Trading Using Multiple Time Frames

Note: there are many forex systems that trade with more than 1 time frame. Why? It is usually to accurately time the entry to make the trade a "high probability" trade. Some systems however only trade one time frame such as daily systems as they look for broader and bigger moves in the currency market. Here's the article by Umashankar: Why do we need to Trade Using Multiple Timeframes?
To improve the efficiency of our trading strategy. We see the major Trend using a higher time frame than what we intend to use & a lower Time frame to enter a trade.
Say we want to trade using the Daily Charts. We take the Weekly charts to see the major trend. Suppose it's an uptrend in a Weekly chart. We will tend to trade only long positions. We will use entries in the daily charts to enter long positions only. When sell signals are generated we will just exit our long positions. I.e. we don't short sell.
Suppose it's a downtrend in a Weekly chart. We will tend to trade only short positions. We will use a entries in the daily charts to enter short positions only. When buy signals are generated we will just exit our short positions. I.e. we don't enter long positions.
Now that we are using two timeframes. Now coming to timing the entry of trades or adding additional positions. (Pyramiding) We can further use a Hourly chart to time our entries. Suppose the weekly & daily charts are in a uptrend. We will enter a long position or an additional long position when a hourly chart gives us a buy signal. Suppose the weekly & daily charts are in a downtrend. We will enter a short position or an additional short position when a hourly chart gives us a sell signal. This timeframe would not be used to exit the trades. It's solely to improve the timing for entry. For exits we would use the signals generated in the daily charts.

Using multiple time frames to trade.
We take three charts of the same security. First is the weekly chart. Next chart is the daily chart. Third chart is the hourly chart.
We will now use the daily chart to trade. We check the weekly chart for the weekly trend. Lest assume the weekly trend is up. So based on this information we will just trade long positions in the daily chart.
We look for a buy opportunity in the daily chart or we can see the hourly chart to enter a long position.
Now for entering additional positions we use buy opportunities in the hourly chart. We would exit based on the daily chart only, because we were trading based on the daily chart.

Similarly we can trade short where weekly charts are in a downtrend and daily chart generates sell opportunity. Additional positions are entered whenever sell opportunities are generated on the hourly charts.

For Day trading we can use the Hourly, 15 Min and 5 Min charts here we trade the 15 Min chart. Or we can use 15 Min, 5 Mins and 3 Mins charts here we trade the 5 Mins chart.

Good Luck and Happy Trading.

Umashankar Galla is a Technical Analyst with 11 Years of Experience. Is into development of trading systems & analysis of Markets. His website is http://www.technitraders.com/ Visit Forums at http://www.technitraders.com/forums/ He can be contacted at info@technitraders.com