This is my first post on here. I’m a relative newcomer. I have a question about platforms with different timezones. I’ve been using the MT4 platform through my broker, which is based on Eastern Standard Time and a daily bar is based from midnight to midnight EST. I had never really given it much thought until I was reading somewhere that one should base their trades off of a platform that uses the New York close as their basis for a daily bar. My question is, if I’m basing my trades off of the daily charts, which time setting of chart is the most accurate to use? For example, a pin-bar on the EST chart might not be a pin-bar on the New York close chart. Thanks for the help.
It’s irrelavent what time zone your in, as long as your in the United States your bars share the same “time stamp” as everyone else. If you’re trading futures for instance, in trading within the CME Group (this includes commodities and currencies), the market open and close is the same for everyone. I live in Texas, so I’m GMT -6.00, so the Forex/Futures Market open at 1700 hours on Sunday and so on. The bars on my Think or Swim platform would be identical to yours. I hope that helps clarify your question.
You are correct. Not all brokers have servers based on the same time zone. Brokers whose servers are based on different time zones will display candles (on several time-frames) which are different from each other.
The time-frames affected are: [B]all of the time-frames between 2-hour and daily.[/B]
The 1-hour time-frame, and all time-frames lower than 1-hour are [B]not affected,[/B] regardless of server time zone. Also, weekly and monthly time-frames are [B]not affected,[/B] regardless of server time zone.
Let’s say you had trading platforms and charts from two different brokers — one broker who closes daily candles at 5pm New York time and one broker who closes daily candles at midnight New York time — your two brokers would display different candles on their 2-hour, 3-hour, 4-hour, 6-hour, 8-hour, and daily charts. The differences might be large, or they might be almost unnoticeable. Do these differences matter? I can’t tell you for sure that they do.
I can only tell you that I [I]prefer[/I] charts which open and close each “trading day” at 5pm New York time, because that time is when trading volume reaches its low point each day, and therefore that time is the closest thing we have to a “market close” each day.
In the U.S., FXCM’s [I]Trading Station,[/I] and their award-winning [I]MarketScope[/I] charts, open and close daily candles at 5pm New York time. And FXCM is in the process of converting their MT4 servers to incorporate the 5pm New York time, as well. See this post from Jason Rogers, the FXCM representative here on the forum.
Note that this “opening and closing time” issue has nothing to do with where your broker is located, or where you are located. It depends only on the set-up of your broker’s servers.
Most brokers offer the MT4 platform and charts, which they license from the Russian developer, now operating out of Cyprus. The default settings built into MT4 include a daily open/close time of midnight Central European Time (GMT+1 or GMT+2, depending on time of year). This default setting can be changed by a broker licensee, and this is what FXCM is in the process of doing. But, apparently that change is a real chore, and most brokers don’t attempt it.
This is incorrect. Please refer to my reply to [I]Worthy,[/I] above, for the correct information.
It appears that you are confused about the difference between [I]exchange-traded currency futures and options,[/I] on the one hand, and the [I]off-exchange spot forex market[/I] which we are trading here.
[B]Spot forex is a decentralized market, made by market-makers.[/B]
At the top end of this market, the market-makers are the banks comprising the interbank network. At the bottom end (where we, retail forex traders, do our trading), the market-makers are the retail forex brokers. These brokers, who provide our only means of access to the market, operate independently of one another. The BID/ASK prices they quote may differ from one another, and [I]the times that they choose to open and close their daily charts[/I] may differ from one another, as well.
The reason most traders prefer New York Close charts is because it means that every week you are looking at 5 daily candles, each of which is 24 hours in length. This allows you to make an apples to apples comparison when you apply indicators to your charts such as the 50-day moving average, because each daily candle represents the same amount of time.
With charts that are not set to the New York Close, you can have 6 uneven daily candles per week. The Sunday candle might only be 2 hours long, while the Friday candle is 22 hours long, with the other 4 candles being 24 hours long. This can throw off the signals from indicators such as the 50-day moving average which work on the assumption that each daily candle should be given the same weight.
Anyone here use cTrader? Because cTrader allows you to change the time zone. Does this discussion apply to cTrader? I’m living in GMT+3 and as such I set my cTrader time to that timezone. My daily charts open at 1am (which is the New York closing time). I am guessing that cTrader (being infinitely more advanced than mt4) adjusts the daily charts regardless of where you live or what your broker’s server time is. I need some confirmation though.