Hello all, I am new to trading and I was just curious to see what time frames most people use when day trading eminis. I have heard 1-min is good, but can have too much noise. Thats why I figured 3-5 min chart would be best, but would provide less signals. I would think that these signals would be of much higher quality then those provided by one-minute chart. Im just wondering what time frame most of the traders here use. Thanks in advance Nick
I think you will find that chartists use as many different time frame (and tick) schemes as there are chartists.
I trade the ES off the 5-min and also monitor the 15-min as the higher timeframe. In general, the higher the volatility the lower the timeframe you can use. If the 1-min or 5-min does not provide sufficient volatility, then you should look to trade a higher timeframe or not trade until conditions improve in the lower timeframes. I prefer not to trade on the 1-min chart for the reason you stated. Hope this helps.
Words of wisdom IMO. It won't be the same for everyone or every strategy but I went from a 3 Min to 5 Min trading time frame recently and saw an immediate improvement in results.
if you are looking to trade off daily pivots or recent vol. ranges etc ... ( 2-4 trades a day ) it does not matter what time frame you use in my opinion ( I guess 30-60 minute max bar length ) if you are more into scalping then shorter is better than longer with 1-3-5 minute bars minimum