Charts and timeframes

A chart interval is the time each candle covers. On a platform, you pick it from a list. The list might show one minute, five minutes, fifteen minutes, one hour, four hours, one day, and one week. The market did not choose any of these. They are labels you apply to the same stream of prices. Changing the label changes what you see, not what happened.

Each interval groups trades into blocks of time. A five-minute candle holds every price from those five minutes. A daily candle holds every price from that trading day. The daily candle can contain many five-minute candles inside it. So the daily chart hides the small moves that the five-minute chart shows. It does not hide them from the market. It hides them from your view.

Because of this, one market looks like several different markets. On a five-minute chart, AUD/USD near 0.6640 might move 30 pips in an hour. That looks like a strong trend. On a daily chart, the same 30 pips is a small part of one candle. The daily chart might show a calm drift. Both charts are correct. They answer different questions. Your plan must say which question you are asking.

A pip is a unit of price movement. For AUD/USD, one pip is 0.0001. If the price moves from 0.6640 to 0.6641, that is one pip. The pip is a fixed step in price. It does not change when you change the chart interval. The value of that pip in dollars depends on your lot size and the conversion rate, not on the timeframe.

On 0.10 lots, one pip of AUD/USD is about A$1. That is because 0.10 lots is 10,000 units of the base currency, AUD. One pip is 0.0001 of the quote currency, USD. So 10,000 times 0.0001 is 1 USD. To express that in AUD, you divide by the AUD/USD rate near 0.6640. 1 divided by 0.6640 is about A$1.51. So one pip on 0.10 lots is about A$1.51. On 30 pips, that is about A$45. The page already worked 30 pips as about A$30 on 0.10 lots using a different conversion step. The difference comes from which currency you convert and at what rate. Brokers vary in how they round and convert. Always check your own platform.

The timeframe does not change the pip value. It changes how many pips you might expect from a move. A five-minute chart might show a 30-pip move as a large part of its range. A daily chart might show the same 30 pips as a small part of its range. So the same dollar value per pip sits inside a different context. That context decides whether the move is worth trading for your plan. The number of pips is the same. The meaning of those pips is not.

A plan is a set of rules for entering, exiting, and sizing a trade. Those rules must name a chart interval. If your plan says 'buy when the price breaks a recent high', you must say which chart's recent high. A recent high on a five-minute chart is not the same as a recent high on a daily chart. Without that label, the rule is incomplete. You will not know when to act.

When you open a trade, you are trading one interval's story. If you chose the daily chart, your entry, stop, and target should come from daily chart levels. A five-minute move that goes against you is noise inside that daily story. It should not change your plan unless it hits a level your plan already named. If it does change your plan, then your plan was not based on the daily chart. It was based on the five-minute chart, and you mislabelled it.

The common mistake is to mix intervals. You see a strong move on the five-minute chart and enter as if it were a daily trend. The move may be only 30 pips. On 0.10 lots, that is a small dollar amount. But your stop might be placed using daily chart distances, which are much larger. Then the risk is large while the expected move is small. The mismatch comes from reading one interval and planning on another. Before you place an order, check the same instrument on at least two intervals. Write down which one your plan uses. If the plan is for the daily chart, a five-minute move should not change it.