On the M15, H1, H4 and Daily charts how many bars are you usually looking at from your entry to your TP?
Simple answer: As many as it takes
Complicated answer: As many as it takes
Seriously it depends on your strategy. I look at time of day (not number of bars per say) to TP. Reason is banks open and close times. They tend to TP and all that around those times so I watch them closely. I will not TP then if price is not telling me to but will tighten up my stops. Other than that it depends on you and how you trade that determines this. I also take into consideration the fact if I enter a trade and it has been open and not going anywhere. If I see a better trade setup I will get out to lower my exposer to the market (or move stop to BE even better). The last really depends on amount of risk I have on the table at the time not the amount of bars.
The reason I ask, I have been noticing how the signal from an M15 candle is weaker than for a H1 candle in terms of how many pips the trade will run for. Therefore if I am looking for a trade to run for several hours (looking at the patterns previously formed) I would be better waiting for a signal from an H1 candle rather than from an M15 candle. Obviously there comes a point where the signal from a particular candle is no longer valid.
Imo, you should base TP on what you see on your charts - previous S/D levels, fibs etc. Last night i went long on GJ before i went to bed, woke up this morning comfortable sitting on +43 pips, I decided to take off 1/3 of my position to secure profits at +50… instead of looking at what was actually happening on my charts. I moved my SL to BE +1, by the time i got ready for work and checked the trade again, price had done a u-turn and stopped me out for +1 pip. Missed out on securing at least 1/3 of my position at 40 pips - all because i wanted it at a nice round number instead of noticing that at that point there was supply entering and ready to push my prices down…
Another day, another lesson learned…
Counting the breakout candle as (1) I would take partial profits or liquidate by candle (4).
If you get a large bodied candle in comparison to a quarter or third of your chart then I would cash that.
Again, I would only use this when trading a B.O. strategy.