How to quantify the ideal timeframe

Dear All ,

Certain time frames(M1,M5,M15,M30,H1,H4) and certain forex pairs are profitable but they fade a way....
For example price is noisy and has no direction in M30 but it is smooth and cycling in M5 etc..

How to quantify ideal timeframe ?Should I look arXiv for the answer? What to use ?Relative-strength(currency dashbaords) ?Equity monitoring ?Goertzel algorithm?Mutual information?FDI and hurst exponents are useless.

Price action is the same no matter what time frame.

An excellent question and one deserving of your time and study. When I am asked this question I usually turn around and ask the inquiring party if there is a particular "market condition" that you look for when you ascertain opportunities? Do you trade using indicators? Trend? Range? Order flow?

Pretty much everyone has some rule set they use to define opportunities. What are yours?

Keeping in mind that it is ALL the same market...the price on the right hand edge is the same price on ALL time frames. You will find the price action is fractal in nature...meaning that your defined trading conditions can be expressed on any time frame. Thus as you mentioned above a trend trader would find opportunities on a 5 min chart while a range trader would find opportunities on the 30 min chart.

Again its all the same market just that your point of view changes. This can work to your advantage IF you have completely and accurately defined your trading conditions. All then that remains to be determined is WHAT time frame is the market expressing your trading conditions? Once you find it you have found the time frame you want to manage your trade from. Then you can use a longer time frame to determine the larger point of view and a shorter time frame to "fine tune" your entry and exit.

It will very rarely be the same time frames for each and every trade. Watching only one time frame is kind of like listening to only one instrument during a symphony orchestra. There is so much you are going to miss.

The real question is what timeframe suits you best.. Which one do you have the most luck with..
How long do you like to hold a trade?

Trading is individual.. Go with what you feel most connected too, where you make the best trade, and earn the most pips.

If trading is volatile you may want to zoom out a bit.. if trading is slow you may want to zoom in a bit..

I suggest you trade only one session a day, asian, europe, or usa.
(choose the one you have the most luck in, not the one with the most pips)
Get an indicator to highlight just that time of day. so you can look at many days quickly and easily to study it.
Get to know its average movements, get to know when they happen,, maybe does majority of movement in first 3 hours. then gets really slow.
That may help you find the right time frame.

ideal time frame? there is no such an ideal time frame.
it depends on what mode you trade, long term or short term.
short term is absolutely H1 and below, long term is H4 and above.

What is price action?Candlesticks?Support resistance trading ?Only atr levels as probability levels makes sense to me https://www.mql5.com/en/code/19905. .l dont know it is a matter of writing an expert based on it then test it.

Good post,
l use indicators, oscillators.Most of the academic research based on detecting market regime with rigourus math concepts.But my opininon is market state detection is not the cause but SYMTHOM.Because everywhere trend,ranging,noisy market has different shape like every snowflake has different geometric shape.l want my indicators to fit the most profitable time frame and maximize the profit.

What is the quantitive definition of ''' suits you best?"""

Why there is no ideal time frame?The ideal time frame is the most profitable time frame which is your trading methods fit into (manual or automatic trading)The ideal time frame fades away, it has a life cyle just like anything in The nature.My question is how to quantify mathematically__coding wise.

And this is the real question. What is price action? What is market structure? How does the market move? Answer these questions and the door to profitable trading opens. Dump indicators and EAs. Choose a time frame to suit your lifestyle.

Statistically speaking 1min and weekly are vastely different.
I suppose you already read this thread https://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=336715 ?

Thank you I'm gratified you found something of value, and I hope you will find more value in what follows.

You are correct sir. I will most likely make some enemies by what I am about to say here but the truth is the truth. You appear to be trying to find a mathematical way to "quantify" what the market does. In deed the question at the start of this thread states as much. I too searched this path for some "quantifiable" way to not only trade but to find when and where to trade...I'm afraid I wasted many years in this search and would like to save your those wasted years if I could.

The true structure of the market does not lend itself to "quantifiable" mathematics in the way most here think it does. It just doesn't work that way. Many make the mistake of looking at a price chart and thinking that price is the beginning of their journey. They look at price formations and call it "structure". They add mathematical formulas to explain why price moved the way it moved. They try to apply the laws of Newtonian or Quantum physics to the movements of price and become frustrated because price movements do not exactly fit their mathematical model...BELEIVE me...I've been there. I fear that if you continue down this path you too will become frustrated and disappointed.

You are correct in that price movements are the RESULT of the underlying structure of the market. But the market structure consists of three important concepts that most people refuse to acknowledge or address. Those concepts are TIME, ORDER FLOW, and VOLUME. These things working together in concert produce price movements. If you want to compare it to something think of cellular metabolism creating your body movements. With out the basics of food, water, and rest, your body will cease to move. In the same way without the basics time, order flow and volume price will also cease to move.

What does this have to do with time frames? First...you will NEVER be able to find the "right" time frame with some "quantifiable" math equation. Second...the entire concept of "time frames" is yet another layer placed on top of price to allow you to visualize price HISTORY. Those movements that are already in the past. The size of the time frame only organizes those previous price movements into increments of TIME...and then displays more or less (depending on what time frame you look at) to the left side of your chart. Third (and lastly)...Its all the same market. The price movements that are occurring in "real time" on the right hand edge of your screen are being created by the three previously mentioned structural components on a tick-by-tick basis. What's more these movements are the results of millions of people making decisions in real time based on their own decision making processes. There is NO math formula that can predict those decisions with any greater accuracy than chance. To put it in math terms...no mathematical edge.

Your ability to create and maintain profitability will eventually lead you back to the study of those basic elements of market structure and how to use THOSE in real time. You will then find that once you are able to "see" the order flow in the market you can chose ANY time frame and use it to your advantage. The ability to recognize order flow balance vs dominance...exhaustion verses climax...absorption vs demand. These skills will give you the "edge" you are looking for...NOT math.

The good news is that YES it is "quantifiable" but not with physics or math. Rather with definition and recognition of the state of the market by learning its structure.

Hi,
Thanks ,yes I read it.I read that there are clustering methods, distance metrics,correlation analysis, spectral methods , hidden markov models etc,etc... for '' market state aproximation ''.As Old_Dog highlights '' there is no definitive answer'' to this question. I find this approach difficult.

Instead, I am looking something different:
1-Record the performance(profitability) of EACH indicator in real time: '''total equity indicator showing any drawdown between opening and closing a trade''' https://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=207137
2-Rank the profitability performance(smoothest equity line) of each indicator with spearman rank correlation(?)
3-Find the most profitable time frame.When the profitability disrupts then switch in between the different time frames?
The goal is to find the smoothest equity curve.

My questions are :
a) How to or is it possible to record the performance of equity line in real time in multi time framing?
b)Is it correct thinking to use mutual information to find mutual dependence between equity line and the price.
Or should I use some classification to predict the smoothest equity line in real time in multi time framing?

I could never figure out what people mean by "profitability of an indicator", unless you sell it of course.
An indicator is a filter that magnifies some feature of the price action. It isn't its job to tell you when to buy, when to sell, how much and how to manage your position. What it the profitability of the SMA50 or the MACD??

l dont use macd or sma 50 ,so l dont know.