving and London volume arriving, so direction is often unresolved while the market tests the overnight range. The afternoon overlap has the two largest pools of liquidity active together, making a move more likely to attract enough participation to run its full intraday course. Treating both periods as the same kind of “overlap” is therefore a common misjudgement. Read more: Forex Volatility: Measuring and Trading Currency Pair Swings The UK–US clock change gap occurs because Britain and the United States do not begin and end daylight saving time on the same dates. The US normally moves to daylight time on the second Sunday in March and returns to standard time on the first Sunday in November, while the UK moves forward on the last Sunday in March and back on the last Sunday in October. This creates a two- or three-week gap each spring and a shorter gap each autumn in which New York sits one hour earlier on a UK clock. During normal aligned periods, an 08:00 New York open appears at 13:00 in the UK whether Britain is using GMT or BST: EST is five hours behind GMT, while EDT is five hours behind BST. During a mismatch, the difference falls to four hours, moving the New York session to 12:00–21:00 UK time and the London–New York overlap to 12:00–17:00. US economic releases tied to Eastern Time also arrive one hour earlier for a UK trader during these windows. Most generic forex timetables mislead readers in precisely these weeks because they assume Britain and the US change their clocks together. A schedule that is correct for most of the year can therefore place the New York open, a US data release or the daily rollover one hour late. For this reason, traders should reconfirm the overlap window and all scheduled release times against a UK clock before planning the day. The UK dates are published by GOV.UK, while the US dates follow the federally mandated second-Sunday-in-March and first-Sunday-in-November rules. The 2027 US date is the scheduled date under current federal law. As of 2 October 2026, a House-approved proposal to make US daylight saving permanent was still awaiting Senate approval, so traders should confirm that the law has not changed before relying on the 2027 row. The practical rule is simple: during every March and late-October clock gap, check the platform clock, the broker’s rollover notice and the release time shown by an economic calendar configured for London. That five-minute check is considerably cheaper than discovering the difference when a data release arrives an hour earlier than expected. Three different answers commonly circulate for the Sunday forex open: 21:00, 22:00 and 23:00 UK time. They cannot all describe every trading account because forex has no central exchange ringing an opening bell. The tradable time is set by the broker’s product schedule, while the time shown on the platform may be its server time rather than GMT or BST. Many forex brokers run their servers on GMT+2 in winter and GMT+3 in summer so that each trading day ends at 17:00 New York time. That convention helps produce five complete daily candles per week, but it does not create a universal Sunday opening time. The reliable answer is the one published by the reader’s own broker under market hours, contract specifications, product details or trading conditions. Holiday schedules and service notices should also be checked because they can temporarily override the normal timetable. Server time is the clock a broker’s trading server uses to stamp prices, candles and orders. It often differs from the trader’s local time, so a platform left on server time can show the market open or a data release at an hour that does not match the UK clock. The same rule applies at the other end of the week. A general timetable may place the Friday boundary at 22:00 GMT or 22:00 BST, but an individual broker can stop accepting orders earlier, close a particular product later or insert a short maintenance break. During the UK–US clock-change gaps covered in the previous section, a weekly boundary tied to New York can also appear one hour earlier on a UK clock. For this reason, the broker’s published UK-time conversion is more useful than a time copied from another website. No executable prices are available between the Friday close and the Sunday reopening. If political, economic or other market-moving news arrives during that gap, the first quote of the new week may appear above or below Friday’s final price without trading through the levels in between. A standard stop cannot execute while the market is closed; if the first available quote is already beyond its trigger, it normally fills at the next obtainable price instead. Spreads are also usually wider during the opening period because fewer liquidity providers are quoting, so the same position can cost more to exit than it would during London or New York hours. Consider two traders who both bought GBP/USD late on Friday 31 January 2025, shortly before the weekly close, and left the position open. The United States announced new tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China on Saturday 1 February, and GBP/USD reopened sharply lower on Monday 3 February. The figures below are an illustration built on that weekend's publicly recorded daily prices and the published RAW-account starting spread of 0.2 pips; they are not a RADEX MARKETS quote. The spread paid on entry is the difference between the ask and bid: (1.24242 − 1.24240) × 10,000 = 0.2 pips For GBP/USD, one pip equals 0.0001. As USD is the quote currency, the pip value is first calculated in dollars and then converted into pounds: 50,000 units × 0.0001 = $5.00 per pip $5.00 ÷ GBP/USD rate 1.2424 = £4.02 per pip Trader A's planned stop distance, potential reward and risk-to-reward ratio are: (1.24242 − 1.22800) × 10,000 = 144.2 pips at risk (1.27000 − 1.24242) × 10,000 = 275.8 pips of potential reward 275.8 reward pips ÷ 144.2 risk pips = 1:1.91 144.2 pips × £4.02 per pip = £580.33 planned loss if the stop fills at its level Trader B's tighter stop gives: (1.24242 − 1.23500) × 10,000 = 74.2 pips at risk (1.25700 − 1.24242) × 10,000 = 145.8 pips of potential reward 145.8 reward pips ÷ 74.2 risk pips = 1:1.96 74.2 pips × £4.02 per pip = £298.62 planned loss if the stop fills at its level These figures exclude commission, overnight