I've been wondering, when scalping / daytrading the YM, does looking at higher time frames, like 60 min & daily... along with other higher time frame analysis, to get a bias for the next trading day..... does that help your trading.... versus just trading what you see at the time. Sometimes my day trading indicators and charts are telling me one thing.... but because i might be biased in the opposite direction in ...say the 60min or daily time frames... i will hesitate and / or not trade what i see. Any thoughts on this? I use the 2min and 5min time frames.
the convention wisdom is trade with larger TF, so if 15m say up and 5m say down then you wait for 5m to reverse itself before jumping in. Or you just trade what your 5m indicators are telling you and if they are not reliable enough to base the trade decision on then get rid of them one by one, keep eliminate them until you are left with only indicators that you can base your the trade decision on. ps. you might be left with a price only chart but that's ok, it's better being less confuse than more confuse.
I never use higher than a 5 intraday, but when looking at a weekly, I use 15 to help look for previous support or resistance. I am always a believer of trade the moment, look at what price is saying at that exact point and time.
lilduckling, Advice: "Trade what you see" is an effective idea. Except you must know if what you are seeing is the forest not the trees. I can switch market bias 3-4 times a day easily. One absolutely must require a market bias, or know where the bias is to execute good reward trade setups. One must also change market bias immediately once their indicator tells them to do so. When one is searching for lumber to make an oak table, One first checks if the forest is full of oak trees, if the forest contains maple trees, it would be a waste of time to be searching for oak trees. if the forest contains mostly birch trees and 3 oak trees, it would still be a waste of time searching tree by tree. When one finds a large spread full of oak trees in the park and yogi bear is not stopping you from cutting down the trees. He may take his time and gather as much goods as he like easily , without much effort.
Be flexible. Sometimes I'll step up bids of 4k, 5k, 6k to see how the stocks reacts. If the path is clear i'll push it up more, if i see people gunning for my bids, i'll pull them and reverse my position and start selling it down along with those same seller. You gotta know when to slam on the breaks and switch viewpoints.
Don't confuse bias with opinion... Definitions of bias on the Web: * influence in an unfair way; "you are biasing my choice by telling me yours" * a partiality that prevents objective consideration of an issue or situation * cause to be biased * slanting diagonally across the grain of a fabric; "a bias fold" * diagonal: a line or cut across a fabric that is not at right angles to a side of the fabric Definitions of opinion on the Web: * a personal belief or judgment that is not founded on proof or certainty; "my opinion differs from yours"; "what are your thoughts on Haiti?" * public opinion: a belief or sentiment shared by most people; the voice of the people; "he asked for a poll of public opinion" * a message expressing a belief about something; the expression of a belief that is held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof; "his opinions appeared frequently on the editorial page" * the legal document stating the reasons for a judicial decision; "opinions are usually written by a single judge" * the reason for a court's judgment (as opposed to the decision itself) * impression: a vague idea in which some confidence is placed; "his impression of her was favorable"; "what are your feelings about the crisis?"; "it strengthened my belief in his sincerity"; "I had a feeling that she was lying" Trading with bias leads to the "I'm right, the markets wrong" attitude. Trading with opinion provides for flexibility without pride. Just my biased opinion. Osorico
to the extent you have a bias is to the extend you will get not have proper money management and get clobbered