Geographical Location and Trading Hours
Day trading markets are provided by exchanges located throughout the world, with the most popular day trading markets being from exchanges in the US, Europe, and Asia. As each of these regions are located in different timezones, your geographical location will make a difference to which markets you can trade (unless you want to trade in the middle of the night).
Day traders in the US have access to the US open, and possibly part of the Asian markets. Day traders in Europe have access to the European open and the US open, and the afternoon session of the Asian markets. Day traders in Asia have access to the Asian open, and the European open.
Some popular day trading markets that are available to traders in different locations because they trade 24 hours per day are :
Currency Futures
Stock Index Futures
- YM - The Dow Jones futures market
- ES - The S&P 500 futures market trades
- ER2 - The Russell 2000 futures market
Commodity Futures
- ZG - The Gold 100 troy ounce futures market
- ZI - The Silver 5000 ounce futures market
The European and Asian futures markets are missing from the above list because they only trade during regular trading hours for their location. For example, the CAC40 and the DAX futures markets only trade during European trading hours, and the HSI futures market only trades during Hong Kong trading hours.
