Deriv Swap-Free Weekends: How to Swing Trade Volatility 75 With No Overnight Cost

On April 29, 2026, Deriv eliminated one of the biggest costs for swing traders in synthetics: the weekend overnight fee. With swap-free weekends, you can now hold a position in Volatility 75, Volatility 100, or any Synthetic Index from Friday to Monday with zero financing cost. This completely changes the math for automated strategies.

What Exactly Changed With Swap-Free Weekends

Before this change, holding a position overnight in Synthetic Indices cost a swap fee, and over the weekend that fee was charged double or triple (varying by broker and instrument). For swing-trading EAs, that meant the signal needed a move big enough to outweigh the accumulated cost to make sense.

Now, during the weekend period (roughly Friday 23:59 GMT to Monday 00:01 GMT), zero swap is charged on Synthetic Indices on Deriv MT5.

Why This Is a Game Changer for EAs

Strategies positively affected:

• H4/D1 swing trading: now viable on any synthetic without complex cost math
• Weekly position trading: strategies that enter Wednesday/Thursday and exit Monday/Tuesday
• Overnight mean reversion: waiting out a reversal over the weekend at no cost
• Momentum carry: holding a winning trade through the weekend
• AI-powered EAs (ONNX): multi-day signals based on LSTM models now have a lower profit threshold

Which Instruments It Applies To

The rule applies only to Deriv’s Synthetic Indices family — forex pairs, commodities, and crypto still carry a normal swap.

Practical Strategy: V75 Swing Trading With an EA + ONNX

A classic strategy that’s now viable without cost adjustments:

1. Model: LSTM trained on 6 months of Volatility 75 H4 data
2. Signal: enter on Friday around 21:00 GMT when the model predicts a move ≥ 2% over the next 3 H4 candles
3. Stop: 1% below (V75 has high volatility)
4. Take profit: 3%, or close the position Monday 09:00 GMT
5. Risk: 1% of capital per trade

Before: the 3-day swap could eat 0.3-0.5% of the trade — it required a move ≥ 2.5% to be worth it. Now: with no overnight cost, any move ≥ 1.2% (stop + commission) is already a profit.

MQL5 Code — Detecting the Weekend Window to Adjust Your EA

//+------------------------------------------------------------------+
//| Helper: detect swap-free weekend window                           |
//+------------------------------------------------------------------+
bool IsSwapFreeWeekend()
{
    MqlDateTime now;
    TimeToStruct(TimeCurrent(), now);

    // Friday after 21h GMT until Monday before 1h GMT
    if(now.day_of_week == 5 && now.hour >= 21) return true;
    if(now.day_of_week == 6) return true;  // Full Saturday
    if(now.day_of_week == 0) return true;  // Full Sunday
    if(now.day_of_week == 1 && now.hour < 1) return true;
    return false;
}

void OnTick()
{
    // Allow swing trades only close to the weekend
    if(IsSwapFreeWeekend() || (now.day_of_week == 5 && now.hour >= 18)) {
        // Entry logic with ONNX model
        // ...
    }
}

Caveats and Limitations

• Spread can widen: even without swap, spread during low-liquidity periods (Sunday early morning) can be wider
• Opening gaps: synthetics run continuously, but extraordinary events (a Deriv regulation change) could cause atypical behavior
• Doesn’t apply to forex: if you trade EURUSD or XAUUSD, swap continues as normal
• Check your account type: Islamic/swap-free accounts already had zero swap — nothing changes for those accounts
• Historical backtests: the Strategy Tester may apply the old swap to historical data — recalibrate your benchmarks

Next Steps

If you have swing EAs sitting in a drawer because swap cost made them unviable, it’s time to revisit them. Recalculate your numbers, rerun your backtest accounting for zero weekend swap, and test on demo for 30 days before going live. Remember: a favorable pricing change is an opportunity, but it doesn’t replace edge — your strategy still needs to be statistically valid.