Significant Widening of Forex Spreads at Specific Times

 

Hello, I am new to Forex trading. I have examined four different brokers regarding spreads. Three of the brokers offer zero spreads and one has an average spread between 4-5. I noticed that the spreads for all brokers tend to widen significantly from around 21:30 (9:30 PM) to approximately 01:40 (1:40 AM), reaching up to a spread of 50 or even higher. This corresponds roughly to the opening of the Sydney session and extends into the Tokyo session for some time. I have looked at several different days. Is this just a coincidence, or is it well known under Forex Traders that spreads can widen so drastically during this time, and therefore one should not trade during this period? Below, I have created a table with the summer and winter times of the sessions, normalized to UTC.

 

Most brokers with variable spreads widen considerably at end of day (5 PM ET) ± 30 minutes.
My GBPJPY shows average spread = 26 points, average maximum spread = 134.
My EURCHF shows average spread = 18 points, average maximum spread = 106.
(your broker will be similar).
          Is it reasonable to have such a huge spreads (20 PIP spreads) in EURCHF? - General - MQL5 programming forum (2022)

 
Hi William, thank you for your feedback. If I have converted 5 PM ET correctly to UTC, then it corresponds to 9:30 PM. This is exactly the time that I have also noticed with various brokers. So it seems to be normal. Have you also experienced that the spreads can sometimes remain so extreme until about 01:40 AM, i.e. from 9:30 PM to 01:40 AM (approx. 4h)? Or is this only for a short period of time like 30-60mins or similar with you?
 

MT5 [broker name redacted] ZERO account:
Trading on live account with the same parameters as demo and spread is 10 times higher than displayed. In demo account i can buy exactly at displayed price, in live account is everything wider, so initial loss is 10 times higher which makes trading impossible. I do not understand why. 
I also tried create my own buttons and call OrderSendAsync with deviaton parameter set at 10, which means 10 points. In this particular case (BTC) is 1 point 0.01 - there is no way how to buy/sell at level set 30 dollars higher or lower than displayed when displayed spread is about 1USD.
At friday everythin was OK, Sunday night demo and live differs. Same symbol, same amounts, same market (QuoMarkets). I lost USD 200 (from starting 540) on live and earned very nice money on demo. I am very disappointed.


Explain, please.