forex-scalping.com

Most prop rules — daily loss reset, trading days, news windows — refer to server time, and server time is rarely your local time.

Typical setups:

• Many MT servers run on GMT+2 / GMT+3 (aligned so that the daily candle closes at New York 17:00).
• Some firms reset the daily limit at midnight CE(S)T, others at 17:00 New York.
• Daylight-saving changes in the US and Europe happen on different dates, so for a few weeks a year the offset shifts by an hour.

Mistakes this causes:

• Trading a "new day" that is still the old day for the firm, so a loss counts against an already damaged daily limit.
• Counting a trading day that the firm does not count.
• Misjudging a news window when the calendar is in a different time zone.

Simple fix: put a second clock with server time on your chart or desk, and add the reset time to your trading plan.

When does your firm's daily reset happen in your local time?

This year the mismatch week falls between 25 October, when Europe goes back, and 1 November for the US. On a server pinned to the New York close, midnight server time moves from 22:00 London to 21:00 London for that week, then back again.

A firm that resets at midnight Central European time stays at 23:00 London all year, because both clocks shift together. So two accounts that are normally an hour apart sit two hours apart for that week.

The detail that bites more than the hour itself is the snapshot. Several firms set the daily baseline from the higher of balance and equity at reset, so 300 dollars of floating profit at midnight raises the bar and can turn a normal pullback into a breach.

I close or flatten anything open in the last 15 minutes before reset for that reason. It costs the odd good trade.

Trading day counts have a similar edge case. A trade opened at 23:55 server and closed at 00:05 usually counts on the day it opened, while some firms count it only on the close date.

What time zone does your firm's news window use? Mine is quoted in server time, which is not what my calendar shows.