Time Filters (UTC Hour and Day of Week) — what it is and how to use it in trading
Definition
Unlike the ready-made session flags, hour_utc and day_of_week are "raw" numeric time readings: the current UTC hour (0-23) and the day-of-week number (1 = Monday, ... 7 = Sunday). They give a more flexible but more manual way to restrict a strategy to specific hours or days, without being tied to the three preset session windows.
How it works in the builder
hour_utc takes values 0-23, day_of_week takes values 1-7. Both operands take no parameters and are compared with ordinary condition operators (>, <, ==, between), not a yes/no boolean flag the way sessions are.
What it looks like on the chart
hour_utc is drawn as a clock dial with 4 reference ticks, an hour hand, and a "UTC" caption. day_of_week is drawn as a row of 7 chips, one per weekday, with the selected day emphasized — a discrete 1..7 enum reads as a row of chips, not a dial.
Typical use
Typical condition: hour_utc between 7 and 16 as a more flexible replacement for a session flag, or day_of_week < 6 as a "weekdays only" filter that excludes weekends, which typically have lower liquidity.
Common pitfalls
Hand-picked hour ranges are easy to desync from the real sessions (e.g. an off-by-one hour, or forgetting the London/New York overlap) — if a standard session is what's actually needed, the in_session_asia/london/ny flags are more reliable than a hand-tuned hour_utc range.
This block is available in the strategy builder
137 no-code blocks — build an entry condition with this term and test it on history
Historical results do not guarantee future ones. The service is an informational and analytical tool, not an individual investment recommendation; trades are not executed.
Hour (UTC)
Block variants
Day of Week