What is server time?
Rebuild the H1 data to suit your needs.
Failing that, change brokers.
Failing that, change platforms.
It is well known fact that charts and technical analysis made using timeframe
smaller than 4 hours is not very reliable and profitable over a long period of
of time. One must use timeframe of 4hr or higher.
That is more of an opinion rather than a fact.
Rebuild the H1 data to suit your needs.
Failing that, change brokers.
Failing that, change platforms.
That is more of an opinion rather than a fact.
Yes, You are right. Everything I said is an opinion.
There may be ways around it but wouldn't mt4 be a better platform if this problem is solved. Why do users
have to keep rebuilding etc. every time there is server time change. I love mt4 and I have invested 7 years of
work into my ea and I can not simply pickup and look for a new platform where I may find new problems.
I am sure MetaQuote is interested in improving their platform. They recently did a greatest improvement in
the platform by allowing spread to be specified in strategy tester which let me produce identical results every time
I run back test. This was probably change of a few lines of code for MetaQuotes.
How do you expect the terminal to know that timezone every server is using?
How do you expect the terminal to know how to convert that TZ to another in Xp/Win 7 when there is no Windows function available (only utc to local is)
It is also almost universal that start of a forex trading day is 5 pm in New York.
A majority of MT4 brokers run their servers at GMT+2 with daylight savings. The purpose is to have five D1 candles per week, with no partial bar on Sunday evening (or Saturday morning). However, some of these brokers use American daylight savings (and moved to GMT+3 on March 8th) and some of these brokers use European daylight savings (and moved to GMT+3 yesterday, March 29th). It depends on the broker's source of liquidity.
A small number of brokers operate at GMT (i.e. GMT+0, with no daylight savings). The aim of this is year-round consistency, simplicity, and transparency, but it creates 6 D1 candles per week and does indeed affect indicator calculations - e.g. underestimate of D1 ATR.
An even smaller number of brokers operate at GMT-5 with US daylight savings, i.e. the server is set to US east coast time. This also creates 6 D1 candles per week.
Some of the larger brokers now offer a choice of different servers using different time zones: e.g. a choice between a server on GMT and a server at GMT+2.
I can only immediately think of one broker who doesn't at least offer a choice of a server at GMT+2 with DST, i.e. a server which has 5 D1 candles per week.
I should see identical results all the time, regardless of broker's server time.
You would still see different results because of price differences between brokers, even if they all used the same time zone.
Server time is an invention made by forex brokers to sabotage development of profitable automated trading
That's nonsense.
A majority of MT4 brokers run their servers at GMT+2 with daylight savings. The purpose is to have five D1 candles per week, with no partial bar on Sunday evening (or Saturday morning). However, some of these brokers use American daylight savings (and moved to GMT+3 on March 8th) and some of these brokers use European daylight savings (and moved to GMT+3 yesterday, March 29th). It depends on the broker's source of liquidity.
A small number of brokers operate at GMT (i.e. GMT+0, with no daylight savings). The aim of this is year-round consistency, simplicity, and transparency, but it creates 6 D1 candles per week and does indeed affect indicator calculations - e.g. underestimate of D1 ATR.
An even smaller number of brokers operate at GMT-5 with US daylight savings, i.e. the server is set to US east coast time. This also creates 6 D1 candles per week.
Some of the larger brokers now offer a choice of different servers using different time zones: e.g. a choice between a server on GMT and a server at GMT+2.
I can only immediately think of one broker who doesn't at least offer a choice of a server at GMT+2 with DST, i.e. a server which has 5 D1 candles per week.
You would still see different results because of price differences between brokers, even if they all used the same time zone.
That's nonsense.
If that's nonsense then please educate me and tell me what is the purpose of server time? Regardless of server time,
can you name a broker who does not start trading at 5pm EST. on Sunday ? I deal with at least 5 brokers, one in finland,
one in Estonia, one in USA etc. and all them start Sunday evening 5pm NY time. Then what is the purpose of server time?
[...] Then what is the purpose of server time?
See above.
Most brokers operate at GMT+2 (with daylight savings) so that trading starts at midnight on Monday morning and there are then five D1 candles per week. If a broker doesn't do this, then there are five D1 candles plus an extra one for a partial day on Sunday, and a simple calculation of things like D1 ATR will be an underestimate. For example, with an extra partial candle, a simple ATR calculation takes a series of daily ranges such as 120 pips, 110 pips, 135 pips, 98 pips, 104 pips, 23 pips (i.e. small trading range on the Sunday), and simply divides by 6 - producing a figure which is almost unarguably too low.
Other brokers choose to operate at GMT+0 because it's easier to explain, and remains consistent throughout the year.
And some brokers offer a choice of different time zones on different servers.
And, yes, I can name a broker who doesn't start trading at 5pm NY time, but (a) that is indeed unusual, and (b) the rules of this forum prohibit discussion of specific brokers. But, oddly, enough they're based in Estonia. If your broker in Estonia is the same one I'm thinking of, then you're wrong about them opening at 5pm NY time. During the period from March 8th to March 29th, when New York was at GMT-4, their trading did not start at 9pm GMT. For most of the year they do indeed open at 5pm NY time, but only by coincidence. What they are actually working to is European daylight savings, not US daylight savings.
Yes. No such thing as broker don't change their server time when necessary. EA and indicator needs to adapt accordingly. Have it with auto GMT built-in or something like that. No need to whine and cry here. Man up already.
Yes. No such thing as broker don't change their server time when necessary. EA and indicator needs to adapt accordingly. Have it with auto GMT built-in or something like that. No need to whine and cry here. Man up already.
I am not whining and crying. Traders who trade manually can not appreciate what I am talking about. But if you have an
neural network type ea which is very sensitive to data values, you can understand what I am talking about. After all
traders are supposed to be able to focus on trading strategies etc. and should not need to worry about the factors
which can essentially be solved by the platform. MetaQuote now should be very interested in having successful ea
in their marketplace which can have a lots of subscribers. So I would hope that they will improve the platform to a
point where an ea would work equally well at any broker regardless of server time etc. nonsense. And I know that
MetaQuote technical expertise is nothing less than genius. They should focus on issues that will make EA's perfectly
portable rather than adding bells and whistles.
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Server time is an invention made by forex brokers to sabotage development
of profitable automated trading. Nothing more nothing less.
There is no other purpose.
It is well known fact that charts and technical analysis made using timeframe
smaller than 4 hours is not very reliable and profitable over a long period of
of time. One must use timeframe of 4hr or higher.
It is also almost universal that start of a forex trading day is 5 pm in New York.
Calculation of swap charges etc are done by all brokers at this time regardless of their
server time setup.
What the smart and kniving brokers do is that they set server time to start the day at 2,3, 4 or 6,7 or 9pm .
This distorts all 4hr, daily, weekly and monthly charts. I am not going to elaborate much because
brokers and metaquote would understand right away what I am talking about.
An EA would be using technical indicators but they will yield different results depending upon where
the server time is set up. Brokers would change server time from time to time so an ea that was
profitable before would not be profitable anymore.
MetaQuote in my opinion has done a good job of protecting traders and users but they need to do
something about this server time business. What I would like to see is that when I call Imacd function with 4hr timeframe,
I should see identical results all the time, regardless of broker's server time.