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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 EU, Wicked Chain Cloak is cheapest from 22:00 to 01:00 UTC (23:00 to 02:00 CET) and dearest from 02:00 to 05:00 UTC (03:00 to 06:00 CET). Buying in the cheap hours and selling in the dear ones returns about 61% after the 5 percent cut.

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

Item

Best hours to buy

22:00 to 01:00 UTC

23:00 to 02:00 CET · index 0.788 · typical 70s 6c

Best hours to sell

02:00 to 05:00 UTC

03:00 to 06:00 CET · index 1.301 · typical 88s 75c

Spread after the 5% cut

+61%

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.

Wicked Chain Cloakby hour · Normal Alliance EU

Hour (UTC)TypicalLowestIndex
00:0082s 50c60s0.922
01:0059s 50c48s0.738
02:0090s 25c44s1.299
03:0088s44s1.293
04:0088s44s1.312
05:0076s65s0.815
06:0049s 50c40s0.627
07:0068s13s1.023
08:0065s39s1.003
09:0063s 10c39s0.957
10:0074s74s1.007
12:0072s72s1.090
13:0072s55s1.174
14:0072s72s1.162
15:0070s 57c20s1.124
16:0057s 25c32s 50c0.751
17:0081s32s 50c0.975
18:001g 6s82s 50c1.242
19:0093s 29c20s1.050
20:0077s 29c20s0.835
21:0098s 10c17s 50c1.161
22:0045s 17c17s 50c0.528
23:0082s 50c80s0.913

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.eu/15537 on the API.

The whole market by hour · Normal Alliance EU

Hour (UTC)Price indexListings indexDays
00:000.9821.1745
01:000.9981.1624
02:001.0641.0834
03:001.0221.0125
04:001.0041.0103
05:001.0420.7603
06:001.0290.9213
07:001.0160.8844
08:001.0110.8884
09:001.0150.9055
10:001.0210.8134
11:001.0160.8744
12:001.0100.9114
13:000.9950.9684
14:001.0051.0134
15:000.9821.0434
16:001.0001.0034
17:000.9631.0854
18:000.9521.1284
19:000.9791.0333
20:000.9571.1294
21:000.9631.1334
22:000.9871.0553
23:000.9861.0134

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

When is the WoW Forever auction house cheapest during the day?
Across Normal Alliance EU, prices run cheapest around 18:00 UTC (19:00 CET), 4.8% under the daily average, and dearest around 02:00 UTC (03:00 CET), 6.4% over. The pattern is read from the hourly price of the market's largest positions over the last few weeks, each hour against the day around it.
What is the best time of day to buy and sell Wicked Chain Cloak?
On Normal Alliance EU, Wicked Chain Cloak is cheapest from 22:00 to 01:00 UTC (23:00 to 02:00 CET) and dearest from 02:00 to 05:00 UTC (03:00 to 06:00 CET). Buying in the cheap hours and selling in the dear ones returns about 61% 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 EU through the night fills the gaps.