I watch for a specific set-up on the hourly charts and get about 1-2 trades per day. Average winner is about 6.5 ES points and average loser is about 4 ES points. At those sizes, the cost of trading is much lower as a percentage of the overall trade. There's a formula you can use to determine if the trade-off between frequency levels actually impacts your annual P&L, I just can't recall the details right now. I have looked at extending the timeframe for holding some trades, for example, when certain conditions applied and my expectancy per trade went up nicely, but the number of trades went down so much that the overall returns were lower.
No, the bar length held no sway particularly on my trade holding timeframes. I found that the shorter time studies did not incorporate the more macro trend characteristics and S/R levels - I did not want to enter trades on what I deemed to be an incorrect bias in terms of technicals. Just my opinion.
I'm not quite sure I follow. You traded thousands of times a day on the basis of relatively more macro trend characteristics? If you found genuine solace in the macro, why would you exit and re-enter in largely the same direction with such remarkable frequency (presumably the same direction because you relied on macro, which isn't known for changing so many times each day)? Why would you not have had more holding confidence in the macro assessment on which you were relying? Stated differently, are you quite sure that each trade was not generated on more of a stand-alone basis and in relation to the immediately preceding price action?
If I was, for example, bullish I would only enter on the buy side of the market. Buying bids, working bids, kicking them out for a few tics, buying retracements at technical support levels, that kind of thing. Not thousands of times per day, probably more like a hundred times for considerable size (as a Chicago prop trader) and going home largely flat at the end of each day. In terms of the way I trade my own account at present, I do in fact hold positions and swing trade - so, Gab, your observations are pretty much spot on.