In this episode, Walter digs into finding the “best timeframe” for placing a trade — or is there even one? According to him, looking for this is like looking for the “perfect” wife. You will also find out here how to confirm if you’re on the right charts. And, when it comes to “push or shove”, which timeframe should you go for?

Download (Duration: 05:44 / 6.56 MB)

In This Episode:

00:44 – the best dog

02:02 – how to confirm?

03:53 – wind to your back

05:12 – broader context

Tweetables:

What is your timeframe for trading? [Click To Tweet].

Try to find that turning point  [Click To Tweet].

Bottomline is it all depends on you [Click To Tweet].

Announcer: Sometimes, forex trading is a wild and wooly place to be. That’s why Hugh is here, to post your questions to Walter, the naked forex guy. Hugh’s got questions and Walter’s got the answers. Here at the Truth About FX Podcast.

Hugh: Hi, Walter. A reader writes in and asks, which timeframe is the best one for deciding when to place a trade?   

Walter: It’s like asking the question which kind of a woman is the best for being my wife. It’s the same kind of thing. What is the best kind of dog to have as a pet? Well, I don’t know. I mean, what do you like?

Really, it’s going to depend on what is your timeframe for trading. If you can sit in front of the chart for 6 or 7 hours, maybe you’ll trade the H1 chart or the M15 chart or the M30 chart.

If you want to spend 30, 40 minutes a day looking at the charts then it’s probably going to be the D1. If you can check in the charts every so often, 3 or 4x a day, maybe you can try the H4 charts. It’s really going to depend on what you have in terms of time.

A lot of traders I know, they’re working a job so W1, D1 those are the sorts of the timeframes that makes sense because they can quickly check them in the morning before they can go to work. They can quickly check them in the evening when they come home from work and that’s it. You don’t have to babysit or anything like that.

To me, the most likely answer is going to be W1 and D1 charts but a lot of traders say, “Oh, I can’t afford a stoploss at 375 pips on the W1 chart.”

Well then, you just move to a broker who allows you to trade for a smaller lot sizes and that you can lock that in so that your risk is the same on the H1 chart or the W1 chart. That’s what I would say but I don’t really know. I mean, it depends.

The other thing is people are going to say, “Well, how do you confirm if you’ve got a trade on H1 or the H4, how do you confirm?” One thing that I will keep in mind is that if for example, this came up this week, there was a chart where it had a really strong daily belt — I can put the eBook for the belt trade in the shownotes so you guys have that — but the Belt is really simple. It’s a gap open and the market goes in the other direction.

Now, we have a daily belt on the chart and then it printed an H4, really weak looking Kangaroo tail so it’s a reversal.