An account's trading window is the set of hours it may open a trade in. The rest of the strategy runs all the time. The window only decides when a new trade may start.
Two ways to set a window
A strategy can say when it trades in two ways, and Wildflower reads both.
- Sessions. Asia, London and New York. Ticking none of them means no session limit at all.
- Hours. A list of clock hours that are switched off, in US Central time, which is the time the exchange runs on. Every hour not switched off is open.
An account running one setup
If an account's strategy has one setup, the window belongs to the account. Settings shows it on the Safety card, under When it steps away.
An account running several setups
A strategy can hold several setups, each with its own market or rules. The Safety card calls each one an engine. Each engine has its own hours, sessions and days, read from its own settings.
So the card shows Set per engine instead of one value, and lists every engine with the hours it may trade in. It lists the open hours, not the ones switched off. If an engine is open every hour, the card says so in words.
The account-wide sessions apply too
An account with several engines still has its own Asia, London and New York setting. It is a second check, not a leftover. A trade must be inside one of the sessions ticked there and inside its engine's own hours. The Safety card shows it as Sessions, account-wide.
So the tighter of the two wins. If none of the three is ticked, there is no session limit on top of each engine's own hours, and the card says so.
Read both lines before you change either. An engine whose hours all fall inside sessions you have not ticked can never trade. It keeps running and watching its market, but never takes a trade.
Changing the account-wide sessions
On the Safety card in Settings, under Sessions this account may trade in, tick the sessions and press Save sessions.
The card checks what your ticks would mean before it saves. As you tick, it names any engine that would be left with no hour to trade in. If there is one, it asks you to confirm. You can still go ahead, but it cannot happen by accident.
The change applies to that one account. Your other accounts keep their own sessions. A running account picks up the change straight away, not at its next restart.
Where each engine's hours come from
From the strategy on the account. Assign a different strategy, or a different version of the same one, and each engine's hours and days change with it. You do not edit them in Settings, and Settings never holds an old value that no longer applies.
What can go wrong
A trade you expected inside your window did not happen. The window is one check of several. Look at the reason on the Activity page's Everything else tab before changing anything. A rest window, a news window, the entry cutoff before the close, or one of your own rules can each hold a trade back during an open hour.
Hours are in US Central time. So they shift against your own clock during the weeks when your country has changed its clocks and the United States has not.