I understand choosing a right timeframe for trading is a personal choice dependent upon the person’s personality.
So want to ask all fellow traders, what timeframe do you use and why?
I ask because i am curious as to how are traders divided among timeframes on this website? I plan on asking the same question on other websites as well.
I trade long-term with-trend and use dailies only. I do look at weeklies over the most recent 6 months to get confirmation of trend smoothness and strength but not for entries, exits or stops.
There’s a danger that if you’re not seeing what you want to see, on some level of consciousness, if you look harder (i.e. through smaller and smaller time-frames,) you will eventually see what you want and do what you wanted to do using that as your justification, rather than letting the TA on your primary time-frame chart tell you to stand aside for now.
hmm, makes sense. I myself use daily charts as well. But only because i am a student and dont have the time to stick to a computer. Plus my undergraduate degree(double major statistics and economics) give me good insights on long-term fundamentals.
I tried H1 charts before but they seemed relatively more random.
Yep, its generally true that the shorter the time-frame the more “noise” you’re looking at on the chart.
Bro, you will see different time frame users. Like I was short term trader at the earliest stage of my trading. The time frame for short term trading and long term trading will not be same. You will not get a clear assumption of which time frame is on an average suitable for all. After spending long time and now I have shift to long term trading. Now my time frame is 1 days to one week.
I was a swing trader but moved to intra day trading. I am out of almost all positions at the end of the day. For me it was risk management. I don’t hold positions over the weekend because of all of the possible scenarios that would make a stop loss worthless and expose me to unlimited risk. That has forced me to the lower timeframes.
Know that the noise is there and be prepared to recognize it if possible. If not be willing to accept small losses until the correct entry point is obtained. Good technical analysis keeps those losses to minimum. BTW, I like to ride intra day trends so once I am in I stay in for most of the rest of the day.
D1 is my 1st choice, then H4 & H1! Besides, I use the M5 for tracking my entry & exit points.
Analyse all the time frames but only trade the time frame that is giving you the signal to trade within the confinements of your own risk tolerance based on time and money.
It sounds so simple 
I use a daily timeframe but execute trades on an hour timeframe. I use the daily timeframe to get the bigger picture of the market but use 1 hour timeframe for execution. Please take note that I use 1h because I have time on my hands
Its a complex topic with a simple strategy. Some people like to trade a specific time frame like a 15 minute for example. If there is no signal they will continuously search for an instrument to trade within their portfolio of instruments until they find a setup they are familiar with and then just take it, maybe watch it for a while or comeback in a few hours etc.
My preference these days is concentrate on one instrument, analyse all its time frames to understand the big picture, and if I see a setup I like and it fits in within my risk parameters and time confinements, I’ll take that signal on that time frame. So instead of being locked into the 15 minute, I’ll take whatever is present, it may be a 1 minute signal, a 5 minute signal, a 1 hour signal even daily. Using multiple accounts helps to keep distractions to a minimal. The strategy will be the same for any time frame.
Daily for execution
4 hr for occasional refinement
Weekly and monthly for major levels and larger trends
I wont look at any frame below the 4hr
Same here; D1 is my 1st choice; it shows all over the market scenario!
That seems like the most logical thing to do if a trader is looking for some sense In charts. I am really interested in knowing how you determine stop losses?
I know trading on a larger timeframes will mean wider stop-losses and reduction of position sizes for risk management purposes. But do you read charts and then decide stop-loss or you have a fixed risk-reward ratio?
I have read somewhere that knowing fundamentals really helps in long term trading. May I ask how you do that?
Or are you like me trading using technicals only for now. I trade D1 too.
From my first day of trading I have been using daily time-frame and always supportive for long term trade.
I always set my SL a few pips away from the most significant s/r level.
I dont base my SL on R:R because there would be no analytical basis for my SL other than my own R:R if I did so.
In my own trading I do often find when looking back at historical data, that most typical moves do indeed move a 1:1 RR from your stop loss. Which is typically in my case a few pips above/below a swing high/low on any given time frame. I have also noted that when I’m just looking for profit with no regards for a minimum 1:1 RR, hence risk 10 pips to make 5, I usually get rolled. The market tends to like to reward those looking to take the other side of the obvious move.