The 4pm London fix makes a mess of the 3:55 to 4:05 candles

[Shadow Trader]

Benchmark rates get set from trades inside a short window around 4pm London, and a lot of real-money orders are timed to land in it. Fund managers who need to rebalance currency exposure at the benchmark rate don't care about getting a nice price. They care about getting the benchmark. That's their job.

On a scalping chart, it shows up as a burst of one-way movement that has nothing to do with the setup in front of it. Then, a few minutes later, price often drifts back as if nothing happened. The pattern is stronger at month-end, when rebalancing flows are larger.

Anyone trading breakouts through that window is mostly trading somebody else's order ticket. The move isn't information about direction. It's the footprint of a mechanical process, and mechanical processes end.

Skipping it entirely is an option. So is fading the stretch once it's done. Either choice beats treating it like an ordinary breakout. Spreads often widen briefly as well, which makes entries more expensive.

Has the 4pm window ever produced a pattern that held up across a few months of data?