The Sunday candle and why daily levels differ between charts

[Fairman]

The Sunday candle and why daily levels differ between charts

If you compare yesterday's high on two platforms and get different numbers, the daily candle definition is the likely reason.

Forex trades from Sunday evening to Friday evening, around the clock. Where the daily candle starts and ends is a choice.

Brokers using a New York close server, GMT+2 in winter and GMT+3 in summer, start each daily candle at 17:00 New York. That gives five daily candles a week, Monday to Friday, with the Sunday evening hours folded into Monday.

Brokers with servers on GMT start the daily candle at midnight GMT. Sunday evening trading, from about 22:00 GMT, becomes its own small Sunday candle. That's six candles a week.

TradingView's forex symbols generally use a 17:00 New York close for the daily bar, so they match the New York close brokers.

The consequences: on a GMT chart, Monday's candle starts at midnight, so Monday's high and low exclude the Sunday hours. Friday's high and low cover different hours too. Daily pivot points, previous day high and low levels and daily ATR all come out different.

If you use daily levels for scalping, use a chart that matches the definition most traders use, which in forex is usually the New York close. If your broker is on GMT, TradingView or a second platform can give you the levels.

Weekly candles are affected the same way, though less.

[FXS HongKong Scalper]

The difference between New York close and GMT daily candles is a common source of confusion. For traders in Asia it matters even more, because the GMT candle starts in the middle of the Asian afternoon. The Asian session is then split between two daily candles, and the previous day high and low can be quite different from the ones most traders use. Many traders in Asia prefer brokers with New York close servers for that reason, so the Asian session starts each new day cleanly.