H1 or H4

After 2 years studying about financial market / Forex, today my biggest doubt is: Which time frame should I use, H4 or H1? When I use H1 I feel a feeling that I need to stay full time in front of the chart and when I use H4 I have very little opportunity and often spend the whole day waiting for a possible entry. I would love to hear opinions or even guidance from the most experienced.

It may be that this doubt is the doubt of many traders

I'm not considering myself "the most experienced" but nevertheless I will write here how I passed over this issue, when I met it.

A timeframe is just a view over the market - I mean it's the same market, same price variations on all timeframes. The difference stays only in the view: a H4 chart contains significant information on a larger scale and doesn't contain mini-information from M1. That mini-information is significant on M1, but M1 chart doesn't contain the significant information from H4. And the market is the overlap of all the possible views.

Another point is that any view it's just a tool which provides information. If I can catch more useful information from multiple tools, I will use them - this is true concerning indicators, fundamentals ... and TFs. This is very important - information from one TF is always good if it's interpreted in relation with some other TFs, not by its own. Not always a long trend continuation on M1 is a buy signal - especially when this happens just under an H4 supply zone...

So the question "what TFs should I use?" is translated into "what views I want to use?", and this is based two main personal decisions:
1. what's the actual status of the market I want to trade ?
2. how much time do I have to trade ?

You see, firstly I decide how much time I invest in trading, and after that I choose my TF, not the reverse. This is very important also.

If the market is in a range on daily and H4 and I have just about two hours to invest in trading, it's obvious that I will use some M1 or M5 timeframe for trading, and I will use M15, H1 and H3 to depict the little minitrends in that range. I will use tight TPs, because I don't know how long that range will last.

But if the market is trending on W1 and D1, it's ranging on H1 for some good hours and I can see that the main trend can resume, I will use M15 to locate an entry, M1 for precise entry ( if I have time to invest in M1 action, if not, I will use M15, M30 or even H1 with alarms on certain levels ), and for TP I will use H1, H4 or even D1, it will be a larger TP. So here I will use in fact a different trading system than in the above situation ( lot sizes will be also different ), applied to a different combination of TFs.

So I passed over that initial question with more flexibility in switching the trading systems, based on market status and my time availability. If the market is ranging on a certain TF, I move on a lower or higher TF or I change the instrument. And if I have not so much time for trading, I don't use lower TFs. Based on these, it's always simple which are my target TFs in any conditions.

Hope this helps.

I currently check two time frames. H4 and D1. When the two forces are in sync, I look for the best time to execute the order. I'm going to check the possibility of continuing to operate H4 and if I don't find an opportunity, I look in H1.

Thank you very much for your message.

I think the first thing you need to understand first is what is your trading style.

I'll give an example for Day trader.

For day trader, trades are mostly executed and closed within the day. This is also considered as short-term trading.

In general, it may requires a day trader to use up to 3 timeframes - H4, h1 and M15 (sometimes M5 as well).
H4 is the big picture to identify strong supply/demand levels and the bigger trend.
H1 is to understand what is the most current trend and can be used to identify certain chart patterns to give you an idea what price to enter (applies to H4 as well).
M15 is to observe the candlestick movement and formation to decide whether to execute a trade now or later.

By the way, if you are spending a lot of time in front of the screen then something is wrong unless you are a scalper who trades mainly m5 and m1 tf.
I suggest that you can set alarms for prices you want to trade, prices where you want to be notified of when the market either moves in your favour or against you, and prices where very strong supply/demand level is so that you don't buy at a supply level and sell at a demand level.

Hope this is somewhat valuable to you.