⏰ Pratik temel bilgiler

When the markets are actually open — in your time zone. All times in CET/CEST (Central European Time).

Note: CEST applies in Germany from late March to late October. In winter, CET (1 hour earlier for all summer times in the table).

Weekends: Friday close to Monday open → 65 hours without trading. Macro events over the weekend (e.g. OPEC decisions, geopolitical escalations, emergency central bank meetings) can create Monday gaps. Forex and crypto (both 24/7 or 24/5 respectively) react immediately; equity markets catch up at Monday's open.

💡 Tradegate and LS Exchange are German "extended" venues — tradeable until 23:00, but with a thinner Order Book and wider spreads than Xetra during peak hours. Fine for quiet after-work trades, but for larger volumes it is better to wait for the Xetra open.

The same security has three different identifiers. You should know all three — otherwise you end up in the wrong instrument on the wrong exchange.

• Ticker Symbol (e.g. AAPL) — short, exchange-specific. AAPL on Nasdaq ≠ APC on Xetra for the same Apple share! A ticker alone says nothing about which venue you are trading on or in which currency settlement occurs.
• ISIN (International Securities Identification Number, e.g. US0378331005) — globally unique, independent of the exchange. 12 characters, starts with the country code (US, DE, GB …). The ISIN is the best choice when you want to identify exactly which security is meant.
• WKN (Wertpapierkennnummer, e.g. 865985) — 6-character German legacy identifier. Mapped based on ISIN. Still prominently shown in German broker UIs, but unusual globally. For international research, prefer the ISIN.

💡 When entering trades manually: if your broker only provides the WKN, look up the ISIN in the security overview. sTraderZ.com links both and displays whichever identifier you prefer.

For your everyday trading you need access to current prices. Here are the most important sources, from premium to free:

• Your broker — best source. At IBKR real-time from $4.50/month, otherwise 15 min. delayed. At Trade Republic/Comdirect/ING: real-time in the app (free, though usually only for the broker's preferred venue).
• TradingView.com — free basic version, 1 device, 2 chart layouts, many indicators. Paid tier from €15/month — only worthwhile for power users with multiple watchlists, alerts and technical analysis.
• Investing.com — broad coverage (equities, forex, commodities, indices). Free basic features. Ad-driven but solid as a secondary source.
• Yahoo Finance — simple, good for fundamental data and news. Not a professional charting tool, but solid overview of company figures, analyst estimates and dividend history.
• Directly at the exchange — Xetra prices at boerse-frankfurt.de, US at nasdaq.com, UK at londonstockexchange.com.

💡 For starters: broker app + TradingView Free + Yahoo Finance covers 95% of all traders' needs. Only subscribe to real-time feeds once you can demonstrably show that 15 minutes of delay was too long.