# Best time frame to analyse charts



## merlinnn (5 January 2011)

Hi everyone, 


Could some one point me in the right direction as to what time frame is best to analyse FX charts in. The indicators obviously look very different from a 1 minute chart to an hourly. I am not interested or have the skill for scalping, so what time frame should I be analysing for 1/2 day or daily holds?

Does this vary on certain currency pairs? At the moment I am just focussing on AUD/USD EUR/USD.

Any advice or recommended reading material would be greatly appreciated.


----------



## TulipFX (5 January 2011)

I would probably say hour charts if you are looking to hold for 12-24 hours. Maybe 4 hourly.

In the end it is how you like to view things.


----------



## pixel (5 January 2011)

merlinnn said:


> Hi everyone,
> 
> Could some one point me in the right direction as to what time frame is best to analyse FX charts in. The indicators obviously look very different from a 1 minute chart to an hourly. I am not interested or have the skill for scalping, so what time frame should I be analysing for 1/2 day or daily holds?
> 
> ...



 In my experience it's not so much a question of "how long?" but "how many?" 
"How many bars in a chart?" - I consider about 100 "ticks" the minimum.
"How many trades to a tick?" - Anything more than 10 seems sufficient, less than 5 or lots of "empty" ticks can skew the picture.

That assumes you're applying technical tools, i.e. indicators that use statistical means to analyse trends, momentum, or volatility. Whether you intend to scalp or not is less of an issue; what matters most is that you can recognise a trend for long enough to extrapolate its next target, while seeing a trend *change* early enough to react and adjust your buy/sell order as required.

Looking at a FX chart, if I were trading swings of two to four hours duration, I'd start with a half-hour chart over two to four weeks, to give me the broad overview; then I'd trade off a 5-minute chart over the last 4-5 days. CFD charts, off which I trade FX and major indices, are all one-minute charts over 1-2 days. But I do scalp, and an hour is a loooong time to hold a trade.


----------



## lindsayf (6 January 2011)

its a big question - akin to asking how to trade really.  My general view is that you should analyse the timeframe that you trade on.  Keep it simple.  If you trade the H1 and look at the M5 you will probably confuse yourself and stuff up your trade management when you see short term reversal patterns etc.  Having said that it is often useful to know what a big picture chart ( like daily or weekly) looks like just to get your bearings on things.  The James16 thread on Forex Factory is good to learn about support/resistance and has loads of examples of analysis on various time frames - it is huge though!


----------



## joea (6 January 2011)

merlinnn said:


> Hi everyone,
> 
> 
> Could some one point me in the right direction as to what time frame is best to analyse FX charts in. The indicators obviously look very different from a 1 minute chart to an hourly. I am not interested or have the skill for scalping, so what time frame should I be analysing for 1/2 day or daily holds?
> ...




Hi.
In Elders book "Trading for a Living" he explains what time frame as the following.

" Markets are so complex that we must always analyse them in more than one time frame. Every time frame is related to the next higher and the next lower by a factor of 
5. " (approx. 4.3 wks. to a month, 5 days to a week and almost 5 hrs to a trading day.)

Use at least two, but not more than 3 . If you are day trading  then 5min. and 30 min.
Trading market swings, use weekly and daily.
Choose your favorite timeframe, add the timeframe one order of magnitude higher and start your analysis at that point.
....examples only above....
Cheers


----------



## motorway (6 January 2011)

merlinnn said:


> Hi everyone,
> 
> 
> Could some one point me in the right direction as to what time frame is best to analyse FX charts in. The indicators obviously look very different from a 1 minute chart to an hourly. I am not interested or have the skill for scalping, so what time frame should I be analysing for 1/2 day or daily holds?
> ...




Consider P&F
find smallest Box Size that does not blow out the Signal to Noise ratio
And then scale up by factor of 2 to get a more birds eye view

P&F has an adaptive time frame


If you have software / platform that will do it.



Motorway


----------



## forexdiscussion (7 January 2011)

merlinnn said:


> Hi everyone,
> 
> 
> Could some one point me in the right direction as to what time frame is best to analyse FX charts in. The indicators obviously look very different from a 1 minute chart to an hourly. I am not interested or have the skill for scalping, so what time frame should I be analysing for 1/2 day or daily holds?
> ...




I practise multitime frame analysis, from day to 4H and 1H. This the best method so far for me and it has improve my profit trade a lot. It also depend on your profit pips target. 50 pips is reasonable target if you are working with this time frame.

Happy trading!!!!


----------



## joea (7 January 2011)

merlinnn said:


> Hi everyone,
> 
> 
> Could some one point me in the right direction as to what time frame is best to analyse FX charts in. The indicators obviously look very different from a 1 minute chart to an hourly. I am not interested or have the skill for scalping, so what time frame should I be analysing for 1/2 day or daily holds?
> ...




I will expand a little more on time frame.
When I look at the market (or stock) I want to know ..
1  Is the market  in a position to complete a correction or a trend. This way you can enter a trade  at the end of a correction in the direction of the trend, or in the early stages of a new trend.
The majority of traders use only lagging indicators for their trade strategies.

A momentum indicator can be useful to help identify trend direction and trade execution if used with multiple time frames.
Momentum Strategy is as follows.
*** Trade in the direction of the larger time frame momentum.***
*** Execute the trade following the smaller time frame momentum reversal ***

This leads to two rules....
1 Only trade in the direction of the larger time frame momentum trend unless the  
   momentum position is overbought or oversold.
2 A trade execution may be made following a smaller time frame momentum reversal in
  the direction of the larger time frame momentum trend.:

A momentum reversal is when the momentum indicator reverses fromm bullish to bearish or vice versa.(as you know):

And so on. 
The larger time frame is the direction. The smaller time frame reversal is the signal for the trade to be considered. 
Cheers.


----------

