Binary options weekend trading allows traders to trade seven days a week. Forex weekend trading has been possible for some time – with no central market, foreign exchange rates can be traded anywhere a global market is open. This article outlines the details about weekend trading and how you can trade online over the weekend.

This article answers these questions:

  • Can I trade this weekend?
  • Why trade on weekends
  • Restrictions on weekend trading
  • Strategies

With this information you will be able to be successful in weekend trading with binary options.

 

 

Can I trade this weekend?

Most binary options traders intuitively assume that they are unable to trade binary options on the weekend – which is a misconception. The Western world, of course, offers every indication to support this thesis. Fortunately, there is more than just the Western world.

Other cultures have different work weeks. As a result, their stock exchanges are open on different days of the week. In the Middle East, for example, the working week runs from Sunday to Thursday in some places and from Saturday to Wednesday in others. The stock exchanges follow this pattern.

To trade a binary option, you need an open stock market. If the market moves, you can make predictions about where it will go. As long as there are some open markets in the world, you can trade binary options.

The Middle East alone is enough to guarantee an open market over the weekend. With some stock exchanges open on Saturday and some on Sunday, the weekend is full of trading opportunities.

Traders who like to trade binary options based on currencies and commodities can use weekend trading to follow trends they found on Friday or to complete other trading objectives. Currency pairs are not traded on a central exchange, as long as at least one major market is open (Hong Kong, Sydney, New York, etc.), foreign exchange rates can be speculated on. There are even courses in ‘strategies for weekend effects’ dealing specifically – underscoring its popularity.

Leading Weekend Brokers

 

Why trade on weekends?

There are three main reasons why traders choose to trade on the weekend. They are:

  1. The weekend provides the ideal trading environment for some strategies. If only a few Asian markets are open for trading, they behave differently than when most European and American markets are open. The different market environment helps some traders to execute their strategies better than any other market environment. We will present some of these strategies later.
  2. More trading time means more profits. With a profitable strategy, more trading time means more profit. Traders with free weekends can use binary options as a profitable alternative to TV and boredom. Dedicated traders may trade seven days a week.
  3. Some people can only trade on the weekend. If you are busy on weekdays, the weekend may be your only chance to execute some trades. With a broker that allows you to trade when you are free, you get the chance to combine a trading career with a busy schedule.

These reasons are why so many traders love the opportunity to trade on the weekend. On the other hand, weekend trading also suffers from some restrictions. Let’s look at the disadvantages of weekend trading to help you weigh both aspects.

Restrictions on weekend trading

While you can trade binary options on the weekend, there are some limitations. They are:

Limitation 1: only a limited selection of assets

You can only invest in a limited number of assets during the weekend. Stocks and indices are traded on their home exchange. For example, Google, Apple and McDonald’s are American companies traded on the New York Stock Exchange. When the New York Stock Exchange is closed, you cannot trade binary options based on these assets.

At times when only the Middle Eastern markets are open, you can only invest in their stocks and indices. For serious technical analysts, this is no problem; anyway they only trade price movements and are indifferent to the underlying asset.

However, for traders who want to trade the news or want to know something about the assets they trade, this is a problem. There may be a variety of stocks and indices that they have never heard of before. This can be a difficult situation for some traders making weekend trading unacceptable.

These indices are available for weekend trading:

  • DFM Index (Dubai, United Arab Emirates),
  • Tel Aviv 25 Index (Tel Aviv, Israel),
  • Kuwait Stock Exchange (Kuwait),
  • Tadawul Index (Saudi Arabia).

Continue if you can work with these indexes. In addition, brokers are starting to access some markets that were not available before the weekend. IG, for example, now offers weekend trading on the FTSE, the DAX and even US indices. Any ‘weekday’ positions are left undisturbed (so stop losses and open orders will not be processed) but the broker will offer new trades from 8am on Sunday evening until 10.40pm on a Saturday. Other brokers are likely to follow.

Trading times for the weekend in Forex extend much further. With no central market, currency is traded around the world. When London stops trading, Hong Kong still goes. This means that forex can be done 24 hours a day, almost 6 days a week, 24 hours a day. The weekend gold and oil trading markets are similar. However, during certain times the volume will be very low. This leads to flat markets and charts.

