I have been reading a lot about traders using 30mins which at first seemed insane to me but now is becoming more and more attractive.
I never did understand the tick chart. Is there a book that teaches how to read the tick chart? All the books I read only taught the bar and candlesticks.
1-3-5-15 and daily. Watch them all at one time. When they all do the same thing, then you take that as a signal and buy or sell.
Not necessarily... The shorter the timeframe, the more action, the more subect of randomness, the more quick thinking needed to be done. I trade on the 1 minute timeframe though. I use the 1, 5, and daily when researching, but during live trading, it's only the 1, but use other timeframes for plotting S&R. For forex, it's the 4 hour for trading off of in a longer term trade, and the 1 hour for more of a scalping type trade, but I rarely do those. For Futures, it was the 1 minute timeframe. I did like on the Laser platform how they had the bid, ask & last price displayed on their tick chart, and I did use that, but now since using Sterling Trader Pro, I do not use it.
It all depends on what you're trying to do and what market you're trading. I trade microswings (happen multiple times a day in the context of (potentially) multiple intraday trends). On euro I use different times to hsi which are different to those on bund. Once you have an idea you can often make it much more effective by finding the timeframe that works with that idea in that market best ... a form of optimization.
the barlength you trade is directly propertional to how your experience has taught you to be most profitable. (in other words: the longer you trade, the more money you get to trade, the more you'll discover that you'll have to trade the longer term) holmes
I would sometimes get into multiple trades on a single security based on different time frames (all on the same direction though, for obvious reasons). For instance, I might short YM based on a 2 min chart with a 2 min chart-based stop and also have a short on YM based on a 60 min chart and position trade it for a few days because of a certain criteria that have been met on it.
============ Sounds right ,JM, ; if i had to use a 1 minute chart, probably wouldnt trade derivatives anymore either. 5 minute, 60 minutes,20 day candlecharts; all time frames can be handy/helpful for daytrading. Wisdom is profitable to direct.