Gold Trading Hours: When and How to Trade Gold

Gold is a unique precious metal that has been attracting the attention of many investors for centuries. Nowadays it remains one of the largest trading assets. According to Statista, its average daily trading volume in 2019 reached $145,5 billion, providing gold with the third position.

However, to develop a successful gold trading strategy, it’s crucial to understand when and how it’s better to invest in this asset. In this article, you will find out everything about gold trading hours of a big range of markets, the most common ways to trade it, and more.

Gold Markets Trading Hours

The range of gold trading markets is huge, moreover, it’s constantly growing. Since all of them come with some particular features and are situated in different parts of the world their trading hours may differ. However, it’s important to note that gold trading is available almost 24 hours per day. Here we have gathered the trading schedules of the major gold exchanges.

This is how the trading hours of various gold markets worldwide overlap during the day.

Gold Market Sessions Characteristics

World gold market involves three key sessions popular with different features and offering investors various merits.

European session (from 08:00 to 17:00)

Characteristics:

• Highest volatility. As the European trading session follows the Asian one, the liquidity of the assets at its opening is already high. As a result, during these hours traders are likely to experience higher volatility as well.
• High liquidity. The huge number of trades leads to a high level of liquidity and low spreads during this session.
• Biggest turnover. The European session is considered to be the most active. Its daily transaction turnover accounts for 35%.

US session (from 13:00 to 22:00)

Characteristics:

• Breakouts at the beginning of the session. The beginning of the US session overlaps with the ending of the European session. This is the time of high liquidity and volatility. During the overlap period, US session behavior is very similar to the European one.
• Medium turnover. The US trading session has the characteristics of both European and Asian sessions. It stays in between them, showing an average daily turnover of about 25%.

Asian session (from 00:00 to 09:00)

Characteristics:

• Lowest volatility. The Asian session is usually associated with less significant gold price movements in contrast to the other two sessions.
• Breakouts at the end of the session. Since the end of the Asian trading session overlaps with the European one, the market tends to be more liquid, thus investors get more trading opportunities.
• Smallest turnover. The Asian session accounts for 15% of the daily transaction turnover.
• Facilitated risk management. Trading gold on the Asian session is known for the low liquidity and volatility. Thus, traders can implement their risk management strategies more effectively due to less stressful market conditions.

When Is the Best Time to Trade Gold?

Gold has always been a popular investment asset. It attracts investors with its key features, such as stability, hedging against inflation, diversification, etc. Once having decided to allocate your capital to this commodity, it’s necessary to be aware and keep track of key factors, influencing its price. Some of them include but are not limited to:

• Gold supply and demand;
• Geopolitical news;
• Monetary policy of central banks;
• Financial market conditions;
• Gold production;
• Currency fluctuations (especially of a US Dollar), etc.

When it comes to the best time of the day to trade gold, it may differ according to investors’ trading behavior, risk tolerance, the capital they are ready to outlay, amount of time they can devote to trading, etc. However, in general, the market offers more potential profits when it’s the most active and has the highest volume of financial transactions, therefore during the session overlaps, especially between the European and the US ones.

What Are the Main Ways to Trade Gold?

Gold trading is not limited to just buying and selling physical gold. Nowadays, there are many different ways to trade this precious metal, thus, every investor can find their best fit. Let’s have a closer look at some of them.

1. Gold bullions and coins are types of physical gold. This way of trading gold implies ownership over it, thus additional expenses such as storage costs, insurance and transaction fees, etc.
2. Gold futures is an easier alternative to the above-mentioned type. They are micro contracts where a buyer and a seller set a price on a specific amount of gold to be delivered at a certain date in the future. The amount of profit, in this case, depends on the difference in the gold price between the contract signing and expiry date.
3. Gold CFDs (Contracts for Difference) are orders to buy or to sell gold at a set price. Being a derivative, they don’t require ownership over the asset. CFD trading comes with larger leverage, providing investors with a bigger exposure to the gold market, yet, increasing the number of potential risks. What’s more, they allow traders to go either long (buy) or short (sell), taking advantage of both falling and rising gold prices.
4. Gold ETFs (Exchange-traded funds) represent funds that include assets backed by gold. ETFs behave similarly to usual stocks and are traded in the same way.

Why Trade Gold with NAGA?

Naga is an innovative trading platform that goes far beyond the features offered by common trading brokers. It allows every person to try out the gold trading experience and take advantage of this unique asset. Naga platform provides investors with a big variety of merits, here are some of them:

• User-friendly interface. Even inexperienced traders can easily start trading yellow metal on Naga.com. The platform can boast of intuitive interface and easy navigation.
• Auto Copy. This unique feature allows investors not only to observe the behavior of other more experienced traders but also to mirror it. Nevertheless, every investor should always measure their risk appetite and profile against the master trader they intend to copy.
• CFD trading. Naga traders can invest in gold via CFDs, making use of leverage. This means they can get access to the gold market with much smaller initial investments and receive higher potential profits. However, it’s important to remember that leverage implies higher potential risks since both profits and losses are calculated from the total position value.
• Demo account. Before diving into real trading, investors can get acquainted with the Naga platform and try trading gold using a free demo account.
• Multiple deposit methods. It’s possible to easily fund your account via credit/debit card, wire transfers, e-wallets, and many other alternative options.
• Market news. When trading any type of asset, including gold, it’s crucial to keep an eye on key market events. Being a social trading platform, Naga offers its users easy access to all the recent financial news.

All you need to do to start trading yellow metal with Naga is to follow these steps:

1. Go to the Naga web platform, create or login into your investment account.
2. Conduct market research, analyze historical trends of the gold price, keep aware of factors influencing gold value.
3. When trading gold CFDs you need to choose between opening a long (buying) or a short (selling) position. It’s reasonable to first practice in a demo account and only then invest real money. This way, you will avoid a high risk of losing money while gaining some experience.
4. Develop an individual trading strategy that will comply with your personality, trading style, and the amount of time you want to spend on this activity.
5. Think of a robust risk management plan.
6. Open and keep track of your position, sticking to the strategies you chose.