[David Waring]

Received the below question today:

It was interesting to see the different time frames (15 and 5 days? Moving Average) on the charts. But again was that chart a daily chart? If you were using a hourly chart would you use 15 and 5 hours (if possible) ???

If you are referring to my video on How to Trade Moving Averages then yes I am using a daily chart in that video.

If I remember correctly however it was a 5 and a 10 period moving average that I was using. If you are looking at a shorter term chart you could use any length of moving average that you wanted however most traders tend to have a preference for the moving averages they follow which tend to work well with the financial instrument that they are trading.

So with this in mind there is not really one answer here. The timeframe that a trader is going to use and then the moving average that they are doing to select based on that time period is going to depend on how the financial instrument they are trading reacts to the particular moving average. What you will normally see however is a trader either becoming comfortable with a couple of different periods of moving averages and then using them on all charts or a trader looking through several different periods of moving averages and then selecting the one that best represents what he is trying to see on that particular chart.

Hope that makes sense. If there are any other questions or comments relating to this please feel free to post them below.

Best Regards,
Dave