Every Sunday evening, forex charts reopen with small jumps between Friday's close and the new week's first price, and sometimes those jumps are enormous. Weekend gaps happen because the world does not stop when retail platforms close: elections, central bank surprises, geopolitical events, and economic data released over the weekend all reprice currencies before Monday's open. The classic advice is that gaps fill, meaning price returns to Friday's close, but real gaps behave far more interestingly: some fill within hours, some fill over days, and some mark the start of a trend that never looks back.

In quiet weeks, gaps on major pairs are tiny, often under 10 pips, because little news arrives to change valuations. Large gaps need a genuine surprise: an unexpected election result, a central bank intervention, a geopolitical escalation, or a major data revision published while markets are closed. Exotic pairs and gold gap more dramatically because their liquidity is thinner and their sensitivity to weekend news is higher. Gold gaps of 20 to 30 dollars after major weekend events are not unusual, which is why gap traders must treat gold as a different animal from EUR/USD.

Gap size itself carries information. Small gaps in calm conditions usually reflect routine order-flow imbalance and tend to fill quickly as normal liquidity returns. Large gaps driven by real news represent a genuine repricing, and those are the gaps most likely to keep running rather than fill. A useful rule of thumb is to compare the gap to the pair's average daily range: a gap under 20 percent of that range is a candidate for a fill trade, while a gap above 50 percent should be treated as a possible trend change until price proves otherwise.

The fill strategy waits for the Sunday open, then looks for price to retrace toward Friday's close, entering when the initial momentum stalls and a reversal candle appears on the 15-minute or one-hour chart. Targets sit at or just before Friday's close, and stops go beyond the gap extreme, which keeps risk defined. This strategy works best on small gaps in major pairs with no major weekend news behind them, and it should be abandoned if price breaks further away from the close instead of returning, because that is the market telling you the gap is not a fill candidate.

The continuation strategy does the opposite: it waits for price to hold beyond the gap and then trades in the gap's direction, treating the gap as a breakout. Entry comes after a pullback to the gap edge or a consolidation above it, with stops below the gap zone. Continuation trades suit large news-driven gaps and trending markets, and they often run for days rather than hours. Whichever strategy you choose, decide before the open which one applies to this particular gap, and do not flip between them mid-trade because the first hour went against you.

Gap trading carries risks that weekday trading does not. Spreads at the Sunday open are wide, sometimes several times normal, and stop-loss orders can slip badly if price jumps past them. Some brokers also widen margin requirements over weekends, and holding positions through the weekend to catch a gap exposes you to the full surprise rather than letting you choose your entry. For most traders, the safer approach is to be flat over the weekend and trade the gap deliberately on Sunday evening, rather than holding a position and hoping the gap favours it.

Size gap trades smaller than normal, because Sunday volatility is unpredictable and the first hour can whipsaw in both directions. Risk 0.5 percent rather than one percent, avoid trading the first five minutes of the open when spreads are worst, and set a time limit: if a fill trade has not progressed within a few hours, exit and reassess rather than holding a stale idea into the London session. Gaps reward preparation and punish impulse, so write your gap plan before the weekend ends and execute only that plan.

Trade weekend gaps with a clear rule: small, news-free gaps are fill candidates, large news-driven gaps are continuation candidates, and both need smaller size and wider respect for Sunday spreads. Follow that framework and gaps become a planned weekly opportunity instead of a Monday-morning lottery ticket.