I am a daytrader and use 1-2min charts for entries and 10-30-60min charts for guidance. Of course, like many posters pointed out, the daily chart is very important as well. I could never be watching one interval only. The key is to figure out what type of trade setup you are taking. Is it with the trend? Is it a countertrend trade? Is it a reversal? Unless you are a scalper, this information can help you tremendously especially with trade management. If I am trading vs the trend, I won't get greedy and take profits as soon as they are made available to me. If I am trading with the trend, I'll give my runners more room. Anyway you put it, daytrading is the most difficult job out there and I am not surprised the majority of participants end up broke. Whoever makes money consistently is a phenomenal trader.
lol sounds like you are going down wrong path.. it differs among traders Many professionals only use 1 chart and not a very detailed one, i.e a 15 minute chart. I have traded off the thumbnail charts at marketwatch and the 15 minute delayed charts at finviz, as well -- to excellent effect. I will use those charts and ping to get my quotes which is how I read the tape during the day. I'll use time and sales at night but prefer the ping method. So, I'm constantly pinging to get my quotes. Some day traders switch between different charts.. sometimes I switch between a 15 minute and tick chart but typically only if I'm losing. As for landmarks.. I like to know the open and whether we are above or below that as a reference and previous high and lows. I do not use any indicators. No moving averages. No RSI. Nothing like that. (I will use my trading systems that have demonstrated advantage. I only use indicators for building trading systems.) I'm reading the tape and using the chart to only set my targets. I'm not reading the chart to see what is happening!! Charts do work but they tend to work better for "set it and forget" style trading rather then trying to actively watch the market.
I definitely appreciate all the responses, just trying to learn from the different perspectives to improve my techniques. At the present time I am using channels to determine the trend. Unfortunately even if I only choose one timeframe to keep things simple, I tend to start finding channels and more channels and more channels and sometimes got 5+ trends in one chart and unable to determine which one to follow or which one is the dominant one. Naturally, this creates a big mess of a problem. Anyone knows the solution ? It gets even worse if I extend the chart and add more data to the chart!
On the assumption you're trading US index futures (apologies if this was clarified one way or the other somewhere, and I missed it!), is your 60-min chart on basis of a "24-hr" Globex session, or 6.5 hr cash session? Thanks!
I just use the cash SPY, daytime session only. I realize this is not overly rigorous, but it works pretty well. Sometimes crude is more robust. I also watch the daily(all sessions),mainly for patterns and key leverls.
use the larger timeframes for s/r,see if we are approaching or leaving one,trade in that direction,use the smaller timeframes to time your entries,just a rule of thumb but it might keep you on the right side of the market for the smaller losses ,bigger profits
=============== Ang; My most profitable daytrades were with 30 & 60 minutes candles; not that i always waited for 29.99 & 59.999 minutes.LOL Having said that, since you mentioned ''trend-following ''; i found swing/position trading/trends so much more profitable, i stopped daytrading. Hey Did you notice the ''Market Makers Edge''daytrading book , by Joshua Lukeman,had multimonth charts in it??[Hint Hint] True,medium timeframe trend trading is not as thrilling as day trading trends.....
Not worried about the thrill, however, I do worry about gaps against me when swing trading. How do you handle that ? Thank you