Trouble selecting which time-zone to use (IG Markets)

General discussion about the Tickstory Lite software package.
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TradeBuilder
Posts: 11
Joined: Fri Jun 26, 2020 7:01 pm

Trouble selecting which time-zone to use (IG Markets)

Post by TradeBuilder »

I am using IG.com with their MT4 platform and want to export data to it using the correct time-zone. Looking at Market Watch in MT4, I see that the time is London time or UTC+1. If I export Tickstory data using the European/London DST I get data that is off by two hours. I'm sure that the IG data is on London time because I am on the US east coast where it is 10:30am and in London it is 3:30pm. My Market Watch forex time is 15:30. When I look up the UTC time online it is 14:30, so London is UTC+1.

I exported Tickstory data for Friday Oct 15, 2021 to a one-minute csv file using the European/London DST time-zone selection and have noted that the last printed time for Friday is 23:59:00. Whereas in my MT4 platform my last printed time for that Friday is 22:00. The prices are not exactly the same but are close. Why is it off by 2 hours? So far, Cassablanca time is the only time zone that gives me the correct time print -- but it doesn't use DST. Very confusing.

From what I have been able to read online using different time web sites, London is currently on British Summer Time (BST) which is UTC+1. When not on BST it is on UTC time. Therefore it is never UTC+2. Furthermore, BST ends on 31 Oct and not 1 Oct as noted in your "Timezone Info" dialog that gives the details about DST.

How do I match my IG data to the Tickstory data?

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

Re: Trouble selecting which time-zone to use

Post by tickstory »

Hi Tradebuilder,

If you are using the "UTC +2 - European/London DST" time-zone, then it sounds like it's doing exactly as expected. That is, it is adding 2 hours to the UTC time. If you want to match London time-zone you should be using the selection "(UTC+00:00) Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London" instead.

Regarding daylight savings (DST), the transitions displayed in the information dialog are "rules" only (as taken from your Windows installation). How this translates for each year for the European/London time-zone is discussed further here.

Hope this helps.

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