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 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 PvP Alliance US, Recipe: Free Action Potion is cheapest from 22:00 to 01:00 UTC (14:00 to 17:00 Pacific) and dearest from 17:00 to 20:00 UTC (09:00 to 12:00 Pacific). Buying in the cheap hours and selling in the dear ones returns about 292% after the 5 percent cut.

Current market: PvP Alliance US. This browser opens every tool here until you pick another. Address for this market: ahledger.com/timing?market=forever/pvp/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 0.799 · typical 62s 17c

Best hours to sell

17:00 to 20:00 UTC

09:00 to 12:00 Pacific · index 1.484 · typical 2g 33s 53c

Spread after the 5% cut

+292%

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

Recipe: Free Action Potionby hour · PvP Alliance US

Hour (UTC)	Pacific	Typical	Lowest	Listings	Index	Days
00:00	16:00	61s	49s	23	0.826	3
01:00	17:00	24s	23s 50c	31	0.932	2
02:00	18:00	24s	23s	31	0.938	2
03:00	19:00	23s 75c	23s	29	0.940	2
04:00	20:00	51s	45s 33c	22	0.890	3
05:00	21:00	78s 65c	74s 60c	20	0.871	5
06:00	22:00	45s 92c	34s	27	0.947	4
07:00	23:00	76s 50c	70s 20c	21	0.903	5
08:00	00:00	88s 63c	81s 25c	23	0.869	4
09:00	01:00	88s 25c	87s 50c	19	0.899	4
10:00	02:00	75s 80c	73s	13	0.987	5
11:00	03:00	50s	37s 67c	31	1.029	3
12:00	04:00	1g 45s	1g 37s 50c	4	0.903	2
13:00	05:00	49s	34s	32	0.977	2
14:00	06:00	44s	33s 67c	34	1.005	3
15:00	07:00	29s 50c	28s 50c	43	1.049	2
16:00	08:00	44s	31s 33c	31	1.019	3
17:00	09:00	2g 32s 8c	2g 24s	24	1.510	4
18:00	10:00	2g 34s 67c	2g 25s 33c	18	1.459	3
19:00	11:00	2g 33s 83c	85s	20	1.484	3
20:00	12:00	1g 46s	60s 67c	31	1.127	3
21:00	13:00	1g 4s 50c	81s 50c	27	0.863	2
22:00	14:00	69s	66s 67c	28	0.766	3
23:00	15:00	56s 50c	54s	24	0.806	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.us/5642 on the API.

The whole market by hour · PvP Alliance US

Hour (UTC)	Pacific	Price index	Listings index	Days
00:00	16:00	1.025	0.959	4
01:00	17:00	1.082	0.840	3
02:00	18:00	0.993	1.061	3
03:00	19:00	1.011	1.016	3
04:00	20:00	0.995	1.074	4
05:00	21:00	1.000	1.092	5
06:00	22:00	1.020	1.143	4
07:00	23:00	1.001	1.194	5
08:00	00:00	1.011	1.116	4
09:00	01:00	0.987	1.133	4
10:00	02:00	1.014	1.059	5
11:00	03:00	0.999	1.090	3
12:00	04:00	1.014	0.987	2
13:00	05:00	0.990	0.984	3
14:00	06:00	0.995	0.984	4
15:00	07:00	0.973	0.963	3
16:00	08:00	0.972	0.938	4
17:00	09:00	0.974	0.888	4
18:00	10:00	0.977	0.935	3
19:00	11:00	0.993	0.902	3
20:00	12:00	0.984	0.913	3
21:00	13:00	0.992	0.839	2
22:00	14:00	0.998	0.927	3
23:00	15:00	1.003	0.962	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 Recipe: Free Action Potion?: On PvP Alliance US, Recipe: Free Action Potion is cheapest from 22:00 to 01:00 UTC (14:00 to 17:00 Pacific) and dearest from 17:00 to 20:00 UTC (09:00 to 12:00 Pacific). Buying in the cheap hours and selling in the dear ones returns about 292% 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 US through the night fills the gaps.