how to change the time on my terminal?

 

I am located in Mexico ( CST - time ) and my broker is located in New Zealand with BlackBull Markets and Ideally I would like it set to EST (New York). 

I have looked all afternoon with no luck in the help section?  Can anyone help please?  It is not in the options section or terminal settings.. how in the work does something so simple be so elusive?

 
You can't change the platform time.
 
Keith Watford:
You can't change the platform time.

Thank you for your fast reply.  This is most unfortunate considering we can do almost everything else..  You would think all brokers would be set to a standard such as EST or London on their terminals, silly.

 
Jonathan Bartsch:

Thank you for your fast reply.  This is most unfortunate considering we can do almost everything else..  You would think all brokers would be set to a standard such as EST or London on their terminals, silly.

The time on the terminal (time of price on the chart) is the broker's server time (server = computer).
And every broker is using his server's time.

And there is some habit/rules/situation which exists since last century:

  • the traders are living according to their local time,
  • traders are trading news events according to London (GMT+0) time and
  • traders are trading according to the broker's server time.

And if someone is asking to change the terminal time so it means that this person is newbie :)

 
What everyone has said is accurate. You're using MT4 to place the trades with your broker. So everything in MT4 is specific to your broker. 
 
Jonathan Bartsch:

Thank you for your fast reply.  This is most unfortunate considering we can do almost everything else..  You would think all brokers would be set to a standard such as EST or London on their terminals, silly.

I totally agree with you that it would be more sensible if all brokers used the same time. Ideally so that there are only ever 5 full trading days with all brokers. Short partial days is a ridiculous idea.

 
Jonathan Bartsch: You would think all brokers would be set to a standard such as EST or London on their terminals,

If you had used this, you would have found: Chart times are broker times.

  1. How can MetaQuotes know all brokers' (they come and go daily) Time zone and Daylight savings time (including historical changes for back testing)? Do you have that information for just you and your broker? Only then, with code can you convert session times to broker's time to UTC to local time. You can use offset inputs but then you must maintain them correctly, through all three DST changes when they occur.
              When is the time zone problem going to be fixed? - General - MQL5 programming forum 2020.05.07

  2. Foreign Exchange (FX) market opens 5 PM New York (NY)/Eastern Time (ET) Sunday and ends 5 PM NY Friday. Some brokers start after (6 PM is common) and end before (up to 15 minutes) due to low volatility.
              Checking for Market Closed - Expert Advisors and Automated Trading - MQL5 programming forum

    Swap is computed 5 PM ET. No swap if no open orders at that time.

  3. Brokers use a variety of time zones. Their local time, with or without Day Light Savings Time (DST), London, UTC, London+2, UTC+2, NY+7.

    Only with NY+7 does the broker's 00:00 equals 5 PM ET and the start of a daily bar (and H4) is the start of a new FX day.

    GMT/BST brokers, means there is a 1 or 2 hour D1/H4 bar on Sunday (depending on NY DST), and a short Friday bar. (Problems with indicators based off bars.)

    GMT+2 is close but doesn't adjust for NY DST.

    EET is closer except when their DST doesn't match NY's. Last Sunday of March and 1:00 on the last Sunday of October vs second Sunday in March and return at 2:00 AM EDT to 1:00 AM EST on the first Sunday in November.

  4. Non-NY+7, means the chart daily bar overlaps the start, and converting broker time to NY time requires broker to UTC to NY timezone conversions.


  5. If you search the web you will find differing answers. Those are all wrong (half the year) because they do not take DST into account (or that it changed for the US in 2007 [important when testing history.])


  6. Then there are (non-24 hour markets) with H4 candles that start on odd hours.
              Why My XAUUSD 4H candles start with 1 hour shift? - Currency Pairs - General - MQL5 programming forum 2019.04.10
              H4 first opened candle - MT5 - General - MQL5 programming forum 2020.09.11