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Forex Trading Sessions and GMT Market-Hours Indicators

Article MQL5 code base

Summary

The document describes a MetaTrader indicator that displays forex session hours in GMT and Eastern Time, with automatic daylight-saving detection based on the trade server. It frames the market as operating continuously from Sunday evening to Friday evening and estimates local business hours for major forex centers: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in most markets, and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. in Tokyo.

These hours can help traders orient themselves to regional sessions and compare activity windows across time zones. The indicator also displays economic-calendar events. Its schedule is an approximation: holidays are excluded, and the author explicitly says it should not be treated as a precise time source. Actual server settings, seasonal clock changes, and market-specific schedules can affect the displayed times, so traders needing exact hours should verify them independently.

Key ideas

  • The indicator displays forex sessions in GMT and Eastern Time.
  • It detects daylight-saving changes using the trade server.
  • Its assumed local session hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in most centers and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. in Tokyo.
  • The schedule excludes holidays and is not presented as an authoritative time source.

Tags

This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.