What exactly is considered as scalping? And I also see that some brokers do not allow scalpers. Why is that?
Scalping is carrying out hundreds of trades in a session, often holding them for a few seconds at a time, in order to make a few pips on each trade.
Brokers do not like this because it hits their profits. This also applies to those who enter large amounts of money just before a big news release, make say 80 pips profit and then exit the trade. In some cases, I’ve heard that even honest, successful traders who are making money are not liked by some brokers. What happens is the trader becomes ‘flagged’ and closely watched. Then every obstacle possible is put in the way, e.g. orders not fulfilled, spreads widening and big delays on orders. This hasn’t happened to me, but have a good look on the web, the warnings are there.
Because in range bound markets currencies tend to move up and down in a certain range, traders have developed strategies to gain pips from this range bound. Scalping the market. A few pips that is.
But traders will do it with a big amount of money and exit market within seconds or few minutes. Brokers do not like you to make that.
Some brokers have certain policies regarding minimum time of holding a trade, and such rules apply to prevent scalping the market.
Make sure you read the broker’s policy.
Scalpers try to take advantage from delays in quote pricing. Brokers want to gain money in every transaction (the spread). So by taking advantage from the delays, scalpers are trying to get away from paying these fees.
but why would they mind? it’s their profit as well.
by buying and selling within seconds the broker DOES make his “spread money”… it’s not like the scalper got away with it.
the only real reason I see is the one Dunny posted (about the delays in quote).
I don’t know if I’m wording this correctly but I read somewhere that brokers can push large amounts of orders over to interbanks if they choose to which prevents them from taking losses and allows them to profit from the spread only. If people scalp than they are unable to dump the orders off and it could possible increase their losses.
Scalpers are traders that are in and out of trades very quickly. Usually they are in a trade for no more than a couple of minutes.
They also go for very little profits. If they are up 2-3 pips, they will close their trade and look for the next one. Instead of looking for the 100 pip winner, they take several smaller winners. Not the best kind of trading in my book but some people are good at it.
Why don’t you guys think scalping is good? It sounds like it’s a whole lot easier to wait for a 2 to 3 pip profit than to wait for 100 pips.
Thanks.
largeincharge i guess that those 100 pip trades are harder to spot, thats why lots of people trade the scalpers way! I have just discoverd that im actually a scalper, well atleast i`m trying to be one! Anyone triyng out this method seriously?
Some might now any material on this type of tradeing? Would be happy to hear you out!
Although I’m new to forex, and still using demo account, It seems Scalping is the “easy” way to earn some pips, and I personally like it. But, unfortunately, It seems the vast majority of Brokers doesn’t support it (well, you can do 1 or 2 scalps a day, but not as a regular way to profit).
There are times that I am thinking about being one also. There have been countless times in my demo trading that I let 20-30 pips get away from me on the GBP/USD because I didn’t close the trade. Other times I trail my stop and it gets knocked out for a 10 pip or no pip profit. Makes me want to just trail my stop by a real small amount like 5 pips to lock in those decent profits and not care about gaining the big number 
Yuo, sad, but true!
Would like to hear what Big Pi and Pippdiddy would say about Scalping…
There are many good traders who scalp for a living. It can be a highly profitable style of trading if you know what you are doing.
With that said, scalping is such a hard way to trade! You have to know exactly what is going on and you have to make quick decisions. You almost have to react to whatever the market is doing.
Personally it is too stressful for me to scalp. I like to sit back and wait. Like a predator I watch my prey and wait for just the right time to pounce and attack. And when I attack, I take as much as I can because I know that opportunities like these don’t happen very often.
It’s all about your trading personality. If you can handle the stress and are good at making quick decisions then scalping can be very rewarding. Keep in mind that spreads will kill you so try to scalp on a pair with very low spreads.
Hope that provides some insight.
Happy trading,
-BP
That’s not exactly true, IMHO. Most, if not all, software of brokers, allow to sell at the price. That’s valid for scalping, too, if for example, want 5 pips (you can use it for 1 pip, too ;))
It is not easy to define what Scalping really is, i have my own definition, its trading style, when your profit target is from 3 - 20 pips. Doesn’t matter how many trades do you do. Some scalpers need 400 scalps