What time frame do you trade and why?

Hedge fund managers, Large banks and Big traders uses bigger time frames like hourly, daily , weekly and monthly. The practically move the markets because of their volume of trade.

I dont really trade a timeframe but I will look at the 15min, 1 hour and 4 hour and daily charts. I will often enter on trades from a 15min chart setup (particular thing I'm looking for to make me confortable risking my money here) but check for confirmation (as much as you can confirm anything in Forex) on other charts.

15min
1hour
4hour
daily

I like to trade a larger time frame for example the Day, 4hr, or 1hr
as the time frame to look for some sort of a trend. Then time my
entry on the 30min, 15min or 5min.

When I find a good trend on a day or 4hr the move will usually
give me more pips.

When I find a small trade on a 1hr the pips are usually less then
a trade on the day or 4hr but still can be a good trade.

My idea is to take what the market will give me on the time
frame that is easiest to read.

I have attached a video to illustrate my thinking and how I use
different time frames in conjunction with one another.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkUrBHyZg4o

I hope this sheds some new light to think about with your trading.

Good Trading

Is that your website linked to your signature?

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larger timeframe for patient trader or seldom had time to monitor..
good to try both short/long timeframe and choose the best suitable one.

To answer the original question, personally I trade a mix of end of day and intraday, as I find that this means I will find setups in most market conditions. When trading end of day I tend to enter off the Daily chart, although I look at that, the Weekly and the Monthly for my analysis. I will often look for confirmation on a lower timeframe such as the Hourly.

For intraday trading, I will generally enter off either the Hourly, 15 minute or 5 minute depending on the market conditions and the current strategy.

Early last year the end of day was my major winner, the latter part of the year I switched my focus to intraday as the wider conditions did not suit the end of day as well, although I traded both throughout.

Have to say that I have to disagree with the chap who said that candlesticks are a waste of time - obviously I take the point that at any given moment the various timeframes will show the same Price, but for many of us, candlesticks make Price much more predictable. A likely turning point can appear on the Daily, and be confirmed with pretty good certainty on, say, the Hourly. So personally I would not dismiss candlesticks out of court.

Price might be the same across the board, but overlaying the various timeframes correctly, and choosing the right moment (governed, in my case, largely by TF correlation) on the right TF to enter the trade can have a drastic impact on profitability. PA is a valuable tool in interpreting all of that, imho.

ST

smaller time Frame contains more noise, more uncertainty and definitely its harder to see the big picture. I was Trading using smaller TimeFrame before and changing to bigger Time Frame, and now very comfortable with 30Minutes Time Frame, why ? I think every trader has their own choices, so not every trader using the same Time Frame, its personal matter I think. For me 1M to 15M contains to much noise, above 1H is too long (I'm a Day Trader). so TF: 30M makes a comfortable Period for me.

I like to use M15 time frame chart because with my strategy am able to get the best entry level for the day and thus it will be very much helpful for me to close the trade in the same day.

H4, swing trading.

Hi Greeneyez, could you share your experience with us when using TF 15M, I mean what kind of strategy do you use on TF 15, well maybe on different thread perhaps ?

My main trading style is swing trading on daily time frame. The reason is that even if you get 6 - 8 trades per month, you can easily make 400 - 500 pips because 80 - 120 pips is a normal return on daily time frame.

Mostly on H4. Sometimes I need to wait more than 4 hours to close a position. And sometimes it takes 1-2 hours for Me to decide whether I should Long or Short.

I look at all timeframes. 4H to figure out general trend and 15min-1 hour for entry.

I trade the hourly basing on the daily trend.I have automated the process and i dont need to keep staring at the charts...I get email alerts when a probable setup occurs and i review the charts to see if its worthwhile.Finally...

Hi all.
I subscribe to a company that has a signal generator that works well for me (for entries; am going to post a question about closing). This signal is a prompt. I use it as my first indicator. I'll look at what happened yesterday and compare that with a weekly and 6mth chart to gauge the direction of trend. I might overlay a couple of indicators such as MACD on the 1D if things look sideways or a couple of SMA's over the 6 monthly as well as any candlestick formations that stand out.

I'm aware of analysis paralysis and use these tools to whittle down correlated pairs. I probably open two or three positions a week and on average these run about a week - sometimes two, as was the case with USD/CAD recently and USD/JPY.

So short answer - I look at lag indicator from yesterday and zoom out to see how that fits the larger picture.

Good trading to you all.

I have been trading the H1 chart. Doing this has helped weed out some of the "false positive" openings I was getting with the indicator I am using. However, during a flatter market condition, maybe dropping to the M15 would help to capture a few pips (might have to demo that theory, but I'm starting to learn my lesson about trading outside my plan with my real account).

I trade on H1. It shows the most objective picture.

I use only 2 time frames to avoid over-analizing...1H and Daily. I daytrade and swing trade.

So if I don't like daily chart I won't trade that instrument at all...won't even bother to look 1H.

On rare occasion when price is moving in one direction strongly I'll enter off of 15min chart (breakout).

Have you never noticed how price becomes a bit more active at the start of a new 1hr candle, 4hr candle, and even 15min candle sometimes. While price is continuous, it's the demand/supply that moves it. Demand/supply is created by people, who do in fact live in time, minute by minute, hour by hour, you get the point. Thus, while the price is continuous, we all need to divide it into some sort of segments, so that we can make some sense out of it. Any raw data has to be broken down in order to be analyzed (simple statistics) - this is the same data only on a chart. You can use range bars to analyze it, you can use tick charts, or you can use time, the most popular type of charts. They all work at times and fail at times.

I personally look at all timeframes from 1min to 1month. Large timeframes give me a general sense of direction, while smaller timeframes help me get into a trade in that same direction.

I am a shop keeper and I do trading as a part time job. So for this reason daily time frame is the best for me to trade on. I look at start of daily candle, then on London open and then on London close.