Limitation 2: different time zones

Each stock exchange operates in its own time zone. Stock exchange in the Middle East is far from the United States and many other places, so there is a significant time lag. To trade stocks and indices of these stock exchanges, you must account for these time delays.

For binary options traders who like to invest in stocks and indices, this means changing their trading routine significantly. Maybe they have to get up in the middle of the night or at least trade at different times than during the week. If this is impossible or not worth the effort for you, you should focus your stock and index trading on weekdays.

Restriction 3: broker trading times

Some binary options brokers close their trading platforms this weekend. According to them, there are so few traders willing to spend weekends on technical analysis that the effort is simply not worth it.

If you want to trade on the weekend, you should check the trading hours of your broker or contact customer service. If your broker is closed on the weekend, there is nothing you can do but switch brokers. If weekend trading is that important to you, check out our broker list for some great tips.

Some brokers will simply reflect the opening of the relevant markets – for example, the majority will remain open if the forex markets do. Tools like Metatrader 4 (MT4) work on past data or live data, but only when the market is open.

 

 

Strategies

The market environment is different during the weekend trading than during the working week. While this doesn’t mean you need entirely new strategies, you do need to understand the unique characteristics of the market and match it with the right trading strategies.

Here are three strategies that can help you do just that.

Strategy 1: Trade gaps in currencies

Trading Closing gaps requires a market environment that is ideal for the weekend. Trading currency exhaustion gaps over the past weekend gives you the best kind of environment for this type of strategy throughout the week. Trading weekend gaps on forex is a popular system.

Gaps are price jumps. From one period to the next, the market moved strongly, causing the price to jump from one price level to a higher or lower level while the prices in between were omitted.

There are gaps for various reasons. This can for example be the result of the initiation of new movements or the acceleration of movements. But these gaps require a high trading volume. To start or accelerate movements, many traders need to support the change. Otherwise it will run out quickly. On the weekend there are simply too few traders for these types of gaps.

The big western bankers are home this weekend. Most day traders are with their families, and small investors are taking a break. Without these major players, the initiation of new movements is unlikely. You will likely see larger gaps.

The gaps close when only a few traders created them. Sometimes a few people invest in the same direction, either by chance or because they are all caught up in the same indicator. The market jumps up or down, and the rest of the traders are surprised. They view the advance as a mistake, believing that the new price is too high or too low, depending on the direction of the gap. These traders will immediately invest in the opposite direction and try to take advantage of the mistake.

  • In the event of an upward gap, traders will sell their assets. The market will fall and close the gap.
  • In the event of a downward gap, traders will buy the market. The market will rise and close the gap.

If you find gaps in a low-volume market environment, chances are they will close. The weekend is a low-volume trading environment, making it the perfect time to trade this strategy.

If you know that a gap will close, you have everything to trade a high paying binary option.

  • You know the price target. The market will move roughly until it reaches the price level of the first candle that forms the gap. After upward gaps, it is likely to fall to the high of the first candlestick; after downward gaps it is likely to rise to the low of the previous candlestick.
  • You know the expiration. The market will probably reach the strike price within the next period. You should only consider choosing a longer expiration over extremely short periods.

With this information you can trade a high / low option, but you can also invest in a one touch option, which creates a higher payout. Choose an option with a strike price within the gap and an expiration of less than one period. If your broker does not offer such an option, then choose a high / low option with expiration of one period.

We recommend that you use this strategy with currencies or commodities. With most of the world breaking, you know that the trading volume of these asset types is lower on the weekend than during the week. However, on the other hand, the Middle East may experience a large volume because the traders in these countries are still working. Therefore, the Western weekend has less influence on the trading volume.

Strategy 2: Trading disruptions with currencies

This strategy uses a similar philosophy to the first, but adapts it to different market phenomena – the breakout and the pullback. Breakouts occur when the market completes a price formation or breaks a resistance or support. At this price level, many traders place orders in the same direction, resulting in fast, strong moves.

