The interval of time that each candlestick or bar in the chart represents. Common timeframes in forex are 1 minute (M1), 15 minutes (M15), 1 hour (H1), 4 hours (H4), daily, etc. In backtesting, the timeframe chosen is important as it determines the granularity of decisions and data: for example, a strategy tested on H1 bars makes trading decisions on hourly data. A multi-timeframe strategy might use signals from multiple intervals. The timeframe also affects how much data is available (a longer timeframe means fewer data points for the same period). It’s essential to test a forex robot on the timeframe it’s intended to run on, or multiple timeframes if it uses more than one, to ensure the backtest reflects the strategy’s logic.

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