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Market closed in MetaTrader 4

You cannot trade a symbol and it says the market is closed.

MetaTrader 4Market closedorderssessions

What is causing it

The instrument is outside its session hours.

Why this happens

Every symbol has session times set by the broker and stored in its specification, and MT4 disables order entry outside them. Those times are expressed in the broker's server time rather than yours, so an instrument can appear closed at what looks like the wrong moment until you account for the offset between the server clock shown in Market Watch and your own.

Different instrument classes on the same account run different sessions. Forex runs continuously through the week with a short daily break, indices and commodities follow their underlying exchange hours with their own breaks, and shares follow the exchange calendar including public holidays. A single exchange holiday can therefore close some of your symbols while the rest trade as usual.

The fix, step by step

  1. Right-click the symbol, choose Specification, and check the trading times.
  2. Remember forex closes over the weekend and indices follow exchange hours.

How to confirm it is fixed

Open the symbol specification from Market Watch, read the trading session times listed there and compare them with the server clock rather than your computer clock. When the session opens the quotes begin moving and the order dialog will accept a market order for that symbol.

Stopping it happening again

Check session times in the specification before planning a trade on an unfamiliar instrument, remembering they are in server time. Ask your broker for their holiday schedule if you trade indices or shares, since those closures are set by the broker and are not shown in the platform in advance.

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Still stuck? Some issues are specific to your broker or your app version, and their support desk can confirm server names, account status and outages. See all MetaTrader 4 problems or the full help hub.