I became profitable when began to use one time frame. Only one time frame entry. Only one time frame stop loss. Only one time frame profit target.
Yes elder's original book "trading for a living" would be a good start. Remember that multiple timeframe trading is essentially about finding the trend in a higher timeframe and then joining it in a lower timeframe to improve your chance of success. The recommendation to read the posts on dacharts.com is also very worth following. Note that even buffy's multistoch approach is essentially a multitimeframe trading method.
Right on brother! Here are some links for the OP: http://www.trading-naked.com/BuffyTraderProfile.htm To quote "Buffy" "Everyone keeps looking for the Holy Grail - I really feel it is yourself .". She mentions that she uses tick charts of 30, 50, 75, 150 and 300 (trading the NQ in 2001) and although these figures may be out of date now it gives you an idea of what other traders have done. She goes on to say: "I never knew the value of constant tick charts were until I started using Ensign Windows. The minute charts can hide so much - tests of swing highs/lows, flags, etc - I seriously doubt I will ever go back to trading minute charts." Bressert suggests when day trading stock index futures (SPX) to take signals from the 5 minute chart that coincide with the 20 minute chart: http://www.walterbressert.com/PAGES/FreeStuff/TimeFractals/TimeFractals.cfm Elders triple screen trading system suggests dividing time frames into units of five. i.e. for day traders, hourly charts can be reduced to 10-minute charts (denominator of six) and, finally, from 10-minute charts to two-minute charts (denominator of five): http://www.investopedia.com/articles/trading/03/040903.asp "Madscalper" states that his favourite "confluence" of time frame is between the 3 and 15 minute time frames as a type of swing play but cautions that although these settups present opportunities for large gains, they present an equal opportunity for large losses and a trader should be diligent with setting their stops. http://madscalper.com/3 15 Confluence.htm Personally I would use both tick/time charts approximating Elders suggestions and then formulate a specific strategy around your unique tf mix. It's four dimensional chess (esp. in fx) that your playing. The higher tf sets the tone, the lower either validates or invalidates, and you have to be constantly thinking ahead weighing up the probababilities on what potential price and/or oscillator patterns are unfolding across all tf's. When you get "confluence", you may be onto a winning trade.
This is a very interesting quote. In all the discussions Ive read about tick vs. time charts Ive never seen this. I assume she means that you may get several tick bars refusing to cross a certain price that will show up as only one time bar?
Right, when the market is moving a single time bar would be broken up into more useful bits of information (multiple tick bars) - same same when market is slow (such as todays pre CPI data release) - with tick tf's you get a more accurate feel for true momentum. Nevertheless, IMHO both tick/time need to be looked at side by side as they both show different things.