Introduction to the Market Hours Indicator
Some traders think that day trading is difficult. However, it is not the lack of reliable trade setups that make it difficult. What makes it more challenging is that it is not every hour of the day that a currency pair has enough volatility to make it worth trading. There are certain times of the day wherein volatility is strong and this is usually when the major market using the currency pair is open. As such, market timing is very important for day traders and a tool like the Market Hours indicator can be useful for this purpose.
What is the Market Hours Indicator?
Market Hours indicator is a custom technical indicator which provides traders the information regarding what market sessions are currently open based on the current time. This information is displayed directly on the MT4 platform on its own indicator window. This indicator plots lines on its own window which has different colors. Each line color represents a market session.
How the Market Hours Indicator Works?
The Market Hours indicator has preset values which pertain to the hours in which the major markets would open and close. These markets are the London market, New York market, Sydney market, and Tokyo market.
The Market Hours indicator would then plot a line which would span the market open up to the market close based on the preset values. These values however can also be modified whenever necessary.
How to use the Market Hours Indicator for MT4
As mentioned above, the open and close time of each market session can be modified. These modifications can be done within the indicator settings. Traders simply need to input the time each market would open and close.
However, we should take into consideration that the time displayed on the MT4 platform is based on the broker’s server. As such, the time that should be used should be the time each market would open or close based on the broker’s server time.
This feature is very important because some major markets do have changes on the open and closing time of their market sessions due to Daylight Saving Time which occurs whenever seasons change. It is important that we constantly check if there are changes on the market time and if the open and close times of the Market Hours indicator is still in sync with the actual market session time. This can be done using the market session time available on www.forexfactory.com.
The Market Hours indicator does not provide technical indications that can be used for identifying trend direction, trend reversals, momentum, volatility, or potential mean reversals. As such, it should not be used as a means to identify a potential trade setup or trade entry.
However, there are strategies in which the information provided by this indicator is necessary. These are usually day trading strategies which hedge on the volatility that occurs for certain currencies at the open of a specific major market.
Conclusion
The Market Hours indicator may not seem like a vital tool at first glance since it does not provided indications that pertain to technical analysis. However, it is still a very useful tool for day traders who require market timing information for their strategies.
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