Trading Computers How To: Change Default Time Zone

I got a text from my buddy the other day. He had a question about his computer and thought I could help.

It’s unusual for him to reach out about with computer questions –  he’s a pretty tech savvy guy.

With his permission, here is his text:

“Seriously. I’m at my wits end here man. Why are all the trades in my log stamped with the wrong time?? I’ve looked everywhere in the settings and nothing. Commodities I know. Learning day trading is rough right now. LOL. help!”

If you’re like me, and my buddy, we often overlook simple fixes in our rush to quickly solve issues and get back to work.

In the case of my buddy’s time stamp issue, adjusting his computer’s clock to eastern time solves the issue.

Maybe you have experienced this issue before in your trading software or other applications, I’ve made a short video to demonstrate this quick change.

 

Windows 7 Clock Time Zone

In this video, I want to show you how to change your default time zone on your Windows trading computer.

I got a text from my buddy the other day. He had a question about his computer and thought I could help.

It’s unusual for him to reach out about with computer questions –  he’s a pretty tech savvy guy.

With his permission, here is his text:

“Seriously. I’m at my wits end here man. Why are all the trades in my log stamped with the wrong time?? I’ve looked everywhere in the settings and nothing. Commodities I know. Learning day trading is rough right now. LOL. help!”

If you’re like me, and my buddy, we often overlook simple fixes in our rush to quickly solve issues and get back to work.

In the case of my buddy’s time stamp issue, adjusting his computer’s clock to eastern time solves the issue.

Maybe you have experienced this issue before in your trading software or other applications, I’ve made a short video to demonstrate this quick change.

 

Windows 7 Clock Time Zone

In this video, I want to show you how to change your default time zone on your Windows trading computer.
 

Today I’m using Windows 7. For those of you who don’t live on the east coast but most of your trading day consists of paying attention to the eastern time zone, you might want to change your default time zone. This way all your trading software and other applications will be synchronized to the New York stock market in US Eastern Time Zone. I like to see the date and time stamps of the trades and the trading day in eastern time. In order to do that, you should adjust the default time zone clock on your computer.

Change the Default Time Zone Setting On Your Trading Computer

Here are the steps: 

 

  1. Navigate down to the lower left hand corner of Windows 7.
  2. Click on the Start menu.
  3. In the right sidebar of start menu, click on control panel.
  4. In Control Panel, click on clock language and region.
  5. Next you’re going to change the time zone which is the middle link in the dialog box. It’s located under the time zone section about midway down this dialog box.
  6. The time zone settings will give you a drop down menu. You are going to want to go to -5 UTC Eastern Time USA and Canada.
  7. Keep the default check box selected for automatically adjust clock for daylight savings time.
  8. Then you will click OK, click apply and then click OK.
  9. Then you can verify that the time settings have changed in the lower right hand corner.

Make Additional Changes To Your Trading Computer’s Time Zone Clock

If at any time you want to change your computer’s time zone back to your current time – if it’s not eastern time, you can go follow a similar process.

This can be resolved in a few quick steps:

  1. Go to back to start menu.
  2. Go to the control panel, clock, and then change time zone.
  3. You can click change time zone once again and revert back to whatever time zone you need.
  4. Then click apply.

So that’s how you change your default time zone on your trading computer should you want to synchronize with the New York stock market in US Eastern Time Zone.

There are more trading computer tips like this in our buyers guide. Check out our “How To Buy a Trading Computer” e-book.

We hope today’s Quick Tip helped you. If you found this helpful, you’ll want to check out the other computer how-to’s I’ve created on this page. You can always call us if you have questions: 800-387-5250