How is the hour-of-day pattern worked out?

Every hourly price is divided by the same item’s average over the 24 hours around it, so a price drifting up or down over the month does not make one end of the day look dear, and the 24 hours are then centred so an average hour reads 1.000. The best buy window is the cheapest run of three hours and the best sell window the dearest. Hours are UTC, with the hour on the wall in the zone most of the market’s players keep beside them.

How much history does the pattern need?

Each hour of the day needs a few days of scans behind it before its figure means anything. The confidence line reads the thinnest hour: settled from ten days of scans, provisional from three, too early under that, and no pattern at all while fewer than half the hours have been scanned. Scanning PvP Alliance EU through the night fills the gaps.

Best hours to buy and sell

Pick a market and an item. Every hour of the day shows its typical price, lowest buyout and listings, and the page names the cheapest hours to buy, the dearest to sell, and what the gap is worth after the 5 percent cut.

On PvP Alliance EU, Blackened Defias Gloves is cheapest from 23:00 to 02:00 UTC (00:00 to 03:00 CET) and dearest from 14:00 to 17:00 UTC (15:00 to 18:00 CET). Buying in the cheap hours and selling in the dear ones returns about 170% after the 5 percent cut.

Current market: PvP Alliance EU. This browser opens every tool here until you pick another. Address for this market: ahledger.com/timing?market=forever/pvp/alliance/eu

1MarketEach house keeps its own hours.2WindowDays of scans the hours are averaged over.3ItemKept while you switch market or window; type another below.

Item

Best hours to buy

23:00 to 02:00 UTC

00:00 to 03:00 CET · index 0.736 · typical 62s 94c

Best hours to sell

14:00 to 17:00 UTC

15:00 to 18:00 CET · index 1.254 · typical 1g 50s 18c

Spread after the 5% cut

+170%

buy at the cheap hours' lowest buyout, sell at the dear hours' typical price

Confidence

Too early

Too early to trust: the thinnest hour has 1 day of scans behind it over the last 28 days. Read the windows as a hint, not a rule.

Blackened Defias Glovesby hour · PvP Alliance EU

Hour (UTC)	CET	Typical	Lowest	Listings	Index	Days
00:00	01:00	63s 25c	58s 50c	33	0.663	2
01:00	02:00	60s 75c	47s 75c	25	0.799	4
02:00	03:00	71s 25c	64s	14	1.071	4
03:00	04:00	71s 25c	59s 50c	13	1.058	2
04:00	05:00	80s 50c	67s 33c	13	1.224	3
05:00	06:00	64s 71c	47s 75c	15	0.988	4
06:00	07:00	75s 13c	63s 25c	18	1.078	4
07:00	08:00	70s 80c	54s 80c	19	1.094	5
08:00	09:00	65s 20c	47s 20c	20	1.032	5
09:00	10:00	64s 33c	57s 80c	21	1.009	5
10:00	11:00	63s 43c	57s 60c	24	0.999	5
11:00	12:00	67s 70c	57s	26	1.075	5
12:00	13:00	77s	54s	50	1.090	2
13:00	14:00	75s 45c	48s	33	1.162	4
14:00	15:00	1g 59s 67c	1g 43s 25c	32	1.309	4
15:00	16:00	1g 55s 38c	1g 39s 25c	32	1.243	4
16:00	17:00	1g 35s 50c	71s	31	1.211	5
17:00	18:00	1g 20s 50c	69s 25c	34	1.093	4
18:00	19:00	60s 17c	42s 67c	42	0.883	3
19:00	20:00	75s 22c	53s 25c	32	0.774	4
20:00	21:00	48s 19c	37s	38	0.705	3
21:00	22:00	60s	43s	22	0.814	1
22:00	23:00	54s 28c	34s 33c	28	0.882	3
23:00	00:00	64s 83c	52s 50c	25	0.745	4

Under 1.000 is a cheap hour to buy; over 1.000 a good hour to sell. Days counts how many days that hour was scanned in the window. The same figures as JSON: /v1/timing/forever.pvp.alliance.eu/10401 on the API.

The whole market by hour · PvP Alliance EU

Hour (UTC)	CET	Price index	Listings index	Days
00:00	01:00	0.939	1.077	2
01:00	02:00	0.979	1.025	5
02:00	03:00	1.015	1.046	5
03:00	04:00	1.031	1.017	2
04:00	05:00	1.010	0.936	4
05:00	06:00	1.038	0.846	4
06:00	07:00	1.020	0.817	5
07:00	08:00	1.039	0.851	6
08:00	09:00	1.038	0.843	6
09:00	10:00	1.024	0.915	6
10:00	11:00	1.021	0.992	6
11:00	12:00	0.984	1.060	6
12:00	13:00	1.004	0.898	3
13:00	14:00	0.995	0.960	4
14:00	15:00	0.993	0.991	4
15:00	16:00	0.985	1.030	4
16:00	17:00	0.978	1.068	5
17:00	18:00	0.980	1.104	4
18:00	19:00	0.970	1.150	3
19:00	20:00	0.996	1.079	4
20:00	21:00	0.959	1.186	3
21:00	22:00	0.967	1.035	1
22:00	23:00	0.983	1.098	3
23:00	00:00	1.049	0.976	4

Each hour is indexed against the 24 hours around it, item by item across the market's largest positions, then centred so an average hour reads 1.000. For the day-of-week pattern, see market structure.

▸How this is worked out

Every hourly price is divided by the same item's average over the 24 hours around it, so a price drifting over the month does not make one end of the day look dear. The best buy window is the cheapest run of three hours and the best sell window the dearest; the spread buys at the cheap window's lowest buyout and sells at the dear window's typical price less the cut. Forever's history restarts at launch, so a live market's pattern never includes beta scans.

Common questions

What is the best time of day to buy and sell Blackened Defias Gloves?: On PvP Alliance EU, Blackened Defias Gloves is cheapest from 23:00 to 02:00 UTC (00:00 to 03:00 CET) and dearest from 14:00 to 17:00 UTC (15:00 to 18:00 CET). Buying in the cheap hours and selling in the dear ones returns about 170% after the 5 percent cut.
How is the hour-of-day pattern worked out?: Every hourly price is divided by the same item’s average over the 24 hours around it, so a price drifting up or down over the month does not make one end of the day look dear, and the 24 hours are then centred so an average hour reads 1.000. The best buy window is the cheapest run of three hours and the best sell window the dearest. Hours are UTC, with the hour on the wall in the zone most of the market’s players keep beside them.
How much history does the pattern need?: Each hour of the day needs a few days of scans behind it before its figure means anything. The confidence line reads the thinnest hour: settled from ten days of scans, provisional from three, too early under that, and no pattern at all while fewer than half the hours have been scanned. Scanning PvP Alliance EU through the night fills the gaps.