financing and any difference between the stop trigger and the actual execution price. Outcome One: The Market Does Not Gap Through the Stop Trader A's stop at 1.22800 sits below the first Monday quote of 1.2291, so the position survives the reopening. Price later falls through the stop and the sell order fills at 1.22790. The execution slippage, total price loss and cash loss are: (1.22800 − 1.22790) × 10,000 = 1.0 pip of slippage (1.24242 − 1.22790) × 10,000 = 145.2 pips actually lost 145.2 pips × £4.02 per pip = £584.35 actual loss The order has filled normally because an executable price existed close to the stop. The result is slightly worse than the £580.33 planned, mainly because the spread was still wide, but the market did not reopen beyond the trigger. Outcome Two: The Market Gaps Through the Stop Trader B's stop at 1.23500 is already above the first Monday quote of 1.2291, so the first available fill is 1.22910. The distance beyond the stop is: (1.23500 − 1.22910) × 10,000 = 59.0 pips beyond the stop The total loss is then calculated from the original entry to the actual fill: (1.24242 − 1.22910) × 10,000 = 133.2 pips actually lost 133.2 pips × £4.02 per pip = £536.06 actual loss The additional loss created by the gap is: £536.06 actual loss − £298.62 planned loss = £237.44 extra loss In the second outcome, the stop still triggers the exit, but it cannot supply a price that never existed: Trader B planned to risk £298.62 and lost £536.06, almost as much as Trader A, whose stop was nearly twice as far away. The execution report should therefore be checked against the first available bid and ask rather than against the chart's midpoint alone. This is why holding a leveraged position across the Friday close requires both the planned stop loss and the possible weekend gap to be included in the risk decision. Read more: Gap trading strategy: how traders read and trade market gaps Forex rollover is the point at which an open position passes from one trading day into the next for settlement and financing purposes. A position held through that cut-off normally receives an overnight adjustment, also called a swap or rollover charge, which may be debited from or credited to the trading account depending on the pair, direction and broker rate. The widely used rollover point is 17:00 in New York. During the normally aligned clock periods, that converts to the following UK times: Although both rows show 22:00, the underlying time zones are different. During the short UK–US clock-change gaps explained earlier that New York remains only four hours behind the UK, so the same 17:00 New York rollover temporarily arrives at 21:00 UK time. A broker may also use its own server cut-off, which is why the contract specification remains the final reference for the actual account adjustment. Wednesday is different because spot forex normally settles on a T+2 basis. A position carried through Wednesday rollover picks up the financing associated with the weekend settlement period, so the adjustment is usually three times the normal daily amount. The Wednesday cut-off is therefore normally 22:00 UK time, temporarily moving to 21:00 during the UK–US clock gaps. Public holidays can alter the multiplier or the day on which it is applied, so the broker’s current rollover calendar should be checked before holding a position through a shortened settlement week. T+2 settlement means a spot forex trade is settled two business days after the trade date. Because a position held through Wednesday’s cut-off settles across the weekend, it carries three days of financing rather than one. Liquidity can thin briefly around rollover as banks and liquidity providers update their books and calculate the new trading day. Spreads may widen even when no major news is being released, making the minutes around the cut-off a poor time to open a short-term trade. Read more: What are swap fees and how are they calculated in forex trading? UK bank holidays do not close the global forex market, but they can remove a significant share of London participation. For traders using a UK clock, that usually means shallower order books, wider-than-normal spreads and a greater chance that the same order size slips further than it would on a normal London trading day. The dates above follow the official England and Wales calendar except where a regional difference is stated. Bank-holiday dates change from year to year, and brokers may also alter dealing hours around Christmas and New Year, so both the government calendar and the broker’s holiday schedule should be checked before orders are left resting. Read more: What Is Slippage in Trading? Causes & 6 Tips to Reduce It This mapping works because approaches that enter and exit quickly need liquidity and price movement online at the same time, while longer-holding approaches are usually better served by careful entry placement than by chasing the day’s noisiest period. Read more: Best time to trade forex: When to enter the market during the day The forex market normally opens at 22:00 on Sunday and closes at 22:00 on Friday in both GMT winter and BST summer, with continuous weekday trading in between. During the short UK–US clock-change gaps, the boundary can temporarily move to 21:00 UK time; see the table under Forex Market Hours in the UK. The usual benchmark is 22:00 UK time on Sunday, temporarily moving to 21:00 during the UK–US clock gaps, but 21:00, 22:00 and 23:00 answers circulate because brokers use different product schedules and server-time displays. The reader should follow the market hours published by their own broker, as explained under What Happens at the Sunday Open and the Friday Close. The normal Friday close is 22:00 GMT in winter and 22:00 BST in summer, with a temporary move to 21:00 during a UK–US clock mismatch. Liquidity has often thinned and spreads may already have widened in the final stretch, so the risk of a weekend gap should be considered before leaving a position open. On a UK clock, the London session runs from 08:00 to 17:00 all year. Industry timetables differ because their conversion bases differ, not because London moves on a British trader’s clock, so use the session table above as the UK reference. Forex trading operates 24 hours a day during the working week, but it is not