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 Normal Alliance US 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 Normal Alliance US, Hulking Belt is cheapest from 22:00 to 01:00 UTC (14:00 to 17:00 Pacific) and dearest from 05:00 to 08:00 UTC (21:00 to 00:00 Pacific). Buying in the cheap hours and selling in the dear ones returns about 234% after the 5 percent cut.

Current market: Normal Alliance US. This browser opens every tool here until you pick another. Address for this market: ahledger.com/timing?market=forever/normal/alliance/us

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

22:00 to 01:00 UTC

14:00 to 17:00 Pacific · index 0.619 · typical 21s 11c

Best hours to sell

05:00 to 08:00 UTC

21:00 to 00:00 Pacific · index 1.416 · typical 66s 71c

Spread after the 5% cut

+234%

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 0 days of scans behind it over the last 28 days. Read the windows as a hint, not a rule.

Hulking Beltby hour · Normal Alliance US

Hour (UTC)	Pacific	Typical	Lowest	Listings	Index	Days
00:00	16:00	24s	20s	20	0.721	3
01:00	17:00	24s 50c	20s	13	0.693	2
02:00	18:00	22s 33c	16s	24	0.688	3
03:00	19:00	22s	17s	20	0.736	3
04:00	20:00	41s	38s 33c	14	0.765	3
05:00	21:00	63s 50c	38s	12	1.388	3
06:00	22:00	68s 13c	67s 25c	13	1.633	4
07:00	23:00	68s 50c	68s	11	1.228	2
08:00	00:00	50s	49s	17	1.255	1
09:00	01:00	68s 50c	68s	17	1.287	2
10:00	02:00	68s 50c	44s 50c	21	1.327	2
11:00	03:00	68s	42s 50c	22	1.296	2
13:00	05:00	49s	42s	32	1.189	1
14:00	06:00	45s	30s	15	1.228	4
15:00	07:00	32s 84c	30s	19	1.102	2
16:00	08:00	17s 50c	13s	17	1.155	1
17:00	09:00	36s 67c	25s	17	0.919	3
18:00	10:00	33s 33c	26s 33c	15	0.831	3
19:00	11:00	25s 84c	19s 50c	21	0.799	2
20:00	12:00	32s	28s 50c	21	0.815	2
21:00	13:00	31s 50c	21s 50c	25	0.810	2
22:00	14:00	24s 33c	22s	21	0.670	3
23:00	15:00	15s	15s	5	0.466	1

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.normal.alliance.us/14746 on the API.

The whole market by hour · Normal Alliance US

Hour (UTC)	Pacific	Price index	Listings index	Days
00:00	16:00	0.999	1.031	4
01:00	17:00	0.992	1.055	4
02:00	18:00	0.999	1.119	5
03:00	19:00	0.998	1.158	4
04:00	20:00	0.994	1.182	4
05:00	21:00	1.007	1.211	4
06:00	22:00	1.014	1.255	5
07:00	23:00	0.955	0.998	3
08:00	00:00	0.968	1.133	1
09:00	01:00	0.966	1.140	2
10:00	02:00	0.974	1.077	3
11:00	03:00	0.991	1.040	3
12:00	04:00	1.105	0.795	1
13:00	05:00	0.985	0.943	1
14:00	06:00	1.009	0.896	4
15:00	07:00	1.000	0.848	3
16:00	08:00	1.046	0.809	2
17:00	09:00	0.999	0.833	4
18:00	10:00	0.990	0.847	4
19:00	11:00	1.018	0.869	3
20:00	12:00	0.982	0.936	3
21:00	13:00	0.987	0.947	3
22:00	14:00	1.028	0.908	4
23:00	15:00	0.994	0.970	2

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 Hulking Belt?: On Normal Alliance US, Hulking Belt is cheapest from 22:00 to 01:00 UTC (14:00 to 17:00 Pacific) and dearest from 05:00 to 08:00 UTC (21:00 to 00:00 Pacific). Buying in the cheap hours and selling in the dear ones returns about 234% 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 Normal Alliance US through the night fills the gaps.