What Is IG Markets Weekend and How Does Weekend Trading Work There?

What Does IG Markets Weekend Mean?

IG Markets weekend refers to trading the broker IG makes available on Saturday and Sunday, at a time when the underlying exchanges are closed.

The qualifier comes first. It covers a selected group of instruments rather than the full product range, and what sits on that list depends on the instrument, the market, the region you are registered in, and whatever schedule is running at the time. Availability has changed before now and can change again.

The other thing to take on board early is that most weekend instruments are quoted as separate markets from their weekday equivalents. Weekend UK 100 rather than FTSE 100, to borrow IG's own naming convention. Distinct market, distinct position, distinct price.

How Weekend Trading Differs from Regular Trading

Several things shift at once the moment the weekday exchanges close.

• The underlying market is shut. For an index or a share, nothing is actually trading behind the quote.

• Positions are usually kept separate. A weekend index position does not net off against the weekday one, so both can sit open at the same time.

• Rollover applies. Weekend positions left open tend to roll into regular weekday positions once those markets resume, with attached stops and limits carried across.

• Cryptocurrencies work differently, since their underlying market never closed in the first place. Those generally run on the extended weekday market rather than a separate weekend one.

That separation is the part that catches people out. Hedging a Friday position with a weekend one leaves two open positions rather than a closed one, and how they interact come Monday depends on the broker's rollover terms rather than on anything the trader did. Weekend trading across brokers more generally is covered in this overview of weekend trading.

Which Instruments May Be Available on Weekends?

Broadly, weekend instruments tend to come from these groups:

• Major stock indices, on dedicated weekend versions with their own names.

• A small number of major currency pairs, so weekend forex trading is possible but on a much narrower selection than midweek.

• Cryptocurrencies, which run continuously anyway.

• Some commodities, gold being the one that turns up most often.

Individual shares, smaller indices, minor and exotic currency pairs and most other products are generally not part of it. Do not assume an instrument carries over simply because it is there Monday to Friday. The product details page on IG's own site for your region is the only thing worth treating as authoritative, and it is where the current list actually lives.

Weekend Trading Hours and Regional Availability

Weekend trading hours vary, and they vary along more than one axis.

• By region. IG operates through different entities in different jurisdictions and schedules are published per region.

• By instrument. Indices, forex and crypto do not necessarily open and close together.

• By time of year, since published times are quoted in a local zone and clock changes move them.

• By regulation. What a regional entity may offer is constrained by its own regulator, so a product available in one country can be absent in another.

No schedule is reproduced here, and that is deliberate. Times move, and a figure copied from a third party and then left to age is worse than no figure at all. Check IG's weekend trading page for your own region before planning around it. On how much activity levels can differ even during the week, the way forex liquidity shifts across the trading day covers the same principle at a smaller scale.

Weekend Pricing, Spreads, and Liquidity

Weekend market prices are not the underlying market's prices, because the underlying market is closed. For indices, forex and gold the broker quotes a separate price formed from things like current volatility, client activity and news flow, rather than from live exchange trading.

Which leads to the consequence that matters most:

• The weekend price does not have to match Monday's opening price, and frequently will not.

• A position closed at a weekend level can still be followed by a gap when the weekday market reopens somewhere else entirely.

• Spreads tend to be wider than the weekday equivalent, reflecting thinner participation and the extra risk the broker is carrying.

• Margin requirements can be set higher on weekend markets. Sometimes noticeably so.

• Order types may be restricted, and execution rules can differ from the weekday product.

Before placing anything the checklist is short: the instrument's own contract details, its published hours, the spread quoted right now rather than the advertised one, the margin requirement for that specific market, which order types are accepted, and what the platform terms say happens at rollover. Gapping risk does not disappear because somebody traded through the weekend, it only moves. On why these products exist at all, whether the stock market opens on Saturday is useful background.

Conclusion

Weekend UK 100 and FTSE 100 are two different markets with two different prices and two different positions, and the similarity in the names is doing a lot of quiet work. Anybody treating an IG Markets weekend quote as the same instrument they traded on Friday has already made the mistake the product structure is most likely to cause. Read the contract details for the weekend version specifically, not the weekday one.

Disclaimer: Trading involves significant risk of capital loss and may not be suitable for all investors. Product availability, schedules and pricing differ by provider and region and can change without notice.