Daylight Saving Time (DST) and Changes in the Trading Time

Finally after 3 months, today EA Pipscola_Y02 again suffered big losses. And once again this happens when the DST on / off is applied. In accordance with the schedule, began on March 13, 2011 the United States to apply the Daylight Saving Time (DST)and then to be followed by European countries on the last Monday in March.
I do not want to blame the time as the cause of this loss. Because even if I change the trading time 1 hour earlier, it's still could not prevent me from the loss. But at least I already have a conclusion about what to do when there is change in time zones.
Adjust Trading Time with the U.S. Time Zone
When the application of Daylight Saving Time (DST)ends, I have an opinion about what should be done. And I think that right now I have to do the same. We must adjust the time trading with the time zone used on the American market. Actually the logic is very simple, because we transact after closing the American market. It's only natural if we follow the time zone used by the U.S. market.
It is different if you run a trading system that deal only in the European Market. Either simultaneously with the Asian market or not, but before the U.S. markets open. In this case, you do not need to change trading time.
Finally, for the moment I change the trading time of Pipscola EA to 22-0 (GMT +1).

VS_PipsCola_D01 Trading Time On ForexCoJpy

I want to explain in more detail how to configure VS_PipsCola_D01 trading time. This is to avoid mistakes as there are different time zones held by the broker. I will give examples of how to set the trading time on the broker Forex.Co.Jpy.
And again I would like to emphasize that VS_PipsCola_D01 not transact at weekend and in the beginning of the week. If you are still confused how to set RestrictionDay parameters, then you should just remember the rules. I created RestrictionDay Parameters to prevent the EA deal over the weekend and the beginning of market opening.
To set the trading time on ForexCoJpy then we need to know the time zone used by the broker. Currently, the time zone used by ForexCoJpy are GMT 9. And if I look at this broker does not implement Daylight Saving Time. I know it after seeing the losses that occurred in Charlotte, where the EA deal 1 hour early. At first I thought ForexCoJpy will switch their timezone to GMT 8 when DST ends. And apparently not, so I had to change the trading time.
Let the following parameters of the trading time to brokers ForexCoJpy VS_PipsCola_D01.
OpenHour = 5;
OpenMinute = 0;
CloseHour = 7;
CloseMinute = 59;
EnableXtraTime = False; Unless you want to use it, then adjust the position of True;
XtraCloseHour = 9;
XtraCloseMinute = 59;
For RestrictedDay settings, we can use DAY_OF_WEEK parameter to prevent the EA deal at the weekend. While we use Day_Of_Week2 parameter to prevent the EA deal in the beginning of week. You can just swap it. Furthermore, you can use it to prevent the EA deal on Days and hours you specify yourself. For example, if there is a major event that coincided with the trading time, then you can set this parameter to prevent the EA deal at the time the event occurred. Of course, after the event is finished you have to set it again to prevent EA transact at weekends and in the beginning of the week.
Market closure on forex.co.jpy happen on Saturday. For that the settings are:
DAY_OF_WEEK = 6;
Begin = 0;
End = 23;
To prevent the EA deal in Market Opening on Forex.Co.Jpy Broker:
DAY_OF_WEEK = 1;
Begin2 = 5;
End2 = 8;
Actually, if you fill with Begin2 = 0 and End2 = 23 then the result remains the same. I'm using Begin2 = 5 and End2 = 8 to clarify its usefulness, that preventing the EA deal in the beginning of the week.

Finding Best Time to Scalp Major Pair

I start my job again making trading system for major pair. This system is still working on a particular clock hour. For that I tried to dig up from some other popular EA, see the tendency at any hour they work.
I find generally brief EA is working on a range of time shorter than the EA is working on Cross Pair. This makes the number of trades executed may be very little. This coupled with the fact that they generally only work 4 days a week. The effect recovery factor will be a long time, when the EA suffering draw down.
Interestingly most of the EA is able to work in more than one pair at a time, either by using the same variable or different. Unfortunately one of the fundamental weaknesses that are owned by the Meta Trader is that we can not do backtest on more than one pair. So we can not determine whether it is more profitable or not. Diversification effects may not work properly as expected.
As a preliminary conclusion, I see that most of us will get a good backtest results if we restrict the EA to work on the 21-23 or 20-23 hours GMT +2. This is not foreign to me, because when I make VS_EurCHF, for the pair EURUSD, the profit factor increases if the trading time is limited to 20-1 GMT +2.
I tend to wish to make my EA is able to work as well as with the Cross pair. However, until now, I must admit, that forced to work like that cause suffering Account large draw down. Until now I was thinking to try some exit strategy. With a small amount of trade, should be made to maximize any existing trade instead of just scalp it.

Expert Advisor Performance Hourly

I think we should be grateful to Mt4stats which has developed a variety of features it has, so we get a better picture of how the performance of an expert advisor. The entire feature is currently not possible we will get in the Meta Trader Detailed Statement. The most concrete example is we can analyze the performance of expert advisor hourly. This is very useful for us to run the expert advisor who works only on at certain hours. Here is current performance on Alpari Russia demo server.