open 24/7 because normal currency pricing stops over the weekend. Being able to trade is not the same as it being worth trading: overnight liquidity can be thin, spreads wider and execution more expensive. London uses GMT in winter and BST in summer. Many platforms display broker server time, UTC or US Eastern time by default, so the platform clock should be set or converted to UK time before the trading day is planned. Keep every session on a UK clock rather than repeatedly converting from another time zone. London remains fixed at 08:00–17:00 throughout the year, but Tokyo and New York move relative to it, the morning and afternoon overlaps behave differently, and the UK–US clock-change gaps require a fresh check. The Sunday open and Friday close should always come from the broker’s own published schedule. Set the platform display to UK time, match the main currency pair to the session in which its markets are active, and mark UK bank holidays and the late-Friday period as thin-liquidity conditions to approach carefully. If a short-term trade crosses rollover, include the overnight financing charge in its cost before deciding whether the position is still worth holding. The practical next step is to confirm the actual Sunday open and Friday close with the broker, then copy the session table from this guide and complete it as a personal UK-time timetable for the trading account being used. Lee W. is a seasoned professional trader with over 10 years of experience. Passionate about sharing valuable expertise and unique market insights, Lee W. now serves as an external and independent market analyst for RADEX MARKETS. Reviewed by RADEX MARKETS Risk Warning Trading derivatives and leveraged products carries a high level of risk, including the risk of losing substantially more than your initial investment. Deeper into trading sessions: Related concepts:

On Wednesday, the Iraqi government approved a 15% devaluation of the national currency, dropping the official exchange rate from 1,300 dinars per US dollar to 1,500. Iraq relies on oil sales for roughly 90% of its government budget, but because of the ongoing hostilities surrounding Iran, the nation’s exports and revenue have both collapsed. Before the conflict erupted earlier this year, Iraq typically exported 3.6 million barrels of oil per day, but as of the time of writing, this figure now stands at around 2.4 million. Iraq, as with most oil producing nations, gets paid for its crude oil exports in dollars, which it uses to purchase a number of vital goods on the international market. Food, medicines, vehicles, heavy machinery, advanced electronics, and even electricity imports are all covered by a steady flow of dollars into the country. For everything else, the government pays in Iraqi dinars. Salaries, pensions, local contracts and virtually all domestic spending involves sovereign money. By devaluing the dinar, every single US dollar brought into the country can now be converted into more dinars than before, allowing Baghdad to stretch its shrinking foreign reserves to better cover domestic spending. The obvious problem is that as far as the average citizen is concerned, imports become more expensive due to the worse exchange rate. The decision, coordinated by the Iraqi cabinet, the country’s central bank, and the ministry of finance, has triggered a significant backlash for exactly this reason. Lawmakers within the Iraqi parliament have protested the devaluation due to the loss of purchasing power and spike in consumer prices, but such concerns will likely fall on deaf ears. To make matters worse, Iraq is currently facing a severe fiscal crisis characterised by a vast operational deficit and record-high debts. Because of the loss of crude oil revenue, the Iraqi government now spends far more than it receives, pushing Baghdad to borrow heavily. According to the ministry of finance, total spending reached the equivalent of $45 billion in the first seven months of 2026, while revenue amounted to $26 billion over the same time frame, resulting in a deficit of $19 billion. For context, the deficit over the first seven months of 2025 totalled just $3.5 billion. The problem is that Iraq has one of the most bloated and inefficient public sectors in the entire world. Huge swathes of the population rely on some form of public sector job, government pension, or welfare payment system to survive. Out of a total population of 48 million, Iraq has an active workforce of just 10-11 million people, and almost half of those are civil servants. Millions more are reliant on pensions and other state benefits, creating a highly dependent population. The Iraqi state acts as a patronage network that captures international wealth via crude oil exports and then redistributes the cash flows to secure political loyalty. Such networks cannot simply be dismantled, even when said cash flows dry up. Reducing public spending is all but impossible because doing so would cause immediate civil unrest and even a potential uprising against the people in charge. Such actions are not unprecedented and in fact occurred during the ‘Tishreen’ protests of 2019-2021. Beyond the petroleum sector, Iraq has almost no domestic industry to speak of. Manufacturing and agriculture combined make up just 8% of GDP, a far smaller share than even other oil-producing nations. Petrodollars are the entire economy, absorbed and funnelled through the state apparatus to appease and stabilise the local population, but cash flows are drying up. The Iraqi government is now building its 2027 budget around $58 per barrel crude oil, which is far below what the country would actually need to balance its books. Unless Iraq dramatically increases its oil exports, the country’s fiscal problems are here to stay. About the Author Lawrence J. came from a strong technical and engineering background before pivoting into a more financial role later on in his career. Always interested in international finance, Lawrence is experienced in both traditional markets as well as the emerging crypto markets. He now serves as the financial writer for RADEX MARKETS. Reviewed by RADEX MARKETS Risk Warning: Trading derivatives and leveraged products carries a high level of risk, including the risk of losing substantially more than your initial investment.

