I have spent weeks denying this, because it sounds so risky.
However I am able to make 20+ trades a day with 90% or so win rate.
My stop losses are dynamic and generally I am either right or wrong, and if I am wrong I exit with a 1 or 2 pip loss.
Sometimes I get greedy and once my stoploss is at breakeven Ill setup a trailing stoploss however still working on rules for that…
My main question is, are there professional scalpers and if so when did you realise scalping was for you?
Sorry, but that sounds more like Pacman than scalping to me!!
What you are doing is studying very short term price action and benefiting from it, not a sustainable strategy in my view, scalping is more about taking a slice of something.
But ask yourself this. Why go for one slice of the cake when you could work a bit harder and take the entire cake in a single trade. That single trade not only costs you one round amount of spread, but also reduces the risk significanty as your not trading 20 times in a single day. Just imagine, your trading 20 times, paying 2pips spread per transaction. Thats 40 pips you paying out in a single day. Thats alomost as much as I aim for in a single trade. Your broker will love you, I would love you if i was broker, the word love in the dictionary would have your name next to it!
Just take it easy, stop looking for a fast buck in quick fire trades, and perhaps learn to take the bigger ride. Just imagine how less stressful you will feel when trading once or twice a day as opposed to 20 times per day?
I really think there is a huge bias in this forum against scalpers. I personally know some very successful scalpers. I would say some of the most profitable traders I know who have been trading successfully for over 10 years are scalpers. There is no reason to deny your scalping, remember trading is a very personal journey. If your staying disciplined and following your rules, which in your above post sounds like you break sometimes. which is bad will ruin you as scalpers need much more internal self checks because they are making more decisions with less time as opposed to swing traders. Most newbies fail as scalpers because they a) don’t have a successful system b) don’t have the mental discipline c) do not have the proper psychological/internal self checks. if you can bring those elements to any trading system you can be successful. Just remember this, a majority of the successful pit traders (locals) were a scalpers or market makers, so saying it doesn’t work is BS.
I cant remember where I read it, but its being said, Long term Traders, are Slow bleeders… Because the Market moves so much, you can sit on a trade for days, while profits are slipping away. But also, it depends on your income expectations, and time you have to commit to the career.
Thats the gray area, of being fulltime, or parttime. If your fulltime, is that 40 hours a week, Im which case, scalping your way to mega millions? Or part time, just getting larger chunks, but less risk with higher margins, and longer chains, which, down the road, = MAYBE, not so much… lose 20, win 2, but still up, Mehh, not me…
I have time to scalp, so I scalp… If I had only 10 mins a day to look at the charts, then, of course, I dont have time to scalp, so it would be longer time frames, and wider ratios for SP and TP…
Information overload is the answer, They arent comsumed yet with misinformation.
Once you look at it from another angle, then another, then another, all that gets wrapped up, because intuitionally, you’ve ben there before, and instintivly, jump ship, and might change gears, even tho, your right from the start, but now, your off track, because past isnt allways repeatable, but he brain seen it once, maybe twice, and thinks, it might happen again, then you do it again, with another system,
MNS - I didn’t understand this answer. You had us all waiting!
I thought you were going to say it was a patience thing… Or the high win rate…
Btw, I agree with the earlier sentiment that this forum generally appears biased against scalpers due to Risk-Return ratio considerations. For me - whatever works! But the biggest fear is if your RR is against you then during a period when the markets don’t support your strategy you lose money quite rapidly. Hence my personal preference to avoid scalping. But I’m open to consider scalping if I found a system I was confident worked…
There are a few “safe” scalper setups for a few pips. And with trailing stop or babysitting you can improve it.
But…, if you are waiting for those setups for the whole day, and there are 1 or 2 than why don’t trade in higher timeframe.
20 trade / day , is 20 day in 16h or less. If you do it in 4 hours, than you are using a risky timeframe ( for me) , where the spread is a major factor. If you are doing in 16h, than it takes to much, are you sure it is 20 trading opportunity?
Somewhere I read none can guess all price movements, the big moves are on big waves, that is why I trade max 2 trade / day, but usually 1 trade /day. It is safer, you have usually 1 opportunity to get out at break even if you are wrong and if you are patient. Not so stressful, not a big problem if you missed those 10 seconds… I use 1day chart to get an overview where and what range will move the price today, eg today EUR/USD somewhere between 1.31500 and 1.3500 will bouncing. Than I switch to 1h - 15m chart and I am looking for news release times and Elliot wave patterns. If no important news, than Elliot. Wait for second or third ware and get that wave. If the trend is over just wait to reverse. Enter when the trend is formed and everybody is going crazy in that direction a bit. If is news release: keep in attention : “sell the rumor, buy the news”. At Oanda it is 10 pip spread at news releases and also I don’t like to trade the spike, I will skip or enter in the 3rd wave or at after the trend is over. No problem for me is the price moved 120 pip and I got only 20 or 25. It is important to win pips and not lose is and don’t be stressed. 100-200 pip/week is enough for me, since I am working and sometimes I check the second monitor how it look like the graph.
I have traded the 30 sec chart too, but is not for me anymore. There are plenty opportunities at 1h-15m charts.
