NOTE: In NeuroShell Trader, open the chart named “Example 23 – DayTrader Specific Time Trading” which is the basis for following example:

(DayTrader Only) For various reasons, many people like to build models that trade only between specific times of the day. If you do that in NeuroShell, the models will also learn to “specialize” in your time range.

In this chart we built two trading strategies that decide whether to go long or short between 2 PM and 4 PM eastern time each day. We used the familiar regression slopes from earlier examples as entry and exit rules, which we then optimize with full optimization. When you optimize such a strategy, the optimizer evolves a model which is only concerned about the rules as they affect the 2-4 PM timeframe. Note that you can have many such models (stratedies or predictions) for different time periods, including the overnight gap.

The way the active time range is selected is in the “Dates” tab of the trading strategy or prediction. No entry or exit rules will fire outside of the designated time range. At the end of the time range, any open positions are automatically closed.

It is also possible to use time flag indicators in rules to direct trading during the target time period. (E.g time>= 4 PM is a long exit rule). They are generally much more difficult to set up, but do have the advantage that the times in them can be optimized.

Often we use QQQQ as a proxy for continuous NQ futures data, and SPY as a proxy for continuous ES data. Usually, NQ moves as QQQQ moves etc so it becomes profitable to day trade these time intervals because you can use highly leveraged Eminis instead of stocks.