As you may have guessed, I’m not fond of scalping. I’ve tried it, but I could not beat those guys with the lightening fast bots, multiple price feeds, inside information and razor thin spread costs. But as someone even older than me said, everyone is good for something. If nothing else, they can serve as a bad example. And so in our never ending quest to find even one more lowly pip hidden between the couch cushions, we look at what scalpers do for a living.
You will usually find a scalper staring at at least three computer screens displaying the, the 5 minute chart the 1 minute chart , and a tick chart. They trade very large size for very few pips. They make a huge number of trades trying to get just a few pips off most.
They watch for a pair that is cycling smoothly in a range on the 5m chart. When price moves near the top of it’s 5m range, they look at the 1m chart, when it moves near the top of it’s range, they look at the tick chart with their finger on the button. When the tick chart hits the top of it’s run and price starts back down, they hit the sell button. If price moves unexpectedly up even a couple pips, they close the trade. If it continues to move down they move back to the 1m chart and watch it fall. As it continues to move down, they move to the 5m chart and watch it fall.
As the 5 minute chart gets near the bottom of it’s range, they move back to the 1m chart, as it gets back near the bottom of it’s range they move back to the tick chart, when the price quits falling there they click the close button for hopefully 10 or 15 pips profit on a very large lot size. They do this 20 or 30 times a day. Sometimes unexpected news comes out and wipes out a half days profits in one quick spike stopout. It’s a dreary life, but we can learn something from it. These guys really know how to squeeze the last pip out of a trade.
As high flying day traders we aren’t really interested in the dreary life of a scalper, but we are interested in more pips, even just a few more. So we’ll copy them for just a few minutes out of our day.
When it’s time to put on a second lot, we won’t just buy immediately because our first lot is 15 pips up, we will set the first lot SL to BE and look at the 5m chart. If price is going up, we look at the 1m chart, if the price is going up we buy, no harm no foul.
But, if the 5 minute chart is going down, we wait until it is near the bottom of it’s range and look at the 1m chart, if it’s going down we wait until it has hit the bottom of it’s range and starts back up, then we buy. Buy low, sell high.
With a little practice you can save a few pips per lot. That is enough to pay the spreads that some folks worry about! In any case, it gives you something constructive to do on slow days. Hey, every pip counts. Of course when the market is taking off and I’m managing 15 positions I don’t have time to fool with this. I’m too busy pulling profits out 
But if it’s slow and I have time, I try to make a few extra pips per lot.
