Hi, i am a newbie. I’m bit confused about the concept of time zone.
Suppose I would like to use the NewYork Close Bar.
It means the bar will end at 5pm EST (GMT-5) exactly, and then the 5pm1min dat will be counted on the next bar. (Forex market open at 8am - 5pm)
Here i got confused with summe daylight saving time.
In summer, the clock will move forward 1h and becomes timezone EDT (GMT-4). So the forex market will open at 9am-6pm. So the NewYork Close Bar menas the bar ends at 6pm, and the 6pm1min data will be counted on the next bar???
What about when using forextester to test the historical data. Should i set GMT -5 or GMT-4? (difficulties arise because there are summer data and winter data).
I dont think 1 bar will make so much difference i personally use it from 8:00 to 18:00 in summer and 7:00 to 17:00 in winter.The london open is important because right at 8:00 the volume is increased tremenduously, but i dont think it ends right at NY close, if you check carefully the volumes you can see that it is only decreasing after 19:00- 20:00 , not right after the NY close, so this is why i trade 1+ hour after NY close because really nothing happens at NY close
This works for only european pairs, if you trade JPY or AUD you must use Sydney and Tokyo sessions to trade.
3)You should always set the data to GMT 0 because that is the base line, and count from there your countries timeline.For example i have GMT +2/+3 so its easy to check the timezone.You add +1 hour when DST is on from spring to autumn and substract that from autumn to next spring.The day when DST is on an off varies from year to year so better google the exact time when you need to switch clock.So if you are using an EA you should program it from year to year.
The easiest solution is to choose a broker who closes DAILY candles (or bars) at 5pm New York time each day. FXCM (headquartered in New York) is one such broker. And there are brokers in other parts of the world who use 5pm New York time as their daily close, as well. One that I know of is Pepperstone in Australia. There are many others.
One big advantage to using one of these brokers is that you don’t have to worry about adjusting for Daylight Saving Time. The broker’s platform and charting package make the adjustments automatically, so that each DAILY candle closes at 5pm New York time, regardless of whether that’s EST (GMT-5) or EDT (GMT-4).
This question (which brokers open and close their trading day at 5pm New York time) has come up from time to time in the past on this forum. You can use the SEARCH feature to locate previous posts on this topic. Type something like “brokers 5pm new york close” in the SEARCH box, and click the “magnifying glass” icon. That should bring up a page (or several pages) of previous posts dealing with this topic.
As you are probably aware, if your charting package uses 5pm New York time to open and close DAILY candles, that time will also dictate the opening and closing times of the 2-hour, 3-hour, 4-hour, 6-hour, and 8-hour candles.
The 1-hour candle, and all time-frames lower than one hour, as well as WEEKLY and MONTHLY candles are not affected by time zones. These candles open and close at the same time on brokers’ servers everywhere in the world.
If you use a platform, a charting package, an EA, or other trading software, that requires you to manually set the time zone, and then manually adjust it for Daylight Saving Time, you will need to know the dates on which New York (and the rest of the U.S.) goes onto and off of Daylight Saving Time. The next two change-over dates are:
• Sunday, November 3, 2013, the U.S. returns to Standard Time, and the time zone in New York will change from EDT (GMT-4) to EST (GMT-5).
• Sunday, March 9, 2014, the U.S. goes back onto Daylight Saving Time, and the New York time zone will change back to EDT.
Furthermore, if you are in some time zone other than the Eastern U.S. time zone, then you will need to know the GMT time zone in your location, the number of hours of time difference between your location and New York, and (if applicable) the exact dates when your location goes onto and off of Daylight Saving Time.
If you need a reference source for trading session times, time zones, and time conversions, this should help —