Trading in Larger Time Frames

Written by Pip Wrangler
Topics: Planning A Trading Career, The Disciplined Forex Trader, Types of Traders

There are three main trading styles.
They are:

Day traders 1-5-15 minute time frames
Swing traders 30 minute to 4 hour time frames
Position traders 1day and longer

(These are general rankings for the time frames of the trading styles)

Day traders go for smaller numbers of pips and large number of lots. They are in and out of the market many times a day.
Swing traders are in trades from a few minutes up to a few days. They may be in and out of the market a few times a day.
Position traders may be in a trade for weeks, months or years.

Day traders like a lot of movement and action in the market.
Swing traders like movement but a trend is better. The trend is based on 4 hour time frames maybe day time frames.
Positions traders may look for trends on days or months.

Over the years we have observed that the longer term traders make more money in the long run. This observation has been supported by many seasoned traders saying the same thing. The thing we want to point out here is that when a trader first starts out they usually want to place trades get in and out of the market, they want to see action. The more time they spend trading they start to look for longer term trades and have more patients. Many successful traders will never move to the position trading ranks but they do move to some place between the short term swing trader and the true position trader.

We would suggest that traders will make more on some well placed longer term trades than they will on being in and out of the market. It doesn’t hurt to learn how to recognize entry and exit signals by getting in and out of the market. In fact this is the method we teach with Jump Start. When a person moves on to Launch Pad we share ideas on how to stay in a trade longer. Each trader needs to find their place in the market according to their personality, time to trade, and trading goals. There is no wrong way or style of trading. There are some poor executions of trading strategies and lack of knowledge on how to trade.

Determine the type of trader you are and what goals you are striving for. Study, learn to trade and be patient. The foreign currency market is learnable and doable if you take your time and stick with it.