Quote from Padawan:
I see, so you crank up the microscope when it's hard to know what's happening with 5 min. bar P/V. The extension, I guess, would be to fine tune with STR/SQU, DOM and T&S during these periods. What do you think of zooming out to a slower fractal under the same circumstances? Based on the way the 5 min. looks, one should see that there's probably a lateral formation on the next higher time frame, e.g. 15 min. The price bars would be filling the lateral and then the trader would use his/her knowledge of internals to stay on the right side of the market?
When I posted the question I was thinking about trending market conditions and how to find and trade the taping fractal within it, but you've also brought up a scenario that's just as important to understand. My assumption is that there's almost always a tape on some fractal to trade. You either have to zoom in or out far enough to find it. I've read about the Tampa Tape, but may need a Rosetta stone or just deeper personal investigation of the subject. Sometimes my palette isn't sensitive enough for the delicacies that Jack has served over the years. Thanks for the reply and the new perspective.
I haven't read about the tampa tape except for other people's mentions of it, but it seems to make sense. We look at the 5 minute chart, in general, because that provides the best window for our trading fractal given an average level of volatility. It seems to make sense that if volatility is drastically higher or lower, that a different fractal may be appropriate (2 min, 3 min, 10 min, 15 min). With some awareness of current volatility levels, one can play around with these different "windows" looking into price action. To keep things simple I still think 5 min should be used 98% of the time (with 2 min YM), but the more I observe the more I come across situations where 5 min seems suboptimal, especially for tree-level retrace type channels.