The technology sector remains the load-bearing foundation of US equities, lifting both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 to new all-time highs yesterday. It is the first time the SPX has established a fresh record since mid-August, while the NDX has now hit three consecutive back-to-back highs. A number of developments saw specific stocks push higher, contributing to the wider sense of optimism that continues to pervade the AI trade. Google (GOOG) came out with the biggest story of the day, revealing a $4.3 billion deal with Constellation Energy (CEG) to secure 3.6 gigawatts of power, a quarter of which will be sourced from upgraded nuclear power plants from across the United States. Constellation Energy now has the revenue certainty to perform improvement works on 11 different reactors, which include modernised turbines, steam generators, and digital control systems; the company surged 12% following the announcement. The additional power will fuel Google’s ravenous artificial intelligence data centre network, which requires a heavy, uninterrupted supply of electricity to meet its energy demands. Further afield, SpaceX (SPCX) expanded its ties with Nvidia (NVDA) on Tuesday by announcing a deal to purchase $40 billion worth of chips for its Colossus data centre. The space-faring company is rapidly expanding beyond rockets, with plans to operate massive GPU farms both on the ground and in orbit. The Starmind satellite platform will be designed to interface directly with the Starlink infrastructure already in place. Such projects illustrate well the vast sums of money still waiting to be deployed, as well as the insatiable appetite for new chips. SpaceX is finally catching some of the AI tailwinds, pushing share prices up 15% over the last three sessions. As for Nvidia, the company is rapidly approaching a $6 trillion market cap, the first to ever do so, and will hit the historic milestone at roughly $250 per share – a mere 4% gain from current prices. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) also saw its time in the spotlight yesterday after CEO Lisa Su announced that the company will significantly ramp up chip production throughout 2027 to meet the incessant industry demand. AMD has been courting suppliers such as TSMC and Foxconn to ensure the chipmaker has adequate wafer capacity for its new AI hardware offerings, while markets in general have been waking up to the importance of high-performance server CPUs, for which the company is well known. AMD closed the session 2.8% higher yesterday and is set to open at a new record high later today. Analysts at Citi recently raised price targets to $800 per share from $650 currently. In the same vein, Marvell Technology (MRVL) raised its annual revenue guidance for 2028, substantially revising the previous estimate of $18 billion to $20 billion. The company is heavily involved in AI infrastructure and pumped 6% after the revision, adding to the 240% gain achieved so far this year. The relentless drive in the technology sector is all the more impressive given the macroeconomic drop against which such developments are occurring. US treasury yields are still sitting at multi-decade highs, with the 10-year note at 5.31% and the 30-year at 5.69%; Brent Crude refuses to dip below $100 per barrel; Iranian peace prospects remain tenuous at best; interest rates are set to rise for the foreseeable future. Despite everything, earnings are robust and show no signs of abating. The AI trade is alive and well. #GOOG #SPCX #AMD About the Author Lawrence J. came from a strong technical and engineering background before pivoting into a more financial role later on in his career. Always interested in international finance, Lawrence is experienced in both traditional markets as well as the emerging crypto markets. He now serves as the financial writer for RADEX MARKETS. Reviewed by RADEX MARKETS Risk Warning: Trading derivatives and leveraged products carries a high level of risk, including the risk of losing substantially more than your initial investment.

The S&P 500 is up 13% year-to-date, which may sound perfectly admirable, but the headline figure hides much of what is going on under the surface. While the index as a whole appears to be doing well, investors would do well to remember that the S&P 500 is weighted by market cap. When the likes of Nvidia, Apple or Microsoft make a move, the index will dutifully plod along the same path, even when the bottom 100 stocks go in a completely different direction. This fact can make the overall performance of the index somewhat misleading. If a large company goes up 10% and a small company goes down 10%, all else equal, the S&P 500 itself will rise. The same is true of any other index. This would not normally be a problem, but the S&P 500 is currently extremely ‘top-heavy’ from a historical perspective. The top ten companies now make up around 40% of the entire index; the top five make up over a quarter of it. Such a skew is not normal. In the year 2015, the ten largest companies made up only 17% of the S&P 500, but this figure has essentially gone up in a straight line over the last decade. Even during the height of the dot-com bubble, the top ten only managed to occupy roughly 25% of the S&P 500. Over the last 35 years, concentration at the top averaged just 21%. A look at year-to-date stock performances in the top ten reveals the following: The extraordinary outcome of the above table is that Nvidia, Apple and Micron alone are responsible for roughly 4.5% of the rise in the S&P 500 so far this year. As stated in the opening paragraph, the index as a whole rose 13% over the same time frame. While absent from the top ten, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is also worth mentioning here. At number 13, the chipmaker only accounts for 1.4% of the S&P 500, but the company has gone up almost 200% since January, meaning its contribution adds a full percent to the index’s gains. Four companies. Four companies out of five hundred account for nearly half of the 13% rise seen in the S&P 500 in 2026. These are not the signs of a healthy index. Goldman Sachs recently reported that market breadth has fallen to its lowest level since the early 2000s and the dot-com bubble. Analysts at the Kobeissi Letter claim that only half of all stocks are currently trading above their 200-day moving average, while only 25% are trading above their 50-day moving average. Zooming out, the picture gets even uglier. 