Let’s say I hop on at 2pm and am looking for opportunities on the 1M/5M charts - how relevant was the action at 9am on the same day?
Is time even the main factor in looking for relevant candles? I was looking an offline chart; 1M GBP/USD at around 8pm GMT (no news for at least 1 and a half more hours) where the price was hovering in a 10 pip range for 15 minutes with low volume/tick rate, that suddenly dropped 18 pips. I can’t explain this movement based on the 1M chart - there are no indicators (that I can think of) that would induce traders to short. So the price drop-off might be from traders on longer timeframes.
Am I right here that the 18 pip drop was probably because of a longer time frame decision (I suppose I’d have to check to confirm), or was this unexplained drop just statistical noise (and I should be paying attention to the last few candles)?
You didn’t mention which time-zone you’re looking at (I know you’re in the UK, but 9.00 where? And what are you looking at?). Anyway, it’s relevant, probably, depending on how you’re trading.
There’s a lot of what people wrongly call “noise” on M1 candles.
Is there anything I can say that would encourage you to look at M5/M30 candles, instead of M1/M15, when you’re starting off?
I don’t use candles, myself. I use bars. They both display the same information (the open, high, low and close of each defined period), but bars visually accentuate the highs and lows, which are objective, factual and very significant in TA, whereas candles visually accentuate the opens and closes, which are much more arbitrary and user-defined. If you’re looking at non-indicator-based TA parameters, this might be worth thinking about, at the start, or at the very least “being aware of”.
Probably not (in my opinion) but it depends on how you’re trading and what sort of patterns you’re trying to identify from the candles. Sorry to sound unhelpful, but it’s [I]really[/I] not an easy question to answer without more information.
Do you mean 8am? (Just wondering - apologies if not). That’s “opening time” at the bar, for Cable … and 8pm would certainly be “a funny time of day” to be trading Cable, with not so long to go before the US close?
GBP/USD, time zone GMT 0. But I guess as you said, whether time is relevant or not depends.
I don’t have attachments to any particular time frame, but why would you recommend this? What are some differences between shorter/longer intraday frames?
Im still getting the hang of the levels, It takes time. This is a demo, which Im trading today because of News today. Im actually up 18% ( 62% on the week) on my real account today, so its back to practice.
You have to get off the 1/5M charts, and Use them STRICTLY for entry precision, but not on a scalping manuver. Stay away from scalping,
When I was trading Cable (I traded mostly Cable and EUR/USD for about 7 years) I started about 8.15am, UK time, and always finished before 8.00pm.
Briefly, “reliability of TA signals/parameters”.
In general, the faster your time-frame, the more signals you get and the less reliable they are. Slower time-frames produce fewer trades each of greater winning chances.
The less experienced you are, the more difficult lower win-rates (faster charts) will be for you to handle and learn from. Variability is tricky. It makes collecting information harder. It makes learning harder. It makes drawing conclusions harder. It means you need much bigger sample-sizes to achieve any statistical validity. And in a non-linear, exponential way, too. You can reduce variability significantly by looking at M30 (or even M20) charts and trading from M5 (or even M4) charts, rather than looking at M15/10 charts and trading from M1 charts. But the “two time-frame chart idea” itself is a good and important one, and you’re certainly right to want to do that.
Intraday traders have to learn to find their suitable balance between trading reasonably frequently and trading reasonably reliably. M1 charts, as people say, really do contain a [U]lot[/U] of what people wrongly call “noise” that doesn’t signify anything much. It’s a frustrating and difficult way to learn and get experience. Personally, I’d advise you, if using time-based charts, not to concern yourself with anything under M5. Only “opinion”, of course. (But be aware that [I]most[/I] people expressing an opinion on this point would probably tell you to trade from something even longer than that - I’m a kind of “semi-scalper” and well towards the low end of the time-frame scale, myself.)
I hope what I’ve said here has made it clearer rather than more confusing?!
I get what you’re saying. Since there are a lot of things I have to work out from scratch, it’s better for me to be testing theories/ideas where statistical noise is “ironed/smoothed out” by the reaction of the majority.
Statistical noise is a graduated continuum. There isn’t a specific point at which it’s “ironed out”. One has to start from an attempted compromise between having quite a bit of it ironed out while retaining enough trading frequency to make intraday trading viable, and your M1 suggestion was too far down the scale to be a good starting-point (most people would say).
Yes - well spotted: the longer your trades are open for, the greater is the risk of encountering “news”. Some of it’s foreseeable, though. Quite a lot of it, for those interested.
I detest “fundamentals”/“news” so semi-scalping suits me.
I think so, yes. At least to some extent. To quite a realistic extent, I think. Especially if you foresee the foreseeable stuff.
The way you describe signals between time-frames implies that you believe the same TA market predictors can be used at different time frames (assuming no news); reliability of predictors is what is different.
Are the same predictors really applicable to all news-independent time-frames (ignoring increased variability)? Or are they similar, but with subtle differences (e.g. signals that work at 1H but not at M15).
Look left, As Lexys said, its a form of support/resistance. They either beat the past, or bounce off the past. But you must know the direction of the market. ( weekly 18SMA-9SMA) then look for entry below or above.
I dont give a sht what people say around here about ICT ( michael Huddleston) But he changed my entire outlook, my entire method of operation, the way I look at things. When you can look thru his BS, it makes everything so dang evident is gross.
Im not steering You to him, but If you want to learn the right way, Look him up. *ducks from the tomatoes
TA is the study of charts, and charts are mostly fractal, most of the time (I’m deliberately understating it).
I believe they are, for all everyday trading intents and purposes; yes.
It may be that someone here will disagree with me about that, but I have to say that I’ll be pretty surprised if anyone earning their living through daily trading disagrees with it.
Your question has pulled me up a little bit, and made me realise that something I’m taking as simply “factual” may actually be “opinion”, which is never a bad thing to reflect on. However, that’s certainly what I believe.
They might play better in a $200 STT than they do in a $5 STT, but they’re playing with the same pack of cards.
Now, keep in mind, Not only News can sway a currency to shift, At ANY time, the swing can be significant to one side or another. Once You understand there are many many influences that pertain to Forex, time frames wont be an issue. To be honest, Ive seen many of great swings when there is Zero news for the day. Those also tend to be the days you can make many pips. When a pair is consolidating, is when the danger lurks, because Price hates to be honest, and noone makes money on a non moving pair.