POLL: Did your trading improve from shortening your time frame or from lengthening it

[austrijec]

take simple strategy buying exactly on support with stop x pts and target y pts. program in computer and run test thru 1mio real data bars varying x & y. computer(s) will sweat couple of days. then compare p/l vs worst drawdown. the best option is where total pl / largest drawdown = MAX. You will probably find there is statistical anomaly at exactly the r/s point. stop 1 point below the resistance and 10 pts target. This is better than 10 pt risk and 10 target.

short is better.



of course, you need to do hard work, dont believe me. might be lying ...

 

[Ticketwatcher]

Quote from Thunderdog:

Some people prefer short time frames while others prefer longer time frames. Each trader has his or her own plausible reasons. Of course, shorter and longer is relative, and so one man's long term may well be another's short term. However, for the purposes of this poll, I am only interested if your own trading had improved when you either shortened or lengthened your own time frame from what you had used previously. So this poll applies to anyone whose performance has shown some improvement over time. Kindly participate in the poll, and feel free to comment.

Excellent question, although I will not answer it as it was posed.

Shortening the time frame was a way of managing risk. Managing risk has been a very important factor in trying to trade the volatility that we have seen in the last year or more.

I am not sure my performance as measured in the bottom line changed much.

As volatility has lessened in the last few weeks, I have started to extend my time on trade gradually, but I am not back to where I was a couple of years ago.

 

[wjk]

Quote from Thunderdog:

I am only discourteous to members whose posts I believe are arrogant and stupid. Not just stupid, because sometimes that can't be helped. Arrogant and stupid. And if you characterize my discourteous behavior as extending to "most people" here, well, then that must reflect how I personally view the majority of the posts to which I respond. However, I think you will find that I can be quite courteous to posters with whom I disagree provided that their posts are not -- you got it -- arrogant and stupid. As for the spelling thing, I regard it this way: if I find the content to be wanting, then the form damn well better be right. It's a quirk. That's why I never pick on spelling or grammar mistakes when I think a post is meaningful, whether I disagree with it or not. Thank you for bringing it up.

Feel free to describe how the above post doesn't display the ultimate in arrogance using the following descriptions.

Arrogant:

Having or displaying a sense of overbearing self-worth or self-importance.

Marked by or arising from a feeling or assumption of one's superiority toward others.

Regarding your poll:

Moving from shorter time frames to longer time frames made a considerable difference in my trading for a variety of reasons.

 

[IanMacQuaide]

5min NQ charts, simple pullbacks, WITH TREND only. K.I.S.S.

wjk wrote""Moving from shorter time frames to longer time frames made a considerable difference in my trading for a variety of reasons.""

Yup. Me too.

 

[trefoil]

The way I play is in swing trading you have to look at trends, and do mean reversion. Intraday is trend/countertrend/breakout; mean reversion plays only come up every once in a while. Also, whereas in swing trading I bet on mean reversion when a stock goes to a momentum extreme, intraday I play it on simple exhaustion of a trend getting long in the tooth.

 

[nitro]

Some men have longer time frames than others.

 

[achilles28]

Banks and institutions trade longer time frames for liquidity.

Large positions need deep liquidity (often more than can be supplied at any given price level). Hence large accounts scale into and out of, trades.

The only way to access that type of liquidity is to trade longer trends, off longer time frames, scaling in progressively, as the market allows significant accumulation only after significant run-ups.

That truism then becomes self-reinforcing and exacerbates the trendiness of moves, as all big traders expect larger moves to last, so they keep scaling in and pushing the trend higher or lower.

So, to answer the question, yes. Longer time frames = better moves. Most of the time

 

[MandelbrotSet]

That's a great explanation achilles28, it explains a lot, is logical and really makes a lot of sense.

For the most part I find that working off of longer time frames to provide more consistent results than shorter time frames, but then you run into the "problems" that you just mentioned.

The only way I see around it is trade multiple time frames.


Of course you will get into the move later, but you trading will be more consistent, and will consistently yield more positive results.