Weekend Trading in Singapore: What Markets Are Open and How It Works
BY TIOmarkets
|March 21, 2026Weekend trading is one of the most commonly searched topics among retail traders in Singapore, particularly those who work during the week and see Saturday and Sunday as an opportunity to be active in the markets.
The reality is more nuanced than a simple yes or no. Most major financial markets, including forex, indices, commodities, and stock CFDs, are closed at weekends. Understanding why this is the case, what the weekend market structure actually looks like, and how to use the two-day break productively are all practical considerations for any trader based in Singapore.
Why Most Markets Close at Weekends
The financial markets that most retail traders access, forex, stock indices, individual stocks, and commodities, are not truly continuous. They operate during defined business hours tied to the activity of banks, exchanges, clearing houses, and institutional participants in the underlying markets.
The forex interbank market, which underpins retail spot forex trading, runs from the opening of the Sydney session on Monday morning through to the close of the New York session on Friday. In Singapore Standard Time (SGT, UTC+8), the forex market week opens on Monday morning and closes at approximately 23:55 on Friday. From that point until the market reopens, no new positions can be opened and existing positions cannot be actively managed through normal order entry.
Stock CFDs follow the hours of the underlying exchange. US stocks, including instruments such as Tesla, Apple, Amazon, and NVIDIA, follow New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ hours, which in SGT run from 21:30 to 04:00. European stocks follow their respective exchange hours. None of these exchanges operate on Saturday or Sunday, so stock CFD trading is unavailable at weekends.
Index CFDs track the same underlying exchange sessions and are equally closed at weekends. Commodities such as gold, platinum, and crude oil also follow defined trading windows tied to futures exchange activity and are closed on Saturday and Sunday.
Which TIOmarkets Instruments Are Closed at Weekends
At TIOmarkets, all confirmed instruments across forex, indices, stock CFDs, commodities, and crypto CFDs are closed on Saturday and Sunday. The following confirmed trading schedules illustrate this across asset classes.
Forex pairs including EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDJPY, AUDUSD, USDCAD, NZDUSD, USDSGD, SGDJPY, and USDZAR all close at or before 23:55 on Friday SGT and reopen on Monday. Saturday and Sunday are closed across the entire forex range.
Major index CFDs including the SP500, US30, UK100, and DE40 all close on Friday and reopen on Monday. Weekend trading is not available on any index instrument.
Stock CFDs including TSLA, AAPL, AMZN, and NVDA follow US exchange hours and are closed from Friday close through to Monday. No weekend sessions are available.
Crypto CFDs including BTCUSD and ETHUSD close at 23:00 SGT on Friday and do not reopen until Monday at 00:00 SGT. Despite the common perception that cryptocurrency markets run continuously, TIOmarkets' crypto CFD instruments follow a defined weekly schedule and are not available for trading on Saturday or Sunday.
Commodity CFDs including platinum (XPTUSD) close on Friday and are unavailable at weekends.
Weekend Market Gaps: A Risk to Carry Into the Weekend
While you cannot trade at weekends, your open positions remain active in the sense that the underlying market can reprice when it reopens on Monday. If significant news breaks over the weekend, whether geopolitical events, central bank announcements, major economic data from Asian markets, or corporate announcements affecting stock prices, the market may open on Monday at a substantially different level from where it closed on Friday.
This is referred to as a gap. A gap occurs when the Monday opening price is meaningfully higher or lower than the Friday closing price, skipping all price levels in between. If you hold a position over the weekend and the market gaps against you, your stop loss order may not be filled at the level you set. Instead, it will be filled at the first available price when the market reopens, which could be significantly beyond your stop level. This is called slippage, and it is a normal feature of gapping markets rather than an execution error.
Orders at TIOmarkets are executed at the best available market price, which may result in positive or negative slippage. This applies particularly at market open after a weekend or public holiday when price gaps are most likely.
For traders in Singapore who are active across multiple sessions, the Friday close is worth treating as a position review point. Deciding in advance whether to carry positions over the weekend, reduce size, or close entirely before Friday's session ends is a routine part of risk management for traders who understand how weekend gaps work.
Unlimited Leverage and Weekend Restrictions
Traders using the unlimited leverage feature on the Standard account at TIOmarkets should be aware that a specific leverage restriction applies over weekends. From 21:00 Friday to 01:00 Monday MetaTrader server time, a margin requirement of 0.5% applies to unlimited leverage positions, equivalent to 1:200 leverage. This is a standing restriction built into the unlimited leverage product, not a discretionary change. Positions sized using lower margin tiers during the week will require more margin to be held from Friday evening through to Monday morning. Subject to change depending on market conditions and applicable regulatory requirements.
What Singapore Traders Can Do Over the Weekend
The weekend market closure is not dead time for a prepared trader. Several productive activities are well suited to the Saturday and Sunday break.
Reviewing the week's trades is one of the most valuable habits a trader can build. Going back through each position taken during the week, noting what worked, what did not, and whether each trade followed your plan, builds the kind of systematic self-awareness that improves decision-making over time. This is best done while the experience is still fresh, making the weekend immediately following a trading week the ideal time.
Preparing for the week ahead is equally important. Checking the economic calendar for upcoming data releases, central bank meetings, and earnings announcements that fall during the coming week gives you a framework for which instruments are likely to be most active and when. For Singapore-based traders, key events to watch include US non-farm payrolls, Federal Reserve decisions, Bank of England announcements, and any data releases from the Monetary Authority of Singapore's monitored indicators that affect SGD pairs.
Practising on a demo account is available over the weekend for educational and strategy-testing purposes. While live market prices are not streaming on a demo account during the weekend closure, the platform itself remains accessible and can be used to review historical charts, test order entry, explore indicator settings, and familiarise yourself with platform features without any financial risk. TIOmarkets demo accounts are available with up to USD 50,000 in virtual funds.
Studying chart history is another productive weekend activity. Reviewing longer-timeframe charts on pairs you trade regularly, identifying key support and resistance levels, and marking out areas of interest for the week ahead takes time that is difficult to find during a live session. The weekend provides that uninterrupted time without the pressure of a moving market.
SGT Market Open Times for Monday Morning
For Singapore-based traders, knowing exactly when each market reopens on Monday morning is useful for planning when to be at the platform.
The forex market reopens at the start of the Sydney session on Monday. In SGT this is approximately 05:00 to 06:00 Monday morning, though liquidity is initially thin and spreads may be wider than normal until the Tokyo session adds volume from approximately 09:00 SGT. The first period of meaningful forex liquidity in Singapore time arrives with the Tokyo session, which runs from approximately 09:00 to 18:00 SGT.
Index CFDs reopen according to their underlying exchange schedules. European indices including the UK100 and DE40 become available in the early hours of Monday morning SGT, ahead of the European cash open. US index CFDs including the SP500 and US30 open in the early hours of Monday SGT and run through into the afternoon.
Crypto CFDs reopen at 00:00 SGT on Monday, making them among the first instruments to become available at the start of the trading week.
FAQ
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