When Does CME Trading Close? Understanding CME Futures Trading Hours Without the Guesswork

If you’ve ever tried to place an order near the end of a CME session, you know the frustration: the market is open, then suddenly it isn’t, and your order sits there unfilled. Many traders assume CME operates like the stock market—a simple open at 9:30 AM and a close at 4:00 PM. That misconception costs money. CME futures trading hours are nearly round-the-clock, with daily maintenance breaks, weekly closes, and holiday schedules that shift depending on the product.

Here’s what actually matters when you’re trying to figure out when CME trading closes and how to stay on top of it without refreshing a dozen tabs.

The Core CME Globex Schedule: It’s Not a 9-to-5 Market

CME Globex, the electronic trading platform that handles most futures contracts, runs from Sunday evening through Friday afternoon. The standard schedule, expressed in Central Time (CT), looks like this: markets open Sunday at 5:00 PM CT and close Friday at 4:00 PM CT . During the week, there’s a daily maintenance halt from 4:00 PM to 5:00 PM CT, after which trading resumes for the next trade date .

That’s the broad picture. But the exact moment CME trading closes varies depending on what you’re trading. Equity index futures like the E-mini S&P 500 follow the Globex schedule closely: Sunday 5:00 PM CT through Friday 4:00 PM CT, with the daily break in between . Agricultural products, by contrast, operate on a different rhythm entirely—opening Sunday at 7:00 PM CT and closing Friday at 1:20 PM CT, with intraday breaks during the week .

The takeaway: there is no single “CME close” time. The answer to “when does CME trading close” depends on the product group, the day of the week, and whether a holiday is approaching.

Holiday Schedules: Where Most Traders Get Caught Off Guard

Holidays are where the CME trading schedule gets genuinely confusing. Unlike stock exchanges, which simply close for the day, CME Globex often halts early and then reopens the same evening for the next trade date.

Take CME futures trading hours Labor Day as an example. On Labor Day Monday, most CME Globex products halt trading at approximately 12:00 PM CT. But the market doesn’t stay closed. It reopens at 5:00 PM CT the same evening, beginning the next trade date . If you didn’t know that, you might assume the entire day was a market holiday and miss the evening session entirely.

CME futures trading hours Thanksgiving follow a similar pattern but with additional twists. Thanksgiving Day itself (a Thursday) typically sees an early halt, and the Friday after Thanksgiving often features reduced hours. In 2026, for instance, Thanksgiving falls on November 26, with early settlement at 12:00 PM CT . Some products, like NYMEX energy contracts, close early on the Friday after Thanksgiving as well . The details vary by product group, and CME usually finalizes holiday hours only about two weeks in advance .

Then there’s CME futures trading hours Sunday. Every week, the market reopens Sunday evening at 5:00 PM CT (6:00 PM ET). This is when the new trade week begins. For traders who follow weekend news and geopolitical events, Sunday’s open is often the first opportunity to react. But here’s the practical problem: if you’re watching positions over the weekend, you’re waiting hours for that Sunday reopen, and you want to know exactly when the market comes back.

And CME futures trading hours today? That question gets more complicated during daylight saving transitions. When the U.S. shifts between standard and daylight time, CME trading hours shift by an hour relative to other global markets . If you’re trading from Europe or Asia, your local equivalent of the CME close moves—sometimes with only a few days’ notice if you haven’t been paying attention.

What This Means for Position Management

The practical reality is this: CME futures trading hours are fragmented. Daily maintenance breaks, weekly Sunday opens, Friday closes, and holiday early halts create dozens of moments where the market is technically “closed” or in a transitional state. For active traders, that’s a lot of moving parts to track.

This is where a tool like Camovia Tray fits naturally into the workflow. If you’re running MetaTrader 5 or MetaTrader 4 and managing CME-linked positions, you don’t always need to have the full terminal open to know what’s happening. Camovia Tray sits in your system tray and lets you hover over the icon to see live quotes for your watchlist symbols—including futures-related instruments—without launching the full MT5/MT4 interface.

More importantly for position management: during those awkward windows when the market is about to close or has just reopened, you can check your open positions directly from the tray. The floating window shows symbol, direction, lot size, open price, and current P&L. If you decide to close a position during an active session, the tray panel lets you do it with a two-step confirmation—click the position card, then confirm [citation:1 of product knowledge base]. No need to maximize the terminal, no need to navigate multiple windows.

The data stays on your machine. Camovia reads directly from your local MT5/MT4 installation, which means your position data isn’t routed through any external server. For traders who are already watching CME hours closely, that’s one less thing to worry about.

The Bottom Line on CME Close Times

CME trading “closes” in multiple senses: daily at 4:00 PM CT for the maintenance break, Friday at 4:00 PM CT for the weekend, and early on certain holidays. The exact times depend on the product. The best approach is to know your specific contracts’ schedules and have a way to monitor positions without being chained to the full trading terminal.

If you’re the kind of trader who wants to keep an eye on CME session boundaries without leaving MT5/MT4 running in full view all day, a tray-based approach makes the workflow lighter. Camovia Tray was built for exactly that scenario—quick quote checks, position visibility, and one-click close, all from the system tray, with data that never leaves your computer.