The Art Of Higher Time Frame Investing

An exploratory article as to how I try to shift towards HTF trades

Life Update: Sorry for not posting recently. I just moved to NYC, and after hotel hopping for two weeks, I finally got a crib to stay at. I have no heating & mattress though, so I’ve been sleeping on the cold hard floor at 0 degrees every night. Kek.

Once again, if you’re in NYC and wanna grab a cup of coffee, pls lmk! <3

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One of my core goals for 2024 is to start shifting the timeframe of my trades from hours to days.

You see, I believe in a couple of core tenets when it comes to financial markets. I believe that simple is good. I believe that you should stay in your own lane, and I believe that having too many trades spoils the broth.

Many of you familiar with my writings know that I adopt a very “High Conviction Bet” kind of trading style. I like to bet on asymmetric opportunities, and I like to bet big. The problem with these sorts of trades is that they are often capital-intensive, and have extremely long lockup periods before the trade comes to fruition.

Now this isn’t a problem in and of itself. This is just the “nature” of the trade that I take - you don’t call Venture Firms “problematic” because of the long time-frames of their trades. You don’t say that “this money could be used on something else instead”, because then you’re conflating differing trading styles and profit maximalization.

The problem comes when you have a smaller portfolio, where capital efficiency is a legitimate concern - you’re simply not operating on the same level as Venture firms, and your goals are vastly separate.

Turning 10k into 1m is very different from turning 1m into 100m, and there are tons of articles on CT describing the general risk appetite that people of different net worths should take.

For example, if you’re less than 5 figs, you should be farming airdrops / memecoins. 5 figs - 6 figs, you should be in the trenches and hunting mid-caps. 6 figs and above you can go for the large caps.

This is purely hypothetical advice, of course. But you get my point that at smaller bankrolls, the general consensus is that you should be dialing the gauge of your risk curve to the max and just running it up like a degen.

So… What Do I Do?

I’m not going to say what’s right or what’s wrong, because as I’ve come to learn - the investing world is one filled with nuance. No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man. Likewise, no trades remain the same, for it is not the same trade at a different point in time.

I will just say that going back to my “foundational principles” of trading - I believe that simple is good. I believe that you should stay in your own lane, and I believe that having too many trades spoils the broth.

This means that I believe in trading your edge. And if your edge is HTF trading, then so be it. Don’t bother with anything else. I can tell you - 99% of CT overcomplicates this subject. The solution doesn’t involve some fancy strategy, or complicated financial derivatives.

No, I believe the solution is much simpler. And that is - to just be patient.

So what if you have 5 figures? So what if “ze opportunity cost of other trades is greater”? If your edge is on the higher time frames, where you win more often, and thus make more money, then why would you bother with anything else?

If you’re not a singer, why would you bother getting good at singing? Does Warren Buffet try to get good at algorithmic trading? Does a Cheetah try to get better at swimming?

So - if your edge is HTF trading, then just stick to it! This is also why I advocate that most people shouldn’t be day traders - they should just have a good paying job, and do financial markets as a hobby.

The next natural question is - ok, what if I’m not good at HTF trading? And my answer to that is simple: It’s the nature of the markets to go up in the long term.

For 20 years, people advocated “DCA into the SPX” as a legitimate strategy. And it worked! (kinda). But the point being, the idea that “markets go up in the long term” is not a meme - it’s the truth.

Your hit rate of taking a long at Bitcoin on the hourly time frame may be 50/50. But your hit rate of taking a long at Bitcoin on the monthly time frame looks more like 70/30. And of course, the longer you extend your time horizon, the easier it gets.

Michael Saylor is a great example of this. He bought at 69k. He bought at 30k. Everytime he bought, people laughed at him. Well, at current prices, he’s up 2 billion.

Michael Saylor is a great example of a HTF trader that simply wins. Does it matter that he’s not apeing dogwifhat, or meowmeow coin?

Concluding Thoughts

Even at 5 figures, I still believe you can be a higher time frame trader - it’ll just take longer. I know this because it’s what I’ve done, and what I continue to do. Of course, maybe my time frames aren’t decades-long - they’re more like days to months. But even with that, I have found that I’m much more profitable.

• Overworld was a 3 week long play that netted me a 3x.

• Node Monkes will be a month long play that is currently at break even

• TAO is something I’ve held for months, and I’m up 2x

I’ve really just come to discover that patience is the name of the game. It is an edge, precisely because so little people have it.

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