Instrument trading hours are the windows during which a specific market can be traded on a platform. Unlike currency pairs, which trade almost continuously from the Asian open on Monday to the New York close on Friday, index, share, metal and energy CFDs follow the sessions of their underlying exchanges and often include a daily break around the platform's rollover time.
Hours are published in the contract specification and shift with daylight saving changes and exchange holidays. They matter for risk because orders cannot be executed while an instrument is closed: a stop-loss placed on a closed market will only be triggered when trading resumes, potentially at a gapped price.
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Choosing a Trading Platform: MT4, MT5, cTrader and the Broker's Own
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