Crypto never closes. Gold, silver and forex do, every weekend. If you trade both on a funded account, that difference matters more than any single setup: it decides what you can still manage on a Saturday, and what can happen to a position you left open on Friday.
Here is how the weekend works at Drift Fund, the one risk it adds (the Monday gap), and a short checklist for Friday afternoon.
Can you hold positions over the weekend?
Yes. There is no forced close on Friday and no rule against holding a position through the weekend, on any account type. There is no swap, overnight or interest charge either, so holding costs nothing in itself.
What changes over the weekend is not the rules. It is the markets.
Crypto: open seven days a week
Bitcoin, Ether and the other crypto pairs trade every day. On Saturday and Sunday you can open, manage and close crypto positions exactly as on a weekday, and the rules apply the same way:
- A stop loss on every position within 5 minutes of opening it.
- The daily drawdown resets at 00:00 UTC every day, Saturday and Sunday included. Each weekend day gets its own 4% daily limit, measured from your equity at midnight UTC.
- A weekend day counts as a trading day when you open a trade on it (a trading day is a UTC calendar day with at least one opened trade). That helps with the minimum of 5 trading days.
One practical point: weekend crypto markets are often thinner than weekday ones. Fewer participants means a moderate order can move the price more, and moves can come in bursts. A position size that feels comfortable on a Tuesday can feel very different on a quiet Sunday night. Our guide to position sizing and the 2% rule applies on every day of the week.
Gold, silver and forex: closed from Friday evening to Sunday evening
These markets close on Friday evening and reopen on Sunday evening (around 21:00–22:00 UTC, depending on daylight-saving time). While they are closed there is no price, so nothing can be done with a gold or forex position on any account: you cannot open, close or modify it until the market reopens.
A position you leave open on Friday is therefore frozen at Friday's last price, with its stop loss waiting, until Sunday evening.
The Monday gap
When gold or forex reopens, the first price is often not Friday's last price. News, politics and weekend events are priced in at once, and the market can open well above or below where it closed. That jump is the gap.
A gap matters because a stop loss cannot fill at a price the market never traded. If the market opens beyond your stop, the stop fills at the first available price, which can be much worse than the level you set.
A worked example on a $50,000 account:
- On Friday you hold 0.5 lot of gold long at 4,000 (0.5 lot = 50 oz), with a stop at 3,980. If the stop fills at its level, the loss is 50 oz × $20 = $1,000, or 2% of the account. A sensible risk.
- Gold closes the week at 4,000 and reopens on Sunday evening at 3,950.
- The stop fills at around 3,950, not 3,980. The loss is 50 oz × $50 = $2,500, or 5%.
That single gap takes the account past the 4% daily limit (measured from Sunday's 00:00 UTC equity) and past the 2% maximum loss on a single trade. The stop was in place and the plan was sound; the market simply never traded at the stop's level.
Gaps count toward your limits like any other loss. They are part of trading markets that close, at every firm.
How to handle the weekend
On Friday, before the close, for each gold, silver or forex position:
- Decide whether it really needs to stay open. Closing on Friday removes the gap risk entirely.
- If it stays open, size it for the gap, not only for the stop. Ask: if the market reopened 1% or 2% beyond my stop, where would my account be? If the answer breaks the 4% daily limit, the position is too large to hold.
- Note the reopen time (Sunday evening UTC) and be ready to manage the position then.
For crypto over the weekend:
- Keep your stops in place. The 5-minute rule applies on Saturday and Sunday too.
- Remember the daily reset at 00:00 UTC on each weekend day.
- Size for thinner markets.
Into Monday: high-impact releases are rare at weekends, but a position held from Sunday into Monday is still subject to the news rule when a release comes: no position may be opened, closed or held from 5 minutes before to 5 minutes after a high-impact event. See trading around high-impact news.
The short version
- Holding over the weekend is allowed, with no overnight charge.
- Crypto trades every day; the daily limit resets at 00:00 UTC on weekends too, and weekend days count as trading days.
- Gold, silver and forex close from Friday evening to Sunday evening; nothing can be done with those positions until they reopen.
- The reopening price can gap past your stop, and the gap counts toward your limits. Size Friday positions for the gap, or close them.
The complete rules are on the rules page, and the way the drawdown limits are measured is explained in trailing vs static drawdown.
Drift Fund accounts are a simulated trading environment. Trading involves risk, and past performance does not guarantee future results.