Gifts for Forex Traders: 14 Ideas Built Around the Hours They Keep

The best gifts for forex traders help with the strange hours the currency market keeps, so think session clocks, a dual-timezone watch, a sunrise alarm, good headphones and a well-chosen book rather than anything that promises signals or profits. Forex runs 24 hours a day from Sunday evening to Friday evening in New York time, and most people who trade it are fitting that schedule around a job, a family and sleep.

That's the angle this list takes. Everything here is something a currency trader would use, sorted roughly from small to large budgets, with a few things to avoid at the end.

Buying for a stock or crypto trader instead? Our main guide has 17 gift ideas for traders and investors, and there are separate lists for day traders and crypto traders.

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Gifts for the hours they keep

1. A world clock or session clock for the desk. Forex traders think in sessions, with Sydney, Tokyo, London and New York each bringing their own liquidity. The busiest stretch is usually the London and New York overlap, which runs from about 8am to noon in New York. A desk clock showing several cities at once saves them doing timezone maths every morning, and it looks good on a trading setup.

2. A watch with a second time zone. A GMT-style watch has a second hand for another time zone, which is exactly the problem a forex trader has all day. It works for someone trading London from Asia or New York from Europe, and it's the kind of gift that feels considered rather than themed.

3. A sunrise alarm clock. Plenty of currency traders set alarms for a session open in the middle of their night. A light-based alarm makes those early starts a little kinder than a phone buzzing in the dark.

4. Blackout curtains or a good sleep mask. The flip side of trading odd hours is sleeping at odd hours. It's not a glamorous gift, but anyone who trades the Asian or London session from the wrong side of the world will understand exactly why you bought it.

Gifts for the desk

5. A monitor arm or a second screen. Watching several currency pairs at once is far easier on more than one screen, and a gas-spring arm clears desk space while fixing the neck angle. A second monitor is the bigger-budget version of the same idea.

6. Noise-cancelling headphones. Economic data releases like US jobs numbers and central bank decisions can move currencies within seconds. Good headphones help them focus through a noisy house, and they're just as useful on the commute.

7. A large desk mat and a decent notebook. Both are simple and both get used daily. Many traders still sketch levels and write down their plan for the session by hand before the screen starts pulling them in different directions.

8. An ergonomic chair or a seat cushion. Long sessions are hard on the back. If your budget stretches to a proper chair, it's one of the few gifts they'll notice every single day.

Books currency traders rate

9. Trading in the Zone by Mark Douglas. The standard book on trading psychology, and a good fit for forex, where leverage makes discipline matter even more. We pulled out its main ideas in Trading in the Zone lessons if you want to know what you're giving.

10. The New Market Wizards by Jack Schwager. The interview with Bill Lipschutz, who traded currencies at Salomon Brothers, is one of the most talked-about chapters among forex traders, and the rest of the book holds up just as well.

11. Day Trading and Swing Trading the Currency Market by Kathy Lien. A practical book focused on how currency markets behave, written by an analyst who has worked in forex for years. It's a better pick for someone still learning than for a trader with a settled approach.

Everyday carry

12. A power bank that holds its charge. Forex traders check positions from their phone at all hours, and a dead battery during a volatile session is a real worry rather than a minor annoyance.

13. A phone case with some personality. Their phone is the thing they'll check before bed and first thing in the morning. Our Buy the Dip case is the original design, the Trend Is Your Friend case suits anyone who trades with momentum, and Not Financial Advice is perfect for the friend who shares every trade idea in the group chat. The cases fit 34 iPhone and Samsung Galaxy models, and you can see them all in the trader collection.

14. A trading journal that does the maths. Forex traders take a lot of trades, which makes it easy to lose track of what's working. Our Edge Journal spreadsheet calculates expectancy and profit factor and shows what mistakes like moved stops and oversizing have cost. It's a download, so it also works as a last-minute gift.

What to avoid

Skip anything that sells signals, a "guaranteed" strategy or an expert advisor promising returns. Forex attracts more of these products than almost any other market, and most experienced traders see them as a red flag rather than a gift. A paid signal group in particular can put someone you care about into trades they don't understand.

It's also worth steering clear of gifts that take a strong view on a currency or the direction of the market. Traders can be long one week and short the next, so a gift about discipline or the craft itself will age far better than one about a single trade.

Choosing quickly

• Small budget: a book, a phone case, a notebook or the Edge Journal.
• Middle budget: headphones, a session clock, a sunrise alarm or a monitor arm.
• Larger budget: a second monitor, a GMT watch or a proper chair.

If this is for Christmas, made-to-order items need production time on top of shipping, so check the order-by dates in our Christmas gift guide for traders before you leave it late.

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