To start a sustainable movement, the rate needs a high trading volume. If the volume is low, the pace of the traders lacks the support of the majority of the traders. There is insufficient confidence in the movement, which motivates traders to invest in the opposite direction and bring the market back – this movement is called the pullback.

For example, assume an asset is sitting in a sideways price channel. It has tried to exit the channel a few times before, but every time the market approaches the upper or lower limit, it reverses.

This weekend the market tries to break out of the formation again. This time it moves beyond the border. During the week, this event can end the formation and start a new movement. But at the weekend, the trading volume of currencies is so low that it is likely that the market will pull back.

Generally, reliable breakouts are accompanied by high volume. Movements outside the boundaries of a formation accompanied by low volume are likely to be false signals. On the weekend, the chance of false signals is so high that it makes sense to predict a pullback for every payout.

You can trade the pullback in different ways. These ways are:

  1. With high / low options. If you find a breakout this weekend, you invest in a high / low option that predicts that the market will pull back within the formation. Use an expiration of about 2 to 4 periods. For example, on a ten-minute card, you would use an expiration of 20 to 40 minutes. This strategy can win you a higher percentage of your trades, but it creates a relatively low payout per winning trade. We recommend this strategy for traders with a risk risk.
  2. With one touch options. You win a one-touch option if the market hits a predetermined strike price. After the weekend, you can use the price formation as your target price. The market will probably pull back at least that far. Use the longest expiration that still gives you a strike price within this range and you have a good chance of winning the trade. This strategy is slightly riskier than using high/low options, but it should give you a higher payout. We recommend it for traders who want to take a little more risk.
  3. With ladder options.Ladder options are a mix of one touch options and high/low options. They define a strike price, and you can predict whether the market will trade above or below this price when your option expires. If you find a breakout over the weekend, you can use learning options to predict that the market will soon trade within the boundaries of the formation again. Use an expiration between 2 and four. This is the most dangerous of these three strategies, but it is also the strategy that creates the highest payouts.

Each of these three strategies can work equally well. Choose the one that best suits your character.

Strategy 3: Trading Bollinger Bands with Currencies

Bollinger Bands define a price channel that the market is unlikely to exit. On the weekend, this price channel creates exceptionally accurate forecasts, making it the perfect basis for a trading strategy.

Bollinger Bands consist of three rules:

  1. A center line. A moving average of 20periods.
  2. A top line. The moving average plus twice the standard deviation.
  3. A lower line. The moving average minus twice the standard deviation.

The lower line acts as support, the upper line as resistance. The center line can be a support or resistance depending on whether the market is currently trading above or below it. In general, the market is likely to turn around when it approaches a Bollinger Band.

Bollinger Bands can be a great help at any time of the week, but they work even better on the weekend. During the week, unexpected news can change the market environment, and the very active traders can start new moves or end old ones at any time. As a result, the trading area varies more.

These events are not inherently bad, but they make using Bollinger Bands more difficult. If the standard deviation changes, so will the upper and lower Bollinger Bands. Strong upward or downward movements will stretch the Bollinger Bands and take their boundaries along for the ride. Predictions made on these bands will quickly become useless.

On the weekend, the low trading volume makes the market much more uniform. The chance that a large group of traders will move and suddenly change the market environment is much lower, which makes using Bollinger Bands easier and more accurate.

Here’s what you do with this strategy:

  1. Create your map. Select an asset, open the price chart, apply the Bollinger Bands.
  2. Wait until the market approaches a Bollinger Band. Wait until the market moves close to one of the three lines of the Bollinger Bands.
  3. Predict that the market will turn. Invest in a high / low option that predicts that the market will not break the Bollinger band.

This strategy is very simple. Even newbies can perform it instantly.

Closing

Binary options weekend trading offers unique opportunities in a unique market environment. To take advantage of the weekend trading, you need a broker that offers these trading times and the willingness to trade currencies and commodities or stocks and indices from the Middle East.

You can trade Middle East stocks and indices using the typical binary options strategies. However, if you decide to trade currencies and commodities, you should adjust your strategy to the significantly lower trading volume over the weekend. There are enough opportunities to trade on weekends that it is worth working up and reading further.