Trading the 4 Hour Chart Means... What Exactly?

This is probably one of the dumbest questions asked in the history of Forex Factory. Here goes:

If you trade the 4 hour chart based on an indicator, are you opening your trades at 04:00 or 08:00 or 12:00 or 04:00, etc? In other words, only every 4 hours when the new candle is formed?

Daily charts would be once a day? Weekly once a week?

This can't be. But my brain's stuck. Any help?

First off, there are never any dumb questions. If you don't ask, you will not learn or receive help.

To answer your question, it really depends on the system.
What I mean is, some systems require you to wait for the close of the candle/bar which means you would only place a trade once every 4 hours, or once a day etc.
But other methods don't require you to wait for the candle/bar to close.
So for example: if you're doing an MA crossover system on the 4H chart, you would enter whenever that cross happens. You wouldn't wait for the 4 hour candle to close.

I hope that makes sense.