What timeframe chart?

If you could only have one chart to trade with, what time frame would you use?

I currently use a 5 minute and I'm not sure if this is adequate for day trading or not.

Whats the best timeframe to use for day trading?

I would always recommend analysing price across 3 time frames...like Alex elder. in this way you could designate your 5min as your intermeduiate t/f and trade in the direction of your higher trend t/f, timing entries on your lower trigger t/f. (using a facor of x 4-6)

As an example of an entry technique and In looking to trade with the higher t/f trend you could look for pullbacks on the intermediate chart at areas of previous supp or res on the higher t/f , and time/fine-tune your entries on your lower trigger chart.

I trade oil and I only ever use the 30 minute chart. My trades usually last a couple of hours and I use a 90 pip (cents) stop and a 150 pip limit.

For Forex, I prefer a 15 minute chart and most trades are under an hour. Here I have about a 20-30 pip stop and a 30 - 50 pip limit depending on the pair.

A 5 minute chart sounds mighty short to me. It's mostly noise...

I think if you attempt to day-trade (in another thread you said you were beaten up), you need to look at more than one time-frame. If you must have only one time-frame... don't day-trade. Unless you can memorize how things look like in a higher time-frame.

You can use 1-min or 5-min for entries/exits. But you definitely need to look at higher time-frames for directions and support/resistance. Trading solely based on one time-frame is dangerous.

I use 1-min charts as well as tick charts (yes, smaller than 1-minute) for trading. But I look at 60-min charts for directions and S/R on the same stock.