Thread: Need Expert Help on Time Function

OK. I feel like a real bonehead. For some reason, I simply cannot get my expert working. Essentially, all I want to do is to place an order every night at precisely 3:30 GMT. For whatever reason, MT4 acts as if the hour is set correctly, but, it does funny stuff with the minutes. For instance, I changed the setting to place an order at 15:55, but, it placed it at 15:52.

Does anyone have an idea of what could be happening? If I want an order down to the minute, does the expert need to be on a minute chart?

If someone is willing to take a glance through the code, I'm happy to post it.

धन्यवाद।

Originally Posted by ;

क्या उन चंद मिनटों में आपको इससे भी बदतर कीमत मिली थी?

Markets are so slow at that time that it really didn't matter. It's just perplexing to me. Is there another approach to take to place an order at the close of the 3:30 candle besides using time functions?

Originally Posted by ;

OK. I feel like a real bonehead. For some reason, I simply cannot get my expert working. Essentially, all I want to do is to place an order every night at precisely 3:30 GMT. For whatever reason, MT4 acts as if the hour is set correctly, but, it does funny stuff with the minutes. For instance, I changed the setting to place an order at 15:55, but, it placed it at 15:52. Does anyone have an idea of what could be happening? If I want an order down to the minute, does the expert need to be on a minute chart? If someone is willing to take a glance through the code, I'm happy to post it. Thanks. stockwet

stock-y...I believe it does have to be on the minute chart because the bar time is based on the closing minute of the bar. Furthermore, since experts execute on ticks, if the first tick of the 15:55 bar executed at 15:52, it would read your 15:52 bar as your 15:55 bar (since the close of the bar between 15:51 and 15:55 is exactly 15:55). Did those few minutes get you in at a worse price?

Originally Posted by ;

stock-y...I believe it does have to be on the minute chart because the bar time is based on the closing minute of the bar. Furthermore, since experts execute on ticks, if the first tick of the 15:55 bar executed at 15:52, it would read your 15:52 bar as your 15:55 bar (since the close of the bar between 15:51 and 15:55 is exactly 15:55). Did those few minutes get you in at a worse price?

Now that's interesting. That's not what I thought the problem was. I'm actually using a 30 minute chart and the value I want is 3:30. This actually makes sense. Last night, my expert executed at 3:00. Based on what you said, even though the actual time was 3:01, it treated the tick as 3:30. Does that sum it up?

Originally Posted by ;

Now that's interesting. That's not what I thought the problem was. I'm actually using a 30 minute chart and the value I want is 3:30. This actually makes sense. Last night, my expert executed at 3:00. Based on what you said, even though the actual time was 3:01, it treated the tick as 3:30. Does that sum it up?

That sums it up...as far as correcting the problem, I'm sorry, I really don't know...I just remember running into the same issue with a time-based expert of mine as well (something pivots) a while back. The easiest thing for you to do would be to execute your trade by checking to see if the time is GREATER THAN 3:30. This way it would execute on the next tick past the 3:30 bar. You may lose a minute...but that shouldn't affect you that much...right?