To decide what type of trading you're going to get into, you ultimately need to decide how much time you have or want to dedicate towards trading.

For example sake, let's say you want to start day trading, but you don't have a set time in the morning to trade because you're at a job or doing other things. This is a classic situation in which time is a barrier to success, because you'll need to be watching the market's every move, every morning.

On the other hand, in the Forex currency exchange and other international public stock and commodity markets, you can literally trade 24 hours a day. You can trade the Japanese Yen at 5:00 a.m. in the morning, or you can trade the Euro at 11:00 p.m., all thanks to time zones and globalization of the Internet. It all comes down to what your schedule is and what it allows.

Determining Your Time Frame for Trading

People are naturally busy, and everyone has different schedules and things to do. So it's imperative that at this point you ask yourself, "What time do I have to dedicate towards trading?" That's going to help you closely focus on what your right time frame for trading is.

For example, some people only want to trade on a monthly basis, and that's all they want to trade. Their time frame dictates they will only put on a couple of trades throughout the month, let them play out, and at the end of the month, it will be time to take their cash off the table and move on.

Other people want to trade more often; perhaps two or three times a week. These traders are referred to as "swing traders" because they will put on a trade Monday morning and are out of it by Thursday. Still, other traders work every single day because they want that excitement and action in their lives. So you've got to determine for yourself what your own time frame is.

Personality Can Help You Determine Your Time Frame

Do you make decisions quickly? Can you make a decision instantaneously? Then maybe you're more of a day trader. Think about how you drive your car: are you always trying to pass everybody? Do you drive like you're in the final lap of the Grand Prix? If that sounds pretty accurate, then you're personality is more closely aligned with those who are day traders.

If you are a little more laid back and prefer to think things through before making decisions, you may not enjoy or thrive amid the quick pace of day trading. That's OK; there's a place for you too, and it's called position trading.

But Buy and Hold Doesn't Work

It's been said before that the traditional "buy and hold" investment strategy no longer works. So even as a long-term position trader, your time frame should be no longer than three months for any trade. The reason is that markets move so much faster than they used to and as a successful trader, you're going to need to be more proactive than reactive.

You've made a great choice in deciding that trading for active and passive income is the right business move for you, and stocks, options, and other open, public financial markets are a great way to get there. With Invest to Success' 10 Steps to Trading Success, you will learn how to position yourself to consistently make daily, weekly, and monthly returns on your portfolio with minimal risk, whether you're brand new to trading or a seasoned pro!
At Invest To Success, we provide training and educational materials designed to help the average trader (and even the complete newbie trader) become financially free within 2-3 years.
John Ondercin is the founder and Chief Trading Strategist at Invest to Success and has been teaching people how to cash flow their trading accounts for the past seven years.

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Most traders would concede that the number one fact of trading is price action. Price action is always right, therefore if you trade against price action for any reason you will lose money. Don't get trapped like so many traders into relying on moving averages, ADX, or a whole list of other indicators that introduce significant amounts of lag into your analysis. When traders rely on these lagging indicators and ignore the fundamentals of trading based on price action, profits are greatly reduced. Remember, price action is the single most important trading fact. Read on to discover the 5 critical keys available if you use multiple time frame (MTF) price action in your trading.

# 1 - Interplay of price action of 8 different time frames at once.

Try the old methodology of flipping through 8 different time charts and you will quickly see that approach isn't very practical. Imagine the quantum leap in your trading advantage when you can visually see the price action interplay of 8 different time frames all in one graph. This is the only viable approach for using MTF analysis.

# 2 - Market Modes.

The interplay of these 8 price action lines show the current market mode:

MTF trend mode will be displayed when the 8 price lines start fanning out much like a moving average ribbon indicator fans out. During the trend mode you only want to enter trades in the same direction as the trend. MTF consolidation mode will be displayed when at least 6 or 7 price lines are very close to each other. During a MTF consolidation you will want to set up both a long and short breakout type trade entry. MTF counter trend mode will be displayed when 5, 6, or 7 price lines are an extreme distance away from the daily price line. When this occurs you have a MTF counter trend trade setup.

Knowing which market mode you're trading is critical to identifying the proper trading setup for making profitable trades.

# 3 - Support and Resistance.

A potential trading range is signaled when the 5 minute price line pulls back inside the other 7 price lines. The support and resistance zones for this trading range will be at the 60, 120, 240, and/or daily price lines. Since real-time support and resistance occurs where the higher time price lines are, you will know in advance where real-time support and resistance zones will be. This is powerful trading since knowing where support and resistance zones are is critical to knowing how to properly manage your trade entries and exits.

# 4 - High Probability Trading with Low Stop Loss Risk Entries.

It is a fact that the higher the time frame chart you trade on, the higher the required stop-loss amount you will risk per trade. This is why so many authors teach a MTF approach where you determine the trend direction from the daily charts, get the trade entry signal from the 1 hourly chart, and then use the 5 minute chart to make your trade entry. Why mess with three different charts when you can do it all on a single 5 minute chart? Just use the 5 minute chart to make your entry and use the multiple time frame price action indicator to see the higher time frame price action with the added bonus of knowing the market mode and where support & resistance zones are located. Trading the 5 minute chart will reduce your trade risk to one tenth the risk amount vs. trading on a daily chart.

# 5 - Multiple Time Frame Reversal Trade Setups.

You've probably heard that you can't pick market tops and bottoms. This is true when you're using a single time frame approach, yet when using multiple time frames it is very doable and leads to very powerful reversal trade setups. These MTF reversal trade setups are when 6 or 7 price lines are an extreme distance away from the daily price line and then the 5 minute price line pulls back into the support and resistance zones. These support and resistance zones are at the 60, 120, and 240 minute price lines. The trade entry trigger is when the 5 minute price line breaks through these key support and resistance zones, heading toward the daily price line. These MTF reversal trade setups are powerful trading opportunities.

The above 5 critical keys reveal why the MTF Price Action Indicator is the single best TradeStation indicator you can use on your trading charts.

For more education about each of the these 5 key aspects see the detailed articles provide at this link: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Mark_David_Johnson%20

Mark David Johnson is a full time TradeStation programmer, trader, and trading coach at CustomizedTrading.com. He has personally developed over 60 strategies and over 200 indicators for the TradeStation platform. Mark's passion is to match his client's trading style with the best possible trading tools for them. Mark started his trading career as a licensed commodity trading advisor in the late 1970s. He was offered a full time position in a medium sized futures broker in Chicago, but chose to take another career path while continuing to use the trading information for his own use. From 1990 through 2005 he did extensive amounts of trading using long term trading styles with the average trade position spanning from months to years long. In 2005, Mark could see the oncoming financial turmoil and liquidated 90% of his portfolio. Mark spent the next year and a half studying day trading full time, and since 2006 he has been full time trading and programming using the TradeStation platform.

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