What is scalping?

How does it work? When do I enter and exit? Is it profitable or rather dangerous to trade? I tried to find info about it, but couln’t. Please, help.

This is covered in the babypips school…very good reading…

hint hint hint…

Hi DARIMAKO - scalping refers to short term trading - getting in and out of trades quickly for a small profit. Alot of scalpers just look at price action since they are often in and out within seconds. In my opinion this type of scalping is pretty difficult in forex and easier in futures - where you can see the quantity of contracts on the bid and offer, the execution is better and you have a tight spread.

However - the fx market has many advantages of it’s own and you might take a look around the day trading strategies area of this forum for ideas on short term trading methods…good luck!

i just dont understand… if you are the people who will ask for help why are you trading at first place ?

Scalping?

The standard Native American technique for scalping was to place a knee between the shoulders while the body was on the ground, to cut a long arc in the front of the scalp, and then to pull back on the hair. If the person survived, the person’s facial features droop. Women would sometimes make a tight braid to pull the skin back up

;o)
Kangi

No…no,no,no,…

I’m sorry but you have it all wrong. Here is what Real [U]Scalping[/U] is:

What happens is say you need some money OK? So you call your Dad and tell him you have some important clients in town or you need to impress a girl who just loves…I mean absolutely loves (insert game of choice that said girl or important clients absolutely love) And can you please, [I][B]PLEASE[/B][/I] have his season tickets for his sky box…

Following me here…

Then you take them down to the stadium on the day of the Game and you [B][U]SCALP [/U][/B] them for about $400.00 bucks!!!

Easy money I say…:slight_smile:

(yeah know I really hate typos)

hehe…

;o)

Scalping: ‘A quicker method than most others to give your broker all your capital (especially if you don’t know what you’re doing)’!!! [I](“Grail” Dale, 10/02/2008)[/I].

Oh, and while we’re on the subject of ‘not understanding things’ could you, vicebet, elaborate a bit on this statement of yours:

I just dont understand… if you are the people who will ask for help why are you trading at first place ?

To Dpaterso :

I like your avatar. I take it the picture is of yourself.

Excellent photo - well done.

Hello,

Nope, that is a picture of the greatest technical genius of all time: Mr J. Welles Wilder Jnr., my mentor!!!

(Uhmm, not to mention the fact that I am ONLY turning forty three this year)!!!

Scalping: ‘A quicker method than most others to give your broker all your capital (especially if you don’t know what you’re doing)’!!! (“Grail” Dale, 10/02/2008).

ha!

dpaterso - you are a spring chicken - Welles Wilder didn’t even start trading till he was 38.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject of ‘not understanding things’ could you, vicebet, elaborate a bit on this statement of yours:

Quote:
I just dont understand… if you are the people who will ask for help why are you trading at first place ?

A real man makes money and not money makes him…
Many out there that work hard for their life and venture into trading thinking that is just like a job where as long as you do it correctly it will be ok…
Well it is certainly not, so dont act like a Customer and Customer makes the money attitude cuz there is no such thing…

U have some great posts in the B-pips…and I’ve actually read this one several times and it really seems like your trying to say something very profound but to be honest damned if I can figure it out??

Please elaborate as I am truly interested…

J.

damned if I can figure it out??

If your have 1 million and walk into the bank letting them service you for YOUR investment… I think you are merely funding THEIR big investment… In other words youre making use of yourself being used of your money…

Whether how much the returns doesnt matter… the thing matters is how you go get it… Same thing in forex… Companies advertise through various form legal illegal…giving bonus at such for you to make money??? And you try to make by scalping them???

All these ECN NND Bank no bank…bla bla bla… yes there are…they are all the same out there to get your money baby… So if you are out here to get their money? Wise up and stand side by side with them and disapear before they stand on top of you…

Scalping? average 5 pips spread for 10pips gain? or sumthing like that? 50% house edge on yourself? Can you do maths? 50%!!!:eek:
Scalping means scalping own money…

If wanna scalp… scalp 4 hour or daily charts… take high volitile pairs average spread 10 pips… scalp one or two candle 300pips… hehe thats better…

You know what… i’m really concerned about software security trading online… when I open an demo… it seems like their advertisements are everywhere i go…and that is just demo…
When is live…there must be more than that… cuz thats the time to eat your money… trojan horse? worms? Will brokers attack us this way? Let say we are earning constantly…and their program spot the activity… and there comes the lagging…virus… pc down… kinda thing… If this do happen then scalping is way dangerousssss

Anyone experience this before?

Man oh man is THIS thread confusing!!!

dannybly:

dpaterso - you are a spring chicken - Welles Wilder didn’t even start trading till he was 38.

Like I said: I started trading when I was 41/42. Are you saying that there is still hope for an ‘old guy’ like me??? (I hope so)!!!

vicebet:

If I’m not mistaken then I THINK you’re trying to say that ‘scalping’ is ‘no good’ in which case I agree with you.

As far as brokers ‘getting into your pc’ is concerned: I doubt it very much BUT having said that I would think that it depends on the broker. Of course: I’m assuming that you have anti-virus, anti-spyware, and anti-rootkit software installed as well as a firewall of course AND you have all the latest updates and secuity patches from Microsoft. With all of this ‘stuff’ you’ll AT VERY LEAST be alerted if someone is trying to access your ‘stuff’.

Thanks for the answers, especially those picteresque description of the one performed by native Indians.

But seriously, I read babypips schools and lots of other education stuff. It says you can be a scalper, but none gives an explanation how it works.

I guess you enter a trade and try to get just a few pips. Is there a method to do it?

I tried to do this way, but mostly failed. No matter the RSI, stochastics indicated oberbought, oversold, crossing MAs, SAR showed time to buy, sell, I could never make money. That’s how it works in FX, your are supposed to fail whatever you do, right?

if indicators work long term… brokers wont make it available… i wonder if bet against indicators long term will provide what results??

Wrong, you can make money consistently as long as YOU don’t make things difficult for yourself, like trying to profit from small 5-15 pip trades, with 3-5 pip spreads.

If you want to use indicators, use them in daily charts, that’s what they were developed for, and that’s where they work better. The longer the time frame the more reliable the indicators are. There are many advantages to swing trading vs scalping (ESPECIALLY in forex), the reliability of the indicators is just one of them.

In all seriousness, I used to scalp stocks and did okay…

In December just for fun I created a (Demo) scalping account with forex.com and doubled my account (50K- 95K) in a little over a month…

The problem with scalping is your making very large trades. I do 1-3 million at a time…so when the market goes against you you can lose real big dollars really really fast. I found it to be way way to nerve racking when I was doing it for real on stocks and you become a mental case really quick…soon you have no life at all, it’s totally the market when you wake up when you go to sleep (finally go to sleep around 1 or 2 AM)

It’s just not the right way to trade. I’ve had (for real) $150,000 up days (real networks) $120,000 down days (Microsoft after earnings release) but at the end of the year it was the little trades that I made my money …thousand here two thousand there you’d be surprised how it adds up over fifty two weeks…(course tax time can be a nightmare, thank you quicken) I didn’t trade technicals I did fundamentals and used a line chart to look for the obvious short term support and resistance. I didn’t know much about retracements, Fibbonocci, Gann, candlesticks… just walked the line…(Hey? Wasn�t that a Johnny Cash song)?

Anyway… you can make money …but life can really suck and you can lose lots, fast