44% of all stocks are trading at least 20% below their 52-week highs, while almost 60% are trading at least 20% below their all-time highs. The dramatic implication is that most of the index is already in bear market territory. At the absolute bottom of the table, nine companies are down over 50% since the start of the year. On an average trading day, more individual stocks are hitting fresh 52-week lows than 52-week highs. So many of the companies making up the S&P 500 have been forgotten as market participants pivoted towards artificial intelligence, semiconductors and everything in between. Software-as-a-service (SaaS) and enterprise software got completely decapitated this year, as agentic tools such as Claude revolutionised the game almost overnight. Salesforce (CRM), SAP, ServiceNow (NOW) and Adobe (ADBE) all got hammered, while IT consulting firms were unceremoniously booted out of the door. The tech sector has essentially split in two, resulting in the software and hardware sides going their respective ways. Money poured out of the former and into the waiting hands of the latter, producing the kind of explosive rises observed in the likes of AMD and Micron. Outside of tech, many legacy giants have undergone harrowing drops in share price in recent years as shifting consumer habits pulled the rug from underneath their feet. Paramount (PSKY) is down 90% from its record high; Nike (NKE), Lulu Lemon (LULU) and PayPal (PYPL) are all down 80% or more; Estée Lauder (EL) is down 75%; Roblox (RBLX) is down 70%; the list goes on. Questions of breadth and health aside, the current situation with the S&P 500 perfectly illustrates the benefit of investing in a weighted index as opposed to picking individual stocks. There is no need to guess which stocks are going to do well because the weighted nature of the instrument automatically feeds the winners and starves the losers. It is a passive rebalancing engine. The long-term chart of the SPX is a mirage. The index hides the hundreds of stocks that have performed abysmally in recent times. The disparity is historically abnormal and investors are beginning to see the writing on the wall. About the Author Lawrence J. came from a strong technical and engineering background before pivoting into a more financial role later on in his career. Always interested in international finance, Lawrence is experienced in both traditional markets as well as the emerging crypto markets. He now serves as the financial writer for RADEX MARKETS. Reviewed by RADEX MARKETS Risk Warning: Trading derivatives and leveraged products carries a high level of risk, including the risk of losing substantially more than your initial investment.

The dollar managed to remain firm last Friday, despite an abysmal jobs report. The September non-farm payrolls numbers were objectively terrible, enough to challenge the prevailing narrative of a resilient labour market, falling short of even the most pessimistic of expectations. The headline number came in at just 29k jobs, a far cry from the predicted 90k, while the U-3 unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2%, beating both the forecast figure and the prior reading. Adding insult to injury, the BLS subtracted 29k jobs from the August estimate, and 21k from the July statement, resulting in a net loss of 10 thousand for that month. The shocking report all but cements an interest rate pause during the next FOMC decision at the end of October, with FedWatch now showing implied odds of only 22% of a rate hike three weeks from now. For all the bad news, the long-term outlook on the dollar has not fundamentally changed. Yields on the 10-year US Treasury note remain at highs of 5.27%, while those on the 30-year are offering 5.61%. Markets are universally expecting high inflation and high bond yields for the foreseeable future, and no major economic zone looks structurally stronger than any other. Just as markets were grappling with Friday’s NFP report, European CPI figures revealed a nasty spike in inflation within the common currency area, with the headline rate rising to 3.8% in September from 3.2% the prior month. The French bond market is looking particularly jittery, as yields on the 10-year drew uncomfortably close to 5% last week, approaching multi-decade highs and growing further apart from the lower yields offered by German debt. France’s total debt burden soared to 119% of GDP in June, the highest level since 1946, while growth is expected to hit an unimpressive 0.7% this year. All things considered, the DXY dropped a grand total of 0.12% on Friday, proving that currency traders have bigger things to worry about than jobs figures. The deafening silence around precious metals tells the same story; gold and silver are facing an uphill battle in light of the 5-6% yields on offer elsewhere. Semiconductors continue to drag US indices higher, but market breadth is completely non-existent. The geopolitical quagmire in the Middle East is showing absolutely no signs of improvement, while Brent Crude sits comfortably at $102 per barrel. And yet, for all the turmoil, crypto remains shockingly resilient. In the absence of any clear winner, the cold calculation turns to one of relative misery. Bitcoin rose back up to $86,000 on Sunday night and is very nearly in the green for the year. Investors are running out of places to park their cash. As dawn breaks on the fourth quarter, the economic calendar trickles to a halt. Trading floors across China will remain dark until Wednesday due to the country’s golden week market closures. On Monday, the ISM PMI figure will shed some light on the US service sector, which is forecast to remain firmly in expansion territory. Wednesday will see the release of the latest FOMC minutes, offering an insight into how panicked different board members are with regard to inflation. Finally, Friday will deliver the preliminary report of the Michigan Consumer Sentiment. #USD #DXY #OIL About the Author Lawrence J. came from a strong technical and engineering background before pivoting into a more financial role later on in his career. Always interested in international finance, Lawrence is experienced in both traditional markets as well as the emerging crypto markets. He now serves as the financial writer for RADEX MARKETS. Reviewed by RADEX MARKETS Risk Warning: Trading derivatives and leveraged products carries a high level of risk, including the risk of losing substantially more than your initial investment.

