right now I am trying to demo many brokers, such as FXCM, MB trading, ATC brokers, Collective FX LLC, and I noticed that the time shown at the bottom of the charts never matches up. It doesn’t match up to Greenwich Mean time and the minutes don’t match up either (to the other demos, or to the actual time), so it couldnt just be a time discrepancy. Should I be worried about this? What does it mean? I am looking at the 1 minute chart if that makes a difference. Additionally the prices dont match up for the same times either
The server time, thereby affecting the chart time, can vary from broker to broker. There’s an option to change the time zone on some platforms. It’s not possible to change it on MT4, but you can change it through FXCM’s FX Trading Station II to match GMT or your own time. Not sure aboutthe others.
Hello,
I don’t believe that a few seconds difference should be a problem but MINUTES? It’s shameful that a broker cannot be bothered to synchronise their server times to the correct time given the technology of today!!!
To answer your question (and assuming that there are not HUGE differences between times):
If you are trading on the 1 hour timeframe or LESS than the 1 hour timeframe: then the timezone of your chosen broker should not be an issue at all e.g. ‘an hour is an hour is an hour’ no matter where in the world you are. HOWEVER: if you are trading on the daily timeframe and the CLOSING PRICES are important to your trading system or trading methology then I believe you are at a disadvantage if your broker is on any other time than New York time. Forex (as you I’m sure you already know) is traded 24/7 (retail traders can only trade forex 24/5 but that’s another story) so you don’t really have a CLOSING PRICE or rather, should I say, the CLOSING PRICE of a forex pair will be different for each broker that is in a different timezone from another. One school of thought is that one should ideally use the forex CLOSING PRICES at the time the New York banks close for trading (which I’m not TOO sure on but I believe is 17h00 or 17h30 New York time). Another school of thought is that GMT should be used in the determination of forex CLOSING PRICES. Either way: again it depends on your trading system or trading methdology e.g. the reliability and accuracy of Pivot Points or Pivot Levels may be affected by all of this. (Of course: if you trade stocks or bonds or commodities you don’t have any of these issues at all).
(By the way: this is an argument that has arisen on a few occasions on the site i.e. there are some that believe that it makes little difference which timezone your broker is in. I don’t subscribe to this school of though UNTIL somebody proves me wrong that is)!!!
Regards,
Dale.