Don't zoom into 5-minute and 1-minute charts unless a 15-minute candle breaks out and leaves a clear gap. Placing stops inside higher-timeframe gaps is a common mistake that kills trades. Align your stops with 15-minute fair value gaps instead.
You know the 15-minute candle, obviously there's going to be 3 5-minute candles. The 5-minute is going to print at a faster rate. When the 15 has kicked that in, you can then look to the 5, and the 5 from here might have left a fair value gap. You see like these candles on the 5, it might have left the fair value gap already. You'll see this candle might open, it might wick, and then trade down lower. That 15-minute wick though is a 5-minute retracement quickly into this fair value gap and then continuing down lower. That's 5-minute up candle is that wick. Do you see my point? So a 15-minute big displacement candle is like your 5-minute fair value gap. So if you see a big displacement candle in this region that breaks it and leaves that breakout, that's when you can elect to use the 5 and see if there's a fair value gap. That's the only time I use the 5. Other than that, it's all 15-minute, because you see, once you get stuck on the 5-minute, as this prints, it's going to leave more fair value gaps. And if you get short-sided only on the 5-minute, a lot of times what people do is look at your losses here on the 1-minute and 5-minute. If you're just trading the 1 and 5 and then look on the 15-minute, your stop loss is probably bang on some sort of 15-minute fair value gap. But again, you got short-sided because you got— you're just too zoned into those very low time frames. You see my point?
