CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. Trade only with money you can afford to lose.
Open Exness Account →
Measured data

Exness Trading Hours — Spread and Movement by Hour · South Africa

How the measured spread and the average hourly movement change through the trading day on Exness’s MetaTrader 5 feed — measured 11 Oct · 09:46 SAST. Hours are platform server time.

Open Exness Account →

1:2000

How to read this

A trading hour is attractive when the market moves a lot relative to what entering costs. The last column divides the average hourly movement by the average spread in that hour — more movement per pip of spread means the hour is cheaper to trade relative to its opportunity, before strategy and news are considered.

BTC/USD hour by hour (measured)

Hour (server)Avg spread (pts)Avg movement (pts)Movement per pt of spread
00:0064023015.636×
01:0064049661.378×
02:0064039768.962×
03:0064036707.657×
04:0064034623.454×
05:0064029377.146×
06:0064034350.654×
07:0064029707.746×
08:0064028931.745×
09:0064033565.652×
10:006403350252×
11:0064039204.761×
12:0064035760.456×
13:0064055808.387×
14:0064062709.398×
15:0064064454.1101×
16:0064034823.954×
17:0064034120.653×
18:0064038764.761×
19:0064025851.640×
20:0064023433.137×
21:0064021562.734×
22:0064029918.447×
23:0064026499.741×

Spread = average of all quotes captured in that hour over the last 24h; movement = average high–low of that hour over the last 7 sessions. Hours are MT5 server time.

All instruments — where spreads tighten and widen

InstrumentTightest avg spreadWidest avg spreadBiggest hourly movementMovement-per-cost peak
BTC/USD640 at 07:00640 at 07:0064454.1 at 15:0015:00
ETH/USD100 at 07:00100 at 07:002493.6 at 15:0015:00

Spread in pips (points for non-FX). ‘Movement-per-cost peak’ is the hour with the most movement per pip of spread.

The rollover hour

In this sample the widest BTC/USD hour was 07:00 server time, where the average spread ran about 1× the typical hour. This is the daily rollover window — swaps are applied, liquidity providers reset, and quotes briefly widen. Positions held with tight stop-losses through this hour can be stopped out by the spread alone. The most active hours by tick count were 03:00, 13:00, 14:00, 16:00.

How this was measured

  • Spread by hour: every captured quote on Exness's own MT5 feed, bucketed by server hour (last 24h).
  • Movement by hour: average H1 candle range over the last 7 sessions, from the same feed.
  • The ratio compares movement to entry cost only — it is not a prediction of direction.
  • Figures refresh on a schedule and vary day to day.

Measured in-terminal on Exness’s own MetaTrader 5 pricing feed and symbol specifications, refreshed on a schedule. All figures are indicative and change with market conditions.

Open Exness Account →

Related Exness pages