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Monday Behavior: Gaps, Slow Starts, and Fresh Information

Monday starts with a market that has been closed for two days, and it shows. The first hours behave differently from the rest of the week. The weekly open occurs on Sunday evening in New York, with New Zealand and Australia first. Spreads are wide and liquidity is thin for the first minutes. Gaps from weekend news can appear, as discussed earlier.

During the Asian session on Monday, activity is often subdued unless something significant occurred. In Europe, the London open brings the first real liquidity, and the direction of the week is sometimes hinted at, though early signals can fail.

Fresh information accumulates over the weekend: political developments, statements from officials, and changes in sentiment. Markets absorb them in the first sessions, creating moves that may reverse as the week unfolds.

Some traders prefer to avoid trading early Monday, waiting for the market to establish its range and for spreads to normalize. Others use the previous week's high and low and the weekly open as references.

If you hold positions from the previous week, review them over the weekend, and check the news before the open.

Check the calendar. Monday data releases are fewer, which can lead to a quiet day, though central bank speakers can appear.

Use Monday for planning and for taking only the cleanest setups.

Practical step: record how the first four hours of Monday behave on your pair for eight weeks.

Waiting until London on Monday has saved me a lot of bad fills. The Sunday open spreads are rarely worth it unless you have a specific reason. The market reopens around 5pm New York on Sunday, which is 10pm Lagos in summer and 11pm in winter, and for the first hour spreads on pairs like GBPJPY or EURNZD can be several times their normal width. Pending orders sitting near the Friday close can trigger on the gap or the spread alone. I cancel or move pending orders on Friday unless I'm happy to be filled at a worse price, and I don't enter anything new until the London open at 8am Lagos on Monday.

Reviewing open positions on the weekend with the news in front of you is a good habit. Better to decide calmly on Saturday than at 10pm Sunday with the gap already printed. I check three things. Has anything happened over the weekend that affects the currencies I'm holding, like an election, a central bank official's interview, or geopolitical news? Is a big event coming early in the week, like an RBA decision on a Tuesday? And is the position at breakeven or still carrying full risk? If it's full risk with a big event ahead, I'd rather close it Friday than hold it into Monday hoping. Writing those answers down keeps it honest.