One of the questions I am asked most frequently by aspiring traders is what time frame do I use on my charts for intraday trades. My stock answer (no pun intended) is that from 9:30-10:00 I am looking at 1min or tick charts and then I zoom out to 5min. But recently I have found that a 15 minute view is more helpful for guiding me in intraday swing trades. Previously I had used 15min charts mainly to identify multi-day inflection points and trading zones.

Let’s take a look at SWN which I traded on the Open today. It was gapping up with the strength in natural gas and very In Play. I got long around 9:50AM when I noticed the 31.50 bid would not drop. Based on the price action I was seeing I believed my upside was in the 32.30-32.50 range. It made a new high around 10:25AM but failed to consolidate higher so I moved my stops up to 31.59 and 31.49 thinking that the price action had become less bullish.

I was stopped out after I left the desk on the down move around 11:30. As I looked at the 15 minute chart in my office an hour later it still looked like a great long to me. Each price spike below 31.50 was met with buying  causing a close above this level each bar. At 1:00PM when it began its next up leg it consolidated very tightly against 32 which was the longer term resistance. Based on today’s price action it seems like the next resistance area of 33.75 is in the cards very soon.

Steven Spencer is the co-founder of SMB Capital and SMB Training and has traded professionally for over 15 years. His email is [email protected]. for a free trial of the Stocks In Play call send an email to [email protected].

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