Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
Ninjatraders - What do you have your NT Platform Time Zone Set to?
With Ninjatrader, leave you lapttop set to your local time zone but use the correct trading hours template for your instrument. For instruments such as the US indices (ES,NQ, YM etc.) use the Chicago UTC time.
Remember we've recently moved from winter to summer times in both countries and this year, for some reason, there was a 3 week gap between time adjustments. (Normally a week between US and UK/EU changes).
The 7.30/8.30 etc spikes are data releases and cash opens. Take the winter/summer time movements this year may explain your spikes
This has been discussed before in this thread. The time zones are adjusted for summer hours (called "Daylight Saving Time" in the US) on a slightly different schedule, and so they will not be in step for a period of time twice every year, and you have to take this into account in your time settings.
As someone who sits in the US Eastern Time Zone and is in the market every day, I can tell you that the major high volume spike has never been at any time other than 9:30 local Eastern Time, which is 8:30 Chicago time (and which has sometimes been Daylight Savings and sometimes "Standard" time depending on the schedule.) This spike is when the New York Stock Exchange opens, and it will always be the highest-volume period in the index futures.
So you will need to be aware of the time differences due to the different summer hours and not always use the same settings.
Yes, it is confusing, and unnecessarily so. I have no idea why the summer time zones are not kept in step across the Atlantic, but that's probably your issue.
Bob.
-------------------------
Edit: there will certainly be occasional spikes in activity at scheduled data releases, particularly when they are related to inflation or employment numbers, given how sensitive the market is now to the actions of the Fed in these areas. But the cash open is still going to be the major time period, at 9:30 local Eastern or 8:30 local Central (Chicago) time.
When one door closes, another opens.
-- Cervantes, Don Quixote
