Why can't I change the time zone?

[antiseptic]

It's really annoying subtracting in my head every time I look at a chart.  Is there a specific reason that you can't change the time zone?  Every other charting software allows this manually or automatically, why now Metatrader 5?

[Sergey Golubev]

Timezone of the chart?

This timezone is related to the broker (broker's server) so it is their timezone.
We can not change it.

If you want to change - so change the broker related to your timezone (there are a lot of the brokers with the different timezones/locations so you can select the one related to your personal location for example).

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"It's really annoying" - it is not annoying because it exists for the about 20 years, and everybody knows about it (and all the indicators/ EAs are related to it).

[alina.marabar]

About time zone of the chart you should look on your broker trading rules. What time zone that they use.

[Soewono Effendi]

you can configure almost anything in metatrader, why not add option to display chart converted to local time ?
any logical reason ?
please don't say that it is for better software performance/

[William Roeder]

• FX opens 5pm ET Sunday and ends 5pm ET Friday. Some brokers start after (6pm is common/end before (up to 15 minutes) due to low volatility.
            Checking for Market Closed - Expert Advisors and MQL5 programming forum Trading - MQL5 programming forum
  Swap is computed 5pm ET. No swap if no open orders at that time.

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• Brokers use a variety of timezones. Their local time (with or without DST,) GMT/UTC, GMT+2, NY+7.

  Only with NY+7 does the broker's 00:00 equals 5pm ET and the start of a daily bar is the start of a new FX day.

  GMT brokers, means there is a 1 or 2 hour D1/H4 bar on Sunday (depending on NY DST,) and a short Friday bar.

  GMT+2 is close but doesn't adjust for NY DST.

  EET is closer except when their DST doesn't match NY's. Last Sunday of March and 1:00 on the last Sunday of October vs second Sunday in March and return at 2:00 a.m. EDT to 1:00 a.m. EST on the first Sunday in November.

• Non-NY+7, means the chart daily bar overlaps the start, and converting broker time to NY time requires broker to GMT to NY timezone conversions.

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• If you search the web you will find differing answers. Those are all wrong (half the year) because they do not take DST into account (or that it changed in 2007 [important when testing history.])

[Anthony Garot]

Soewono Effendi:
why not add option to display chart converted to local time ?
any logical reason ?

Just a guess . . .

If you needed to contact your broker about any issue with a trade (didn't open, closed early, etc.), you would need a common "language" in which to describe the issue. That means their timezone, their prices, their symbol names, etc.

Thus, if you sent a screenshot in local time, that would just confuse things.

So my guess is for support considerations.

[William Roeder]

How to you expect the terminal to know the broker's timezone including possible DST (varies from place to place,) and your timezone/DST. Only with both is conversion possible.

What happens to H1 bars if the broker happens to be in India (1/2 hour TZ?) How do you divide broker's bars to your TZ bars?

What happens when you move to another TZ? Recompute all of download history, thus invalidating all previous test results?

You are not the center of the world. NY+7 or GMT are both reasonable timestamps.

[Prestissimo13]

Usually brokers are using their pre-configured timezone.

[albry]

whroeder1:

How to you expect the terminal to know the broker's timezone including possible DST (varies from place to place,) and your timezone/DST. Only with both is conversion possible.

What happens to H1 bars if the broker happens to be in India (1/2 hour TZ?) How do you divide broker's bars to your TZ bars?

What happens when you move to another TZ? Recompute all of download history, thus invalidating all previous test results?

You are not the center of the world. NY+7 or GMT are both reasonable timestamps.

Brokers as you know, can pick whatever MT Server time scheme of GMT offset and DST adjustment that is most appropriate for their operations, clients, etc.

And it is possible to automatically determine the Server time's current "GMT offset PLUS DST adjustment" (i.e. combined). 

However I am also trying to figure out how to determine just the Servers DST adjustment, and hence determine both the GMT offset and the DST adjustment separately (and if possible the dates at which the DST changes).

I understand to figure this out for historic data might be quite difficult/tedious/impossible, but automatically determining the Broker's DST for "current/recent" broker/Server data would still be very useful.

Do you (or some other experts here) happen to know a coding technique to determine what the server/broker's current DST shift is, or alternatively what timezone the server is actually adhering to?

Thanks very much,

Al

[amando]

On mt5 its easy, the charts you are see are ticked base, so you can create your own chart on your own timeframe

[albry]

amando:
On mt5 its easy, the charts you are see are ticked base, so you can create your own chart on your own timeframe

Hi Amando,

Thanks for the MT5 info!, however I should have mentioned that I am trying to do this on MT4.

And would really prefer to be using the native server data with no modifications for various reasons.

I just want to properly determine the server DST shift then I can operate in whichever session or timezone I chose, leaving the underlying server data unchanged.

There is a fairly complicated ways of doing this by searching back through and analyzing historical DST transition dates, but was trying to see if there is a better/more straightforward way of doing this.

Thanks,

Al