COMEX Hours: When Gold, Silver, and Copper Futures Trade

COMEX is the CME Group exchange where the major metals futures — gold (GC), silver (SI), and copper (HG) — are traded. Like the rest of CME’s electronic markets, metals trade nearly around the clock, but the hours and the liquidity windows are worth knowing before you place a trade.

The COMEX electronic schedule

COMEX metals trade on CME Globex on essentially the same wide schedule as the index futures:

• Weekly open: Sunday 6:00 PM ET (5:00 PM CT).
• Weekly close: Friday 5:00 PM ET (4:00 PM CT).
• Daily maintenance break: 5:00 PM–6:00 PM ET (4:00–5:00 PM CT), Monday through Thursday.

So gold, silver, and copper are tradeable roughly 23 hours a day during the week, resetting into each new session at 6:00 PM ET.

When metals are most active

Although the contracts are open overnight, metals liquidity tends to build during the London morning and the US daytime — loosely the late-morning to early-afternoon Eastern window, when both major centers are active. Outside those hours, spreads can widen and moves can run further on lighter volume. Treat that as context for your strategy, not a recommendation to trade any specific time.

Why this matters for a funded account

If you trade metals inside a structured, simulated funded account, the session reset at 6:00 PM ET is typically where the trading day — and your daily loss limit — rolls over. Trading the deeper-liquidity windows also tends to mean tighter spreads and cleaner fills, which matters when you are working inside defined risk limits. Always confirm the exact hours for the specific metal and on your own platform, since the exchange can adjust them.