Your moving average says buy. The RSI says the market is overbought. A third indicator is sitting on the fence, and by the time all three finally agree, half the move has already happened. Worse still, an indicator sometimes produces what looks like a perfectly respectable entry, price sweeps through the stop, and only then travels in the expected direction. Looking back at the chart afterwards, the clue was often already there in the candles, but it was hidden beneath enough coloured lines to resemble a plate of Spag Bog. Price action trading takes a more direct approach by reading what price is doing before asking a derived indicator to interpret it. This guide explains what price action is, who it may suit, and how it differs from technical analysis and indicator-led trading. It also covers three practical price action trading strategies, a clear method for reading market structure and momentum, four steps for planning a forex trade, the main candle signals used in price action analysis, and the common traps that can turn a clean chart into a collection of expensive guesses. Price action trading is a method of making trading decisions from price itself, using candles, market structure and key levels rather than signals calculated by indicators. Its main advantage is immediacy: the trader reads the original market data instead of waiting for a derived tool to confirm it. The trade-off is that the interpretation is subjective and cannot be fully automated. Ready to read the chart without the coloured lines? Price action trading is a method of making trading decisions from the movement of price itself, without relying on indicators. Indicators are calculated from price, which means they interpret something that has already happened; a price action trader chooses to examine that raw information directly. The method concentrates on three things: the shape of individual candles, the sequence of highs and lows that creates market structure, and the key levels where price has reacted repeatedly. Together, these form the skeleton of every price action trading strategy covered later in this guide. A valid entry occurs where signal meets location, because even the most convincing candle pattern means very little when it appears in the middle of nowhere. Using no technical tools at all, only candles and hand-drawn horizontal levels, is known as naked price action or pure price action. Not every price action trader goes that far; a common compromise is to retain one moving average as a reference for the broader direction while allowing the candle and its location to determine the actual entry. Price action is therefore not simply a collection of rigid trading rules, it is an order in which to read the chart. Price action means every movement that price records on a chart over time, including each candle’s open, high, low and close and the wider structure those candles create. It is the raw market data from which every price-based technical indicator is calculated. Read more: Forex Technical Analysis: A Step-by-Step Beginner's Guide Price action trading is not good or bad in itself; whether it suits you depends on how you prefer to trade and what you need from a strategy. It tends to suit traders who are willing to spend time studying charts, judging market structure and identifying important locations for themselves. You must also be comfortable with a degree of subjectivity, because two capable traders can examine the same chart and reach different conclusions. In return, you gain the opportunity to recognise signals directly from price instead of waiting for an indicator to catch up. This approach is less suitable if you want fixed entry and exit conditions that leave little room for interpretation. Traders who need signals that can be executed mechanically, tested against years of data using identical rules or fully automated may find price action frustratingly difficult to define. It is also unlikely to suit anyone unwilling to build chart-reading experience; removing the indicators may clean up the screen, but it does not magically transfer years of pattern recognition into your head. A simple fit test is to ask yourself three questions. Can you accept that the same chart may be interpreted in more than one reasonable way? Are you willing to review charts regularly until market structure and key levels become easier to recognise? Most importantly, do you need a completely quantifiable system that can be back tested without human judgement? Your answers will tell you far more about whether price action trading suits you than any blanket claim that it is the “best” way to trade. Price action, technical analysis and indicators are often used interchangeably, but they occupy different points on the same line: technical analysis is the wider discipline, indicators are values calculated within that discipline, and price action is the raw price information left when those derived values are removed. Price action is therefore a branch of technical analysis, not its opposite. The meaningful distinction is whether the trader reads price directly or asks a formula to process it first. Because an indicator is a function of historical or current price data, some degree of lag is a design consequence rather than a defect. The following comparison shows how the three approaches relate to one another: The core trade-off is exchanging some certainty for immediacy: The advantages and drawbacks are two sides of the same coin. Without an indicator filtering the chart, you can see a potential change earlier, but you also see more noise and must decide for yourself which movements matter. Earlier does not automatically mean better; it merely means the responsibility for confirmation has shifted from the indicator to the trader. For the strategies in this guide, indicators do not determine the entry. However, there is no objection to keeping one moving average on the chart to confirm the prevailing direction; choosing and configuring indicator parameters is covered in a dedicated article rather than developed here. Read more: The best forex indicators every trader should use in 2026 These three price action trading strategies share the same basic skeleton: judge the market structure first, then wait at a specific location for price to produce a usable signal. What changes is the location, within a trend, at the edge of a range or beyond a level that has just failed to break. The trend pullback strategy begins with a confirmed rising structure of higher highs and higher lows, or a falling structure of lower highs and lower lows. Rather than chasing price after it has already moved, wait for it to return to a previous structural level or the area around a moving average. Enter only when a rejection signal closes in the direction of the established trend, placing the stop on the opposite side of that signal bar. The tools section later in this guide explains how to recognise individual rejection signals. In my experience, this is the most straightforward of the three strategies when the market is moving clearly in one direction, but it becomes unreliable once the structure turns choppy. Read more: Trend Trading Strategies: How to Use Indicators with Examples The level rejection strategy is designed for a