Timeframes

I would like to hear from profitable traders what chart timeframes they use for intrady trading and why. What impact does time have in the market and how can traders use it to their advantage?

DayWalker: Welcome to the forum.

Personally I think that volume charts are the best types of charts that you can work off. There are some articles here that discuss the merits of each: Chart Types

If you are to use time based charts for intraday trading then smaller time-frames provide more information (by definition) to your indicators to calculate value. I used to use 1 minute charts on the ES to get trade signals off (I now use 3000V charts instead) and then I'd look at a 5 minute chart to give me a view of the bigger picture but I would not generate signals off that chart.

Your reply is interesting in that I believed that the smaller timeframes, i.e., tick, 1-2 minute, contained too much noise so I used 5 minute.

What prompted me to start this topic? I met a very successful trader who uses a 15 minute and 1 hour chart to trade intraday. He claimed time was a key factor in the market but wouldn't elaborate since this was part of the secret sauce.

Think about it. All the information in a 15 minute chart is in a 1 minute chart but not the other way around. Your indicators can filter the noise. His rules could definitely be applied to a single 1 minute chart and he wouldn't have to look at either the 15 minute or 1 hour chart. I guarantee it.

I did think about that. The rub is this trader doesn't use any customary indicators to filter. If he is recognizing chart patterns, and I assume he is, than I can understand why a 1 or 5 minute chart has no value.

Again, he placed a lot of emphasis on time.

Perhaps he is unable to express the patterns that he recognizes and as such cannot generate rules to determine when a pattern is developing. If he could, then he could use a 1 minute chart instead of the other two. How long has he been trading for?

I find it interesting how many people happen to meet very successful traders who hand out incomplete trading advice and then mysteriously vanish back into the ether..............

LOL TippyTom - I enjoy the sanity of your comments.

This is true though. DayWalker's very successful person-that-he-met needs to have some credibility given to him. Perhaps DayWalker can help here.

I cannot see the logic behind how a 15 minute or 1 hour chart could possibly give you an advantage over a 1 minute chart. It's not mathematically possible. All the information in the 15 minute and 1 hour charts is in the 1 minute chart plus more. I think that the person that you met is pulling the wool over your eyes DayWalker.

Maybe he is. But who am I to tell him he should change his method and use a different timeframe? He's doing much better than I am and I have no reason to doubt his claims. He lives in a multimillion dollar apartment and has many of the niceties money can buy. I have also watched him trade I was very impressed with the results. Trading is his sole means of support.

Interestingly, he's not trying to sell me anything. I have asked him to teach me for a fee but so far he has declined the offer.

This confirms my initial feelings that those who have found a way to consistently profit are loathe to share their knowledge for fear of losing their advantage. Is that fear reality based? Probably not in a market as liquid as ES, but it's enough to keep people like that away from forums and remain low key.

As a mattter of faith, I believe there are many ways to succeed in trading but finding those ways is a big job in and of itself. Many spend unlimited amounts of time and money with nothing of value to show for it. Its a cruel world out there.

quote:

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Originally posted by day trading

Perhaps he is unable to express the patterns that he recognizes and as such cannot generate rules to determine when a pattern is developing. If he could, then he could use a 1 minute chart instead of the other two. How long has he been trading for?

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He's been trading fulltime for 5 years. I think he can express the patterns but chooses not to. He did mention that shorter time frames caused too many false setups so maybe that's where the emphasis on time comes from. It gives greater confirmation the setup is taking place with less information to look at.

quote:

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Originally posted by DayWalker

I would like to hear from profitable traders what chart timeframes they use for intrady trading and why. What impact does time have in the market and how can traders use it to their advantage?

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1,3,5,60,daily. I too use the 60 min chart to look for alot of my setups, but once I have them I primarily watch the 1min chart. For pre-market and afternoon sessions I watch either the 3 or 5.

What DayTrader says is true except for the fact that info you may want to look at has already left to the left side of the 1min chart.
(hope that sentence makes sense if not I will try to explain it better)

quote:

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Originally posted by DayWalker

It's Klum not Klune.

http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?_adv_prop=images&imgsz=&imgc=&vf=&va=heidi+klum&fr=yfp-t-501&ei=UTF-8

Keep dreaming.

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Look who's calling the kettle black, DayWalker.

T Rex