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StoneX Securities said on 21 October 2026 that clients of FOREX.com in Japan can trade US SP 500 and US Tech 100 CFDs on weekends. The Saturday session begins at 5 p.m. Tokyo time and carries through to weekday trading, with a one-hour pause each morning.
Saturday sessions extend local access
The schedule gives Japanese clients access after many local providers have stopped trading index CFDs for the weekend. FXNAV's published hours show Hirose Tsusho and Gaitame.com closing their index contracts at 6:30 a.m. On Saturday; trading does not resume for those clients until Monday.
FOREX.com's Japan launch followed an announcement three days earlier for customers of GAIN Global Markets, the company's entity regulated by the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA). Its 7-Day versions of the same two contracts begin at 08:00 UTC on Saturday, which StoneX said coincides with the Tokyo session opening.
Weekend products spread beyond gold
Weekend trading has also expanded into gold. Vantage introduced a seven-day gold CFD in July, while FOREX.com said gold was the first product in its 7-Day range earlier this year. FM Intelligence counted at least 19 firms announcing a dedicated weekend or 24/7 gold product from February 17 to October 1, including 14 in the third quarter.
StoneX Securities' claim that its index service is Japan's first is based on its review, as of October 8, of domestic FX and CFD providers and major online securities firms. The claim is limited to the US SP 500 and US Tech 100 contracts. IG Securities, IG Group's Japanese arm, lists Weekend Wall Street, a weekend CFD on the Dow Jones Industrial Average that local retail traders use as the "Sunday Dow" to gauge a possible Monday opening. StoneX added overnight hours for selected Japanese stock CFDs and knock-out options in August, running until 5 a.m. Tokyo time; overnight US share sessions have spread across brokers, though use remains niche.
Weekend access brings new benchmarks
In the US, Bruce Markets plans to add weekend hours to overnight US equity trading on its alternative trading system, pending regulatory review. CME Group shifted its crypto futures and options to round-the-clock trading on May 29; the first weekend recorded about $50 million in notional value. StoneX's Johan Gade, head of retail for Japan, said events increasingly happen outside standard market hours and investors expect to respond in real time.
StoneX reported retail FX and CFD revenue of $64.7 million for the June quarter, 19% lower year over year. It has since replaced the City Index brand in the UK with StoneX Trading. As Finance Magnates reported, FOREX.com says on its international site that when futures are closed, its 7-Day index prices are based on alternative index reference markets. It also says spreads may exceed weekday levels.
What an operations team should check
Teams assessing the new session should confirm how the Saturday opening, daily morning pause and weekday handover are represented in platform schedules, client-facing price feeds and monitoring. They should also ask which alternative index reference markets feed weekend prices, how the switch is handled when futures are closed, and what spread conditions are shown to clients.
Operators should check how weekend trades appear in downstream records and reporting, and whether support and incident processes cover the additional hours. StoneX's announcement does not specify those integration details, so firms considering the service will need to establish them with the provider.