range rather than a trending market. Draw the upper and lower boundaries in advance, wait for price to revisit one edge and enter back towards the range only after a rejection or engulfing signal has closed; both signals are explained in the tools section below. The stop goes beyond the range boundary, where the reason for taking the trade would no longer be valid. Be careful with repeatedly tested levels: after three or more visits to the same edge, start watching for a possible breakout instead of assuming it will hold yet again. This setup works best in a well-established range with clean boundaries, not in a market drawing a new line every few candles. The fakey reversal strategy waits for price to break through a clearly defined high or low and then close back inside the previous range. Only after that false breakout has completed do you enter in the opposite direction, with the stop beyond the furthest point of the failed break. The fakey signal itself is covered in more detail in the tools section, but the crucial word here is completed, a breakout cannot be called false merely because you hope it will reverse. This is the hardest of the three strategies to wait for because most false breakouts look perfectly genuine while they are happening. It is most useful around obvious range boundaries where a failed break may trap traders who entered too early. The correct reading order runs from large to small: structure decides the direction, location determines where you may act, and only then does the candle help decide when to act. Treat these three layers as successive filters rather than separate observations. If any filter fails, unclear structure, poor location or weak momentum, there is no valid entry, regardless of how attractive one candle may appear. This sequence is the shared precondition for every price action setup used later in the guide. Start on the daily chart and mark the most recent three to five meaningful swing highs and swing lows, using closing prices rather than the tips of isolated wicks. When both the highs and lows are rising, the market has an uptrend structure; when both are falling, it has a downtrend structure. If the swings alternate without progressing consistently in either direction, the market is ranging. When the structure remains unclear after those points are marked, price action has little useful direction to offer, and it is often better to examine another currency pair than force an opinion. Read more: What Is Swing Trading? How to Find and Trade Market Swings Next, draw horizontal levels only where price has reacted on at least two separate occasions. Keep the chart selective: if it contains more than four or five lines, the levels have probably been drawn too finely, leaving price permanently “near” something and making the exercise rather pointless. A higher-quality level is one supported by more than a single clue, such as a previous swing high or low aligning with a psychologically important round number. These are areas rather than prices accurate to the final decimal place, so allow for a small reaction zone instead of expecting every candle to turn on precisely the same pip. Finally, judge momentum from the candles arriving at the level. A long candle body shows a stronger directional push, while a long wick shows that price travelled into an area and was rejected before the close. When several consecutive candle bodies become progressively shorter, the current push may be running out of energy. Momentum is used here only to judge whether the location is likely to hold or fail; it does not tell you how far price will travel afterwards. Read more: How to Read Forex Charts for Traders The forex market is well suited to price action because major currency pairs are highly liquid, helping price form relatively clean reactions around widely watched levels. Trading continues for 24 hours a day from Monday to Friday, so the chart does not gap at every daily open in the way an individual share can, and its structure is generally more continuous. The weekend closure is the important exception: a Friday signal carried into Monday deserves extra caution because the market can reopen beyond Friday’s closing price. Begin with a major pair and define both timeframes before conducting any analysis. Use the daily chart to judge the main direction and the four-hour chart to locate potential entries. Smaller timeframes produce more signals but also more noise, so beginners are generally better served by learning on daily and four-hour charts than diving straight into five-minute mayhem. Decide whether the market is trending or ranging, then mark the limited number of key levels where price has reacted repeatedly. Draw those levels before price reaches them. Finding a convincing explanation only after the move has happened may make the chart look clever, but it does nothing for the trading account. Only start looking for a candle signal after price returns to one of the levels marked in advance. Wait for that candle to close before confirming the setup, because an unfinished candle can change shape completely in its final minutes. Until the close, there is movement, but no completed signal. Set the entry from the confirmed signal, place the stop on the opposite side of the signal bar or beyond the key level, and position the target at the next reasonable structural level. Measure the distance from entry to stop before calculating the position size. The lot size must be worked backwards from the fixed percentage of the account you are prepared to risk, not chosen first and squeezed into the chart afterwards. Read more: What is a stop-loss order and how to set it Assume the GBP/USD daily chart has produced a sequence of higher highs and higher lows, establishing an uptrend. A previous resistance area around 1.2750 has since become potential support, and price pulls back towards it. A bullish pin bar forms at the level and closes, showing rejection of lower prices; the trade is planned only after that daily candle is complete. The entry is placed at 1.2750, just above the completed signal, with a stop loss at 1.2700 beneath both the pin bar and the support area. That creates a 50-pip risk. The next meaningful resistance is near 1.2850, so the target is placed there, giving a potential 100-pip reward and a 1:2 risk-to-reward ratio. Now assume the trader has a £10,000 account and limits risk to 1%, or £100, on a single trade. At an exchange rate of 1.2750, one standard lot of GBP/USD has an approximate value of £7.84 per pip in a sterling-denominated account. A position of 0.25 lots, rounded down to a commonly available trade-size increment, is therefore worth approximately £1.96 per pip. The 50-pip stop risks about £98, while the 100-pip target offers approximately £196 before spreads, commission, slippage or overnight financing costs. If the target at 1.2850 is reached, close the position according to the original plan and record the result rather than moving the goalposts in search of a few extra pips. If price instead breaks below the signal bar and hits the stop at 1.2700, accept the planned loss, record why the setup failed and do not automatically enter again simply because the first attempt lost. This example is an illustration of the process, not