What timeframe do you use for trading?

And why?

Me, I use H4, because I consider below H4 timeframes are too volatile and above H4 timeframes are too large for make daily trading. I usually open 1 or 2 trades per day.

60, 240 and 1440.......

lower tf's can help fine tune entrys.......h

I would have to second Hayseed's reply. While H4w does provide a more stable outlook on the market, a shorter time frame works better, esp if u are trying to gauge the market movements..

1' only.
Tick, if I can/could get it (Accucharts, for one.)
Except MT4's got the indicators.

I simply read more candles and screens for higher TF's.

I maintain my position that there are no time frames.

the amount of time used to make each candle should have nothing to do with the price levels , the eur/usd will have the same price on the tick, five minute, hour, four hour, day, week, month, year.

that being said the time frames I use are the ones that help me analyze the statistical data in easier increments.

daily, hourly, five minute.

If you look at time frames and see different set ups, or completely different market. I suggest you re think your approach.

a chart is nothing but a chart, you could use a bar, candle, or line, mountain, even pie chart, histogram, they are there to give you visual representation of orders being transacted.

Seriously Red?

How about a short-term long trade setup in a long-term downtrend, still valid isn't it?

I think which time frame you look at depends on the time frame of your trades, ie why the need to look at the daily if you're trading intraday?

I will explain my views on this matter the best I can.


To being to understand where I am coming from, it is very important to understand how I see charts.
To me a chart represents the movement of the quotes bid/ask as they are being quoted, due to transactions eating up liquidity bring price up or down according to supply and demand.

in reality the market is constantly doing this and quoting BID/ASK at all times.
the Market is NOT the candle charts, the market is the transactions taking place according to various analysis. Because of this constant movement in our need for order and to better VISUALLY interpret this vast amount of data we decided to encapsulate this movement in different amounts of time, using various techniques.

when looking at a candle of the five minute chart, we arbitrarily get a reference point that can also be consider the STRIKE price, as this block of time expires, there will be 3 other reference points the high, the low, the close.

what information can we derive from this? the range, the prevalence in orders (green or red according to above or below open) now if we instead decide to measure this in blocks of one hour, that will still be the same as 12 five minutes, however one must not lose sight of the fact that your broker is quoting you constantly, bid/ask. THE SAME QUOTES will happen and price will hit the same numbers regardless of how you want to chop it , 2, 3, 4, 5 minutes, 60 minutes, 240 minutes, 1440 minutes, or whatever other preference. within this blocks you get 4 points two outliers highest and lowest quotes during that time.

now if you mean to tell met that looking at a daily candle is not the summary of 1440 one minute candles then i would say your premise is wrong.

that is why i say time frames do not exist, the same prices will be CONTINUOUSLY quoted regardless on what method you use to summarize them.

let's take friday's trading day for example, and here are the different ways you can use to analyze the information and the different types of charts that can be used to interpret the data set.









on the daily "time frame" i circled fridays candle
and on the hourly " time frame" i outlined the information contained in the prior.

as you can see these are all one daily candle, and can be plotted in many different graphical ways to derive at the following information

Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
1.330 1.333 1.334 1.334 1.335 1.336

mean +standard deviation x 2 = 1.33675
mean - standard deviation x2 = 1.33036

or simply

open low high close
1.32971.32961.33731.3334 for 24 hours

whether you would have used the tick, or the five minute that would not have change the data over fridays 24 hour period.

I don't disagree with you, so it really comes down to the time frame (duration) of our trading style/strategy. An intraday trader obviously wouldn't find the detailed information he needs on say the daily OHLC.

Something else to take into consideration though, players sometimes attempt to paint charts in a certain way to mislead. I have no idea how effective those attempts are, I can't see it being an easy task!

I use for positions 1m and 5m, but i watch and take my decision on 15m, 30m, and 1h, this is the reality in the forex trading...

pro -- higher accuracy
That would be an interesting, if difficult-to-represent, indicator,
to get the frequency of prices for each timeframe-sized bar,
instead of merely the hi-lo-open-close.
I think a few at ff already do the in-bar volume at different prices
and represent it thru shaping each bar,
which is still more info than price alone.
This argues for good fit with whatever indicators(/graphs) one chose, with each other and consistently over time, however complex the dependence on the broke r's original feed is.
Over experience, the complexity could be reduced into a simple fit with the feed.

con -- lower depth of experience with, higher potential skew from true order flow
Your idea merely suggests more, or more-developed, indicators to learn,
which increases the dependence on specific programs
and thus decreases its potential reliability
thru peculiarities deviating it from true order flow
or from depth of understanding how it works in different scenarios.
This argues for a single, maximally-adjustable and -interpretable indicator of price/time(etc.,or) with a certain, and here simple and set, difference from orders that all broke rs provide in their given platforms.
One could in turn say that the con side opens up temporary, multiple interpretations that conflict with each other. Yet over time, experience with what devices available to make temporary selections when overlaying a simple, common indicator, reduces them to the most effective and thus also of good fit with each other.

all timeframe

to be honest it still wouldn't work, it is actually possible to see where price lingers the most, or when supply and demand are at equilibrium look where price is clustering....but that still historical representation of where the market has been.

seeing deceleration/consolidation/ or distribution still offers no sure fire way into the future however you can come up with a plan for each scenario and execute it.

I agree with the resident Lion, that there is no time frame. Time is a massively important factor in market analysis. It's critical to understand the implications that time has for all market participants.

If you narrow your focus to "a time frame" then you are likely looking at the market through the same beer goggles as most everyone else. And hows that working for you?

Personally I watch the Daily/ H4/ H1 and 15, but I could do the same with an m5 alone that I do with the others. It's just a matter of convenience to break it up into 4 more efficiently summarized price data. The m15 I rarely pay attention to, it's just a noisy version of the other 3 charts.

Of course I'll glance at the overall picture Monthly and Weekly once in a while.

Imagine the price alone without your candle sticks. It simply moves up and down, the footsteps in the sand simply map it's walk.

Time frame is a button on your MT4 charting platform.

Time is an entirely different concept.

Once you understand the difference you are one step better off imo of course.

Working great thanks, usually better after I've drunk the beer in the beer goggles tho' http://www.jonrb.com/emoticons/drunk.gif

I trade patterns, am I excused?

We get what we want from the markets. Some people are happy with peanuts. No ones judging you .

Hehe, I'd be worried if I thought you were serious with that comment!

There will always be someone better or worse but last time I looked it wasn't a competition!

Lifes a competition Pip. Like it or not. Let's not get too deep and meaningful with this lol.

Life can certainly be challenging for sure, but competing is optional. We aspire to be the best we can. Me, I prefer to keep on trucking along in my own innocuous style, I find life (and trading!) less stressful and more enjoyable that way, and believe me I've experienced both.


Good call!