sonny5

[Guest sonny5]

Dear Trader 

I intend to use the one minute's chart fro scalping. Should i stick to the one minute chart for my stops or use a higher time frame to be on the safe side? i would appreciate an answer or a thought from an experienced trader if possible.

[Caseynotes]

Hi @sonny5,  the short answer is yes but the longer answer depends on a number of things such as what initiated the trade in the first place. Leaving aside other filters for entry such as trend etc and just concentrating on the trigger. What ever was used to validate the trade should also be used to invalidate it (and so exit).

For example, if the trigger was a bounce off a Moving Average the MA should be used to as the stop. If the trigger was a bounce off support or resistance then the stop is just beyond, same for a bounce off oblique S/R (trendlines). If using a candle pattern the stop should be just beyond it.

So you are trying to maintain a connected reason for both getting into the trade and getting out and that means sticking to the same time frame.

The main thing is not to get trapped in a trade, sitting on a loss, not in control and just sitting, waiting, hoping while better trades are passing by. Better just to take a small loss early on and be ready for the next one.

Sometimes there will be several hours of sideways movement and levels get lost beyond the left hand side of the screen so either have a higher time frame chart running as well or zoom out and draw your levels and update them through the day. You also need the higher time frames to gauge the overall trend, trades on the smaller time frames move easier and travel further if going with long term trend.