Information about time-zones and time-shifts

General discussion about the Tickstory Lite software package.
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gsolomos
Posts: 33
Joined: Tue Apr 21, 2020 8:24 pm

Information about time-zones and time-shifts

Post by gsolomos »

hi i use 3 different brokers, Oanda, Forex.com and FX Choice. I live in the united states. how do i get accurate time data ? otherwise what do i have to do on tickstory "time shift" to get the accurate data for each broker ? as of now it is set to none and no for adjust daylight savings. this is very important that i get the right data so i don't know how to go about this for each broker that i have. i don't even know what time zone they cater to either ? can someone please help. thanks

tickstory
Posts: 4883
Joined: Sun Jan 06, 2013 12:27 am

Re: time shift

Post by tickstory »

Hi Gsolomos,

Usually a broker will tell you the time-zone they use on their website. You can match the time-zone in Tickstory by specifying the same time-zone when exporting. Tickstory will automatically adjust for daylight savings where applicable.

More information on time-zones is discussed in more detail in our manual.
There is also lots of additional specific and helpful information about certain brokers if you search "time zone" on our forum.

Hope this helps.

gsolomos
Posts: 33
Joined: Tue Apr 21, 2020 8:24 pm

Re: time shift

Post by gsolomos »

So i am not fully understanding. When i find out my brokers time zone, then i HAVE to adjust the time zone in tickstory download ? what if i put none ?
also how about the daylight savings ? Also it doesn't say on my brokers site what time zone they use. i see on my MT4 the time on the market watch but i don't know how that will help me. it is 8 hours ahead of my current time that's all i know. please help. thanks

tickstory
Posts: 4883
Joined: Sun Jan 06, 2013 12:27 am

Re: time shift

Post by tickstory »

Hi Gsolomos,

You don't absolutely need to match your broker's time-zone while testing, but it will make life easier when transitioning your EA from your test environment to live. The importance here is whatever time-zone you use, you will need to be aware of it so you can change any EA time-zone settings to match. So for example, if you decide to use the default time-zone for EURUSD (GMT), then your EA should be configured to have a GMT Offset of zero. Just make sure that when you start trading on your live platform that you make sure you change this setting to whatever GMT offset your broker's is. (Of course, some EAs are not even dependent on time-zones, so if this is the case, the question of time-zones may not even apply.)

If you want to match your broker's time-zones, then:

1) Do a Google search for "(your broker name) FX Choice mt4 time-zone" or just contact your broker and ask them.
2) Export your data in Tickstory, select the matching time-zone.
3) Configure your EA if it has any GMT offset settings.

Let's use FX Choice as an example:

1) Google "FX Choice mt4 time-zone" and we find their FAQ with "What is GMT Offset" which says:
Our GMT offset is +2 during winter time. Since we observe daylight saving time, our GMT offset changes during summer time to GMT +3.
2) Select "Export to MT4" in Tickstory and in the time-zone box, select "UTC +2 with European/London DST", since this is the matching time-zone.

EU Timezone selection.png
EU Timezone selection.png (8.87 KiB) Viewed 9449 times
3) Configure your EA with the current GMT Offset (it will be 2 in winter and 3 in summer).

4) Begin your test.

When you go live with FX Choice, since you have done all your testing on their time-zone, all you should need to do is activate your EA with the same settings.

Hope this helps.

gsolomos
Posts: 33
Joined: Tue Apr 21, 2020 8:24 pm

Re: Information about time-zones and time-shifts

Post by gsolomos »

Thanks that helps. What I did was I saw earlier that it was gmt +3 so I scrolled through your list and just selected Moscow as that was one of the 10 or so that had it as gmt+3. Is that ok or should I do it the way you did ?

tickstory
Posts: 4883
Joined: Sun Jan 06, 2013 12:27 am

Re: Information about time-zones and time-shifts

Post by tickstory »

Hi Gsolomos,

Different countries have different rules for when they apply daylight savings time. The European/London time-zone applies the correct DST settings that most brokers use (in particular if they are located in Europe).

Thanks.

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