TIMES FRAMES AND HOLDING TIMES

It’s not enough to just have buy and sell signals, you need to determine
the time frame you will be looking at and how long you will be holding
trades. Here is a time where knowing yourself comes into play. Some
people can hold forever and others need to get in and out all the time.
As you develop your strategies, you need to take this into consideration.
You need to know what time frame charts you will look at when you
make your trade. Are you going to be basing your trades off of a oneminute
chart or a weekly chart? I recommend looking at a range of time
frames to get a true market picture and to time your trades. However,
you should have a base time frame somewhere in between to actually
make your trading decisions. I also recommend that when you choose
your stops you look at a time frame above what you are trading to base
them on.


One of the things that worked for me was looking at an even smaller
time frame to actually pull the trigger. I have found that in the past I had
of habit of rushing into trades. My signals would get me into the market
at the highest point of a move. I was not very patient about getting
in and I would get in at horrible places. One of the most helpful things
I have implemented into my strategies are conditions that make me wait
for pullbacks before getting into a trade, the same held for exits. I’d panic
and get out at the worst levels possible. The way I do this is by overlapping
two strategies. One is the basic get in signal using a daily and/or
60-minute time frame and the other is a timing signal that is usually a 1- or
5-minute time frame. I also use a weekly or daily time frame to figure out
the long-term situation and give me more fodder for planning my exits.
However, when it comes to actually pulling the trigger, I’m usually looking
at a short time frame to time the exit if I’m not stopped out. I’ll get into more
detail later in the book on how to use different time frames to make trades.