Which time frame should you trade? It’s one of those questions that we need to explore as a beginner trader.
When I started trading, I was scalping off the 1-minute chart. I mean, why wouldn’t you want to make money the fastest way possible? Scalping is very attractive, but it is also the most challenging, especially at the beginning. I wasn’t ready for the speed of the price action, so along with my bad trading, the speed of the market would cause me to make many mistakes.
I explored many different strategies; there was the 15-minute push off the rainbow ribbon or the 3-minute, 3-bar continuation strategy. I learned a one-hour chart strategy that was exclusive to this trading community (that no longer exists). I went all the way up to the daily. I quite like the idea of trading the Mark Minervini-style cup and handle pattern on the daily chart, but who wants to wait days or even weeks for a setup to come?
Now, 6 years later, I’m back to scalping, and I finally have consistency. I should mention that I don’t even trade with charts anymore; I scalp off the order flow, but that’s a whole other article. I will look at the daily at the beginning of the day to get a general idea of where we are in the big picture.
I would like to say you should just scalp and not do what I did, but the truth is you won’t listen, and I think it’s all part of the trader’s journey; you just need to make your own mistakes.
So as for the question of which time frame you should trade, you’re just going to have to try some of them out. You’ll learn different strategies with different time frames, but you just have to ask yourself, “Do I want to sit in front of the screens all day?” Some guys don’t, and some guys do. I do think, however, at the beginning when you’re just starting out, it is important to get as much screen time as you can. You need to find a time frame that gives you plenty of opportunities to trade but something you can understand. You need to take a lot of trades to find a method that works and discover your edge.
