The clock

Closed, not broken: when the calendar is the fault · Nigeria

A whole class of «the platform stopped working» reports has no software cause at all. The market itself has hours, a daily changeover, quiet stretches and a weekend — and each of those produces a symptom that looks like a defect from the inside of a terminal.

Forex is currencies traded in pairs against each other, and it runs around the clock on weekdays because the trading day passes between financial centres. It is not open on the weekend, and instruments other than currencies keep narrower hours of their own. Check the clock before checking anything else.

How to check the clock properly

The platform runs on its own server time, which is not necessarily the time on your wall or your phone. Every instrument carries a specification with its trading session inside the terminal. Compare the session to the server clock in the platform window; comparing it to a local clock is what turns an open market into a mystery.

Symptom 1

Nothing moves on any instrument

What you see: the quote list is static, charts have no new candles, and the terminal otherwise behaves normally.

What to check: the day of the week and the server clock. Currency trading pauses for the weekend, so a Saturday screen with frozen quotes is a correct screen.

Next step: nothing to fix. If the same stillness appears mid-week, that is a connection question rather than a calendar one — repeat the check on a second device. A chart that shows nothing.

Symptom 2

«Market closed» on one instrument only

What you see: currencies trade fine, but a metal, an index or a share CFD refuses the order.

What to check: that instrument’s own session in its specification. Sessions differ by instrument class, and a break in the middle of the day is normal for some of them.

Next step: either wait for the session or place a pending order that waits for you. A pending order left over a closed session is not lost — it sits until the level is reachable again. Rejected orders.

Symptom 3

The spread suddenly widened, then went back

What you see: the gap between the buy and sell price grows for a few minutes, a small position shows a larger loss than it did a moment earlier, and then the display settles.

What to check: the time. The daily changeover between trading days, the minutes around a scheduled release, and the quiet hours between sessions all thin out the number of quotes available.

Next step: nothing to report, but plenty to learn. A position opened into a wide spread starts further behind, and an exit level placed inside that gap can be reached by the spread alone. Protection that did not protect.

Symptom 4

The price jumped over the level you set

What you see: a gap between one candle’s close and the next one’s open, and an exit that filled somewhere other than the number you typed.

What to check: whether the gap sits across a weekend or a session break. Prices are not obliged to pass through every level in between; when trading resumes it resumes wherever it resumes.

Next step: read the fill price in the history, not the level in your plan. This is the one behaviour that makes an exit order a boundary rather than a promise.

Symptom 5

An extra charge appeared overnight

What you see: a position you did not touch shows a small credit or debit that was not there yesterday.

What to check: whether the position stayed open through the daily changeover. Holding overnight can add or subtract a small amount, and it is shown in the instrument’s specification before you ever place the trade.

Next step: if the figure looks wrong rather than unexpected, recompute it before writing to anybody. Recheck a number.

Does a 24-hour market mean every hour is the same?

No. The market is continuous on weekdays, but the number of participants is not. Quiet stretches produce wider spreads and thinner movement on the same instrument.

Can an order be placed while the market is closed?

A market order needs a market. A pending order can be left in place and waits for the session; check its expiry setting so it does not quietly disappear.

Why does the terminal clock differ from the phone clock?

Server time is a fixed reference so that candles line up for everyone. Your phone shows local time. Both are right, and only one of them decides sessions.

Is a wide spread a sign of a broken feed?

Not by itself. A feed fault freezes quotes; a thin market widens them while they keep updating. The difference is whether numbers still change.

The weekend passed and my position looks different.

Compare the Friday close and the reopening price. A gap over the break moves an open position before you can act on it, which is the reason a weekend position is a decision, not a default.

Trading is risky and may not be suitable for everyone; a position left open through a break can move further than expected.

Ticket refusals

The wordings that come back when the clock is not the cause.

Rejected orders

Message decoder

«Market closed» is one of a dozen refusals with a fixed meaning.

Decode a message

Watch a rollover

The changeover is visible on a practice account at no cost at all.

Practice account faults

Sessions and gaps look the same on virtual money

A demo account shows the identical clock, the identical widening and the identical weekend gap, with nothing at stake. The button opens the official exness.com sign-up through a partner link.

Open a free demo at Exness