Pips vs Hours

If we consider the graph above, then we will have a picture of what hours on the expert advisors that produce more profit than the other hours. For plasticity at this time that most of the profit obtained on days 18 and 22 (19 and 23 GMT +2). Based on this information, we can see that the open hours for the best at this time are 19 and 23 or 19 and 22(GMT +2). But back at any time that this condition could be changed. However, this is the most close to the current market condition.

2 Hours Delay on Weekly Opening

I still don’t know how to react about difference opening time for each broker. Since my work using Alpari historical and I never test it with other Broker’s data. So far on forward test in Tadawul give good result if the expert trade in the first hour, but I don’t know how the performance in the past. There is no special exit strategy for any trade during this time. It’s fine if our trade become profitable during this hour too. How if it doesn’t make profit? This is important because the EA will enter to non trading time, and the EA never find this case in the back test.
Managing Your Risk
Although it is not covered in my EA, but truly there is a difference in potential gain in the first trade. Normally after trending market in American season the first trade tend to be above 2nd deviation Keltner Channel or even more. It is not always happened at 20 (GMT), it may be later. But the point is our potential profit will be higher. You can make a back test, and you will find that the higher profit almost in the first trade.
And if we look to back test result, during 20-22 (GMT) trading time is the most profitable area. This is not meaning that we never getting loss during this time, but this is because our profit during this time is bigger then after 22 GMT. It is because the ATR value is still high during this time.
What an idea that may we apply in this situation is optimizing our Money Management. We can set our MM to give more risk during bigger profit time or trade, and start reducing our risk after that.

Time Related Issues

a.m. : ante meridian, meaning before midday, or before the middle of the daylight hours. Also, before noon is used to reduce confusion. For clarity, a person should say 12 Midnight for 12:00 a.m. Ante Meridian is usually referenced in coding comments as:
// a.m. is 00:00:00 to 11:59:59 (hours: minutes: seconds)

p.m. : post meridian, meaning after midday. The time considered to be after noon. For clarity one should say 12 Noon for 12:00 p.m. Post Meridian is usually referenced in coding comments as:
// p.m. is 12:00:00 to 23:59:59.
Time Zones: One of the 24 established divisions or sectors into which the earth is divided for convenience in reckoning time: each sector represents 15 degrees of longitude, or a time interval of one hour. The zones start on the zero longitude in Greenwich, England. Each time zone keeps time slightly differently so that at 12:00 noon the sun will be high in the sky.

GMT: Greenwich Mean Time . GMT is sometimes called Greenwich Meridian Time because it is measured from the Greenwich Meridian Line (Longitude 0) at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England. It is the place from where all time zones are measured, starting in 1884. It is also known as the “Universal Time”.

Universal Time: Universal Time is equivalent to GMT. By international agreement, the term UTC is recommended for all general timekeeping applications, and use of the term GMT is discouraged.
It is often referred to as either Universal Time (UT) or Universal Time, Coordinated (UTC). This time is considered to be the most accurate.
It is almost always referenced by a 24 hour clock: 0000 to 2359. Sometimes a Z is appended to the time to indicate a Zero Hour offset because we are referencing the time at the zero longitudinal meridian, as in 1030Z. Pronounced “One Zero Three Zero Zulu.”
UTC is considered to be more accurate for weather, and astronomical applications. UTC can also be obtained readily from the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites for navigation purposes.

Daylight Saving Time (DST):
About 70 Countries use some form of Daylight Saving time. Because the earth is tilted 23 degrees, we have changing seasons, and shifting sunrise and sunset times [as the earth rotates around the Sun].
The intent is to move 1 hour of daylight from the morning to the evening to make better use of planet Earth’s available daylight. In reality there is no “saving” of daylight. This term could better be depicted as “Daylight SHIFTING time”.

EST: Eastern Standard Time (New York, United States). Add (-5) hours from Greenwich Mean Time. This implies NO Daylight Saving time offset. Although if Daylight Saving time is in effect, most people still refer to the time in New York, USA as EST.

EDT: Eastern Daylight Time. If Daylight Saving time is in effect, add (- 4) hours to Greenwich Mean Time.

Check Your Trading Time
Because each broker may use a different time zone, it’s important to know which time zone they use. Since my Expert Advisor don’t know what time zone the server using, then you need to match its trading time carefully. Usually a broker will tell you what time zone he use in his server, and also a good broker will send to your mailbox a confirmation about time shift that affected by DST. If you don’t have any idea about your Local Time Zone or Your Broker Time Zone, then I suggest you to set your Systems Time Zone to GMT. Just double click the clock on tray icon or enter to your control panel system and click/double click Date and Time icon to show Date and Time properties tab. Switch to Time Zone tab, and the select GMT Greenwich Mean Time on pull down menu.


To remove ambiguity about DST unchecked the checkbox “Automatically adjust for daylight saving changes”.


Now switch to Internet Time tab, make sure your system has internet connection, select time.nist.gov as Server, then click Update now to get current GMT time.

Terms:

Now you can compare your current time after updating with your broker time.