Only really EUR/USD closely atm, what pairs do you like to trade?
EURUSD has been going up for the past 4 month and a downward retrace on the daily chart is on the card. Its been moving sizeways since August hence I stayed away. When looking at EURUSD, also look at EURJPY they tend to move in the same direction and EURJPY might give you better option. Same goes for GBPUSD and GBPJPY.
I tend to trade majoy vs Minor on 4 hour and Daily charts.
Like you said about USD bullishness, I have been bullish on USD since beginning of this September, instead of trading it with EUR or GBP, I went for USDNZD, USDAUD.
Mainly GBP/EUR/USD/JPY VS NZD/AUD/CAD while JPY is the strongest at the moment followed by USD, then GBP then EUR.
I do exotic sometimes, a bit more strict and usually goes wrong when I tried to enter using lower chart. Exotic pairs I trade are USDZAR, EURZAR and USDMXN.
In an ideal world I will just be taking a few easy trades at the start of major trend changes throughout the year rather than a daily or weekly thing
As a swing trader, I tend to trade on daily chart and wait for one trend to finish and follow the new trend. I use to use break and re-test but I found swing trading to be more profitable.
You are right to take a longer term view of the market, things like news will be absorbed easily and don't have to check trades all the time. My son(15yrs now) is a 100% daily chart and sometimes stay in his trades for 3 months. I keep telling him he's an investor not a trader. Although this is because he's still at school.