Which is better for gains? Higher or lower time frames?

This is basically a day trader vs swing trader/position trader debate. Let's keep it friendly. Vote on the time frame you trade and state why you think it is more profitable to trade that time frame. The basic argument behind the idea is what is the most efficient use of leverage? Is it better to take large concentrated positions on a single pair for a short time period or is it better to take smaller positions on multiple pairs over a longer time period? Both methods can make money, but both have pros and cons. Let's discuss.

In my opinion diversification is always better than large concentrated positions on a single pair.
Higher TF works better because of less noises and better visible swings for 100 pips and more.

Time frame is depend on your attention free time.
IMO daily timeframe is better to catch reaseanabl move becouse of less noise.

Depends on your personality and your edge i think. Imo a profitable daily strategy can be more profitable on lower timeframes, because of increased trade frequency. Even if your hitrate suffers a bit.

I agree with this and have found this to be true for me.

I also agree with this, but sometimes having too much free time can work against you. To me trading lower time frames gives you more chances to take dumb trades and over-trade if you are not disciplined.

That's true, but increased trade frequency is not necessarily a good thing. More opportunities does not mean more "good" opportunities from my experience. Also, you have to be much more accurate with your hitrate because your RR is much lower than with higher time frames because you don't have the luxury of time working on your side for big gains. You have to you use concentrated leverage for profit instead.

Imo there is no difference with your RR. Adapting a daily strategy to 1h tf will increase your trade frequency and lower your hitrate- but RR stays the same. You have to do the math if its worth the additional working hours or not.

I see what you're saying, but I think we mean two different things. If you are using the daily time frame to spot setups and then H1 time frame for entries, you are still trading based on the daily time frame, so your RR is still based on that time frame. If you are spotting setups on the H1 and then entering on the M30 or M15, then you are still trading based on the H1, etc. My point is that the lower your time frame starting point, which means the largest time frame that you analyze first, the smaller your potential RR will be. A day trader is going to be hard pressed to find a trade with a 10RR vs a swing trader. There just isn't enough time in one day for the price to make that kind of move and your stop loss can only be so tight without sacrificing a lot of accuracy. A day trader just has a time factor working against them that other overnight styles do not.

Yes, I think you are right. Sorry for that.

I would not recommend opening more than 1 position a day on the same instrument.. even though I'm very aggressive with position sizing as you may know, I'm pretty conservative with entries/exits.. to me the most important thing is to not overtrade.

So you think that every employed, professional trader on every trading floor in the world is doing the wrong thing, then, or at least that we should all do the opposite to what they do? Ok ...

Well you will find people who say higher TF's are better and there are people who trade lower TFs. In the end it actually depend who is sitting in front of the PC and trading. Above all what really matters is the psychology and how sound is the strategy and the most important of all is 'Patience'.

I personally trade H1 to D1 as i have a full time job and cannot look at the charts all the time, but there are times where i do trade lower TF's as well.

A time frame is just a time frame. The only differences are the frequency between trades and the range of price from high to low / low to high. There is no such thing as noise on a lower time frame. Noise refers to head fakes and consolidation, which are on EVERY time frame. Again, it is a matter of frequency. Since you do not make money unless the market is moving vertically, and since a lower time frame moves vertically more frequently, then obviously, duh, a lower time makes more money. While the higher time frame trader is doing "drawdown", the lower time frame trader is making money on the reversal. Sorry to make it so simple.

Remove it from trading for an example, if you are playing basketball and shooting layups for points, most likely you will make more points than the guy shooting half court shots. Not only are layups more probable, but since you are closer to the rim, you can shoot more shots than the other guy. Hope this explanation helps.

Perhaps the easiest pattern to trade is a trend. By converting a higher time frame signal onto a lower time frame chart, you can create trends that are not only simpler to trade, not only make money in both directions, but provide extra pips because of the gained precision in the entry/exit of each trade. As a practical trading example, years ago Microsoft used to range like a sine wave. If you traded the swings you made a lot of money. If you traded buy and hold, then your entry and your exit, a year later, were the same point. Successful trading depends on vertical movement. If you ignore it, then what is the point of trading?

Allow me to explain my general trading strategy. There are two conditions I am aware of that cause me to target and trade in a certain and precise manner.
1. The vast majority of retail traders use horizontal lines as Take Profit and Break Out points. Unfortunately each trader creates his own lines based on whatever time frame they want to use, and based on whatever opinion they have of which line is significant. If they use a standard tool, like a Fibonacci Retracement, then they start cheating the lines by placing TP before the manufactured lines to try to gain an edge on everyone else. So, line touches rule decisions and they are different, or in other words, inconsistent, from trader to trader.
2. The big banks trade by pending orders. A client must move money, accepts a transaction fee, the order is placed at that price, and gets executed when the market moves over it.

Both types of trading occur by the movement of price. Neither cares much about time. So, to assume that at the top of an hour, or at the top of 4 hours, or the beginning of a new day, there is defined and measurable shift in direction, is ridiculous. While it can occur, not every trader is looking at the same thing at the same time. They are "mostly" looking at lines and pending orders...PRICE!! Therefore, I target the movement of price. The lower the time frame I use, the more precise I can target price movement, the more opportunities there are to trade, and the more money I can make. I don't trade because of a certain time frame. I trade because of the ability to follow price with more opportunities and precision.

dkrock makes a lot of sense sometiems..

I simply base my strategies on statistics.. scalping, hft gives me no edge so screw it

There is a technical indicator or a way called "a skipped convolution" in the book, which resolve this various time frame issue (or various time frame traders actions).

"The Science of Financial Market Trading" by Dr. Don K. Mak
World Scientific, 19 Mar. 2003, 260 pages.

It's always an interesting subject.

Personally, I've found that faster time-frames are better for me, because what I lose in win-rate is more than compensated for by the gain in trading frequency.

I think that for real beginners, in general, longer time-frames are probably better, overall, because lack of experience makes high win-rates preferable in general, and specifically beginners are going to have trouble working out safe position-sizes with lower win-rates, and have more accidents as a result of that factor.

In the very different world of institutional trading, there's obviously a great preference for faster time-frames, too, and in my opinion the reasons that make that suitable for professional trading also apply, to some extent, to more experienced and successful retail traders using leverage. I'd therefore suggest that that's probably another, additional reason for faster time-frames potentially being more beneficial (or at least corroborating evidence of it, if not an additional reason for it).

The perception that faster time-frames include more "noise" is a pretty misguided one, really: I think it's actually an argument that's based on a pretty fundamental misperception of what "noise" is.

i like small timeframes as well, like 1 min.

LOL something tells me, if MT4 had a 1Second TF, people on this forum would go for it

yeah the lower the better, i agree with you

I think for me M1 is best.. but before I open positions.. I confirm the correct direction of trend on the M5. Plus I confirm again with a multi-time frame indicator that updates in real time. So, If I'm trading off of the M5.. I confirm first on M15 plus the with the multi-time frame too. This seems to work for me most of the time.

Lower time frame is very much volatile. Yes you will get the result quick. But for trading psychology plays the important role. Higher time frame helps more to build a good trading psychology.