a recommendation to trade GBP/USD at these levels. Position-size calculations, pip values and account-risk limits are explained fully in the dedicated risk management article. Read more: 10 Forex risk management tips every trader should know Price action analysis tools are not pieces of software or indicators added to a chart. They are recognisable candle formations that help a trader interpret the behaviour of price at an important location. The four commonly used signals below are useful only when their shape, message and position all agree. A pin bar has a small body near one end of its range and a long wick extending from the other; the long wick points towards the direction price attempted to travel but could not hold. It suggests that the market tested an area and was pushed firmly back before the candle closed. A long lower wick indicates rejection of lower prices, while a long upper wick indicates rejection of higher prices. The signal matters at a pre-marked support or resistance level; floating in the middle of a trend, it is simply an oddly shaped candle. An inside bar forms when the entire high-to-low range of one candle sits within the range of the preceding candle, known as the mother bar. It shows contracting volatility and a market pausing for direction, often after a strong push. The formation becomes meaningful when it develops at a structural level or during a controlled pause within a clear trend. Traders generally watch for price to break the mother bar’s high or low as evidence that direction has returned. An engulfing bar forms when one candle’s body completely covers the body of the previous candle while closing in the opposite direction. It suggests that control has shifted sharply from buyers to sellers or from sellers to buyers within a single candle. Location decides whether that shift matters: an engulfing bar at the edge of a range or at a strong structural level may signal rejection. The same formation in the middle of a sideways market is usually little more than noise wearing a smart jacket. A fakey or false breakout occurs when price moves through a clearly defined high or low but closes back inside the previous range, either on the breakout candle or the next one. It reflects a breakout that failed to attract enough follow-through, potentially leaving traders who entered the initial move trapped. Their exits can then add momentum in the opposite direction. It counts only around an obvious range boundary or key level; how to trade genuine breakouts is covered in the dedicated breakout trading article, while the purpose here is simply to recognise a failed one. Read more: Breakout Trading: What It Is and Key Strategies for Forex Traders Horizontal lines and these candle signals can be marked using any mainstream charting platform; comparing software is outside the scope of this guide. Read more: 15 Best Chart Patterns Every Trader Should Know The tools themselves do not hurt a trader; using them in the wrong place, or in the wrong order, does hurt you. All four traps can be identified and resolved before an order is placed. The separate risk management guide explains how to calculate the appropriate stop distance, account risk and trade size once a valid setup has survived these checks. Yes, price action trading can be suitable for beginners because it focuses directly on price and requires very little chart configuration. However, the low barrier to starting should not be confused with easy results: consistently judging market structure, levels and candle context takes considerable practice and screen time. Some price action traders use no indicators, while others retain one or two tools, such as a moving average, for broader directional context. The compromise is perfectly reasonable provided the indicator only confirms direction and does not replace the candle and its location as the basis for entry timing. The most common price action signals include the pin bar, inside bar, engulfing bar and fakey or false breakout. Their shapes are easy to identify, but location is the deciding factor: a signal only becomes analytically useful when it forms at a relevant support, resistance or structural level. Yes, price action trading can be applied to timeframes ranging from short intraday charts to weekly charts. Smaller timeframes produce more frequent signals but also more market noise, while daily and four-hour charts generally provide steadier structure; beginners should learn to read the daily chart first. Yes, many professional and experienced traders incorporate price action into wider market analysis. Institutional participants also monitor widely recognised swing points, round numbers and support or resistance areas, which helps explain why activity can repeatedly increase around the same levels. Price action trading cannot be fully automated in its discretionary form. A program can identify the mathematical shape of a candle but deciding whether its location genuinely qualifies as a key level involves human judgement, and that context determines whether the entry is valid. Traders who need a completely quantifiable and repeatably back tested system should use the rule-based approach covered in the dedicated algorithmic trading article. Price action trading means making decisions from raw price movement by reading candles, market structure and key levels rather than relying on indicator signals. It may suit traders who want earlier information and are prepared to develop discretionary chart-reading skills, but it is less appropriate for anyone requiring completely fixed, automated and mechanically back testable rules. Price action remains part of technical analysis; it simply reads the source data directly instead of using a calculation derived from it. This guide has covered three ways to apply that information: trend pullbacks, level rejections and fakey reversals. Each relies on the same three-layer reading process of structure, location and momentum. The four-step forex sequence then turns that analysis into a plan by selecting the market and timeframe, marking structure and levels, waiting for a completed signal, and calculating the entry, stop, target and position size, as demonstrated in the GBP/USD example. Pin bars, inside bars, engulfing bars and false breakouts provide the candle clues, while avoiding retrospective explanations, overdrawn levels, unfinished candles and signals in empty space keeps those clues in context. Before considering any price action trade, apply these three tests: My experienced trader’s view is simple: progress in price action trading rarely comes from learning to spot more patterns. It comes from becoming far more selective about which ones deserve a trade. The cleanest chart is of little value without the patience to reject a weak setup. Lee W. is a seasoned professional trader with over 10 years of experience. Passionate about sharing valuable expertise and unique market insights, Lee W. now serves as an external and independent market analyst for RADEX MARKETS. Reviewed by RADEX MARKETS Risk Warning Trading derivatives and leveraged products carries a high level of risk, including the risk of losing substantially more than your initial investment. 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