Hey there!
I’ve been doing some research on trading and strategies, and I found this interesting one. Which one do you prefer? Swing Trading seems pretty appealing to me, especially since I have not started trading yet!
Hi Ameila91,
I would not wish to influence your own goals and objectives by stating my own preferences, because mine have been built up over a 40+ year history of continuous investment and trading and that life profile is very unlikely to match any other specific person on this forum. What I can tell you is that I have tried all of these timeframes over the years. At one stage I recall the thrill of making over £100 in 3 minutes on a £10 stake. But for that one example, there were hundreds that were not nearly so memorable. I now exercise a combination of the last two, with up to 20% of my trading bank funds allocated to the swing trading, and 80% of my trading funds allocated to the position trading. I have been comfortable with those allocations now for over a year. I also need to add that I do not rely on any income whatsoever from trading, as I am still a full time practising consultant. I spend less than 10% of my time on trading.
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Wow, that was such a nice comment. 
I really appreciate your kindness in sharing your trading experience. Experience is so important and helpful… Thank you again, sir!
I’ll definitely look into Position Trading since I’m just starting out and haven’t actually traded yet. Right now, I’m just reading, searching, and learning. It’s great to come across helpful people like you who make a difference. Thanks again!
Hi Amelia,
Thank you for your kind words. One assumption 99% of people make about trading is that everyone uses leverage when they trade. It is over two years since I used leverage so all the comments about stop loss, risk reward ratio and a lot of what is easy to write and talk about goes out of the window. The only markets I am trading this year are gold, silver and crypto. I have built up some experience in these markets - for the first two over 30 years, for the last one about 3 years. I took a conscious decision never to use leverage in crypto, and with market moves of up to 100% per day or more with some of the alt coins, that appears to have been a useful decision. With gold and silver, this is a very long term strategy, but I use a proportion of our holdings and apply a ratio strategy. Over years, the ratio of gold price to silver price has moved between limits of less than 35 to more than 100. I work with a market provider that provides 24x7 trading. Though the total market participation is only about $2bn and there are only approx. 50,000 participants in that market, it has served me well in terms of account costs, and buy/sell cost of 0.5% only. You would not trade this market as you would a Forex account. But I make very few market trades, because this is long term. Recently this part of our investment has become overweight, and I have released a small amount to cash. Some people say that if the excesses of fiat currency spending ever recorrects to the total outstanding debt, the price of gold would move to $10,000+ per ounce. Now if that happened, I may make the “all out” decision, and never need to worry about where my food and rent are coming from until 30 years after I die. A pipe dream, for sure, but it is more probable than buying lottery tickets every week.
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What does this mean?
Hi @Amelia91 - I always advise at least starting on the D1 time-frame. This is where all TA comes from. All indicators, chart patterns, candlestick theory and almost all consistently profitable trading strategies were developed and tested here. You can use them later on lower time-frames, just don’t expect them to work as well down there.
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Thanks a bunch! 
I really appreciate your input, and I’ll definitely take note of the points you mentioned. So, you’re suggesting I begin with the D1 timeframe initially. But here’s the thing, one of my trader friends, who’s super knowledgeable about this stuff, always talks about the H4 timeframe. It’s just that I haven’t started yet and don’t have any experience at all. So, I’m kind of torn about which direction to go in.
If you can replicate precisely a consistently profitable strategy, then do it. Ignore what anyone around you says, including me.
If you don’t have the details for such a strategy or you do but can’t run it yourself, I stand by my earlier advice.
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Wow, that’s awesome! It’s great to see the knowledge and experience together. Thanks again for sharing your knowledge and expertise. I genuinely enjoy hearing your insights.
I’m actually at the very beginning of my trading journey, or you could say I haven’t even started yet. So, I would be really grateful if you could help me out and recommend some sources where I can learn. Right now, I’m just practicing over at Pipsology, but I’m hungry for more knowledge.
You’re so sweet! I can totally see how humble you are, and I truly appreciate it.
Thanks again for being so helpful and kind. Right now, I’m in a bit of a pickle because I don’t have a solid plan yet. I’m still learning the ropes and feeling a mix of stress and uncertainty. But, I’ll do my absolute best to make it work.
Good question. I did not explain this well. Back before 1931, all USD currency was issued as a promisory note to “pay the bearer an ounce of gold”. That was removed and replaced with a partial promise, which was removed totally in 1971. If the total debt were to be covered in future by all the gold that has ever been mined on earth, you divide the total world debt by the total above ground amount of gold and that would create a balanced “real value of currency”. I have not done the calculations but if this were to happen, the price of gold would be north of $10,000 per ounce. How far north I haven’t worked out but given a debt ceiling of $31.4 trillion with news articles saying it will reach $55 trillion by 2030 it is a pretty safe bet that the long term price of gold is not going down in a hurry. Some of the great and good (like the UK chancellor of the exchequer in the 1990s) thought the world had become more clever than needing to maintain archaic bars of gold in a big safe, so he proceeded to sell off almost all the UK gold reserve at a price as low as $250 an ounce. What a great financial decision now the price of gold is nearly $2,000 an ounce. Quite why he didn’t just use the habit of a lifetime and just keep printing GBP into oblivion, like those before him and those after him, is something I just cannot understand, other than to comment that it accelerated the decline of the value of the GBP more quickly than it might have had he maintained the status quo of the past 400 year instead of thinking we (current generation) are smarter than our forefathers.
in conclusion, gold is not a guaranteed invesment. Holding it is not intended to create a profit. It is an insurance policy against the future outcomes (intended or unintended) of the ill-conceived fix-it-quick sticking plaster solutions of generations of successive politicians who all continue to kick the can down the road, lie profusely to their own citizens, and perpetuate the biggest ponzi scheme of the last 5,000 years - stealing time and freedom from the masses of citizens they have been elected to protect. Rant over 
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Thanks for the explanation. I thought what you were saying was wrong, but I misunderstood. I’m not sure that is a correct metric for valuing gold, but I can see the logic behind it.
New Labour. Made everybody slightly better off at the time and leaving behind a mess that made everybody a lot poorer in the next decade. That’s progress…
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I also appreciate swing trading but at times you have to shift to scalping because of adverse market condition.
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Sometimes scalping takes half an hour especially when the market isn’t volatile or slow. On average, it’s okay.
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I think all depends on your capital.
With a small capital it will be better if you start with the first two.
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That makes sense!
I usually hold my position no more than 15 minutes because I work on lower timeframes where plenty of price patterns can occur. The more you trade the faster you build experience and intuition which is crucial in technical analysis.
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Looks like it’s been about 3 months since you posted the question! Have you started trading yet?
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I agree 100%, lower timeframes will give you more experience faster.
I think you should generally avoid holding day trades for too long, because prolonged trades can lead to emotional stress and decision-making fatigue, which can impair your judgment and lead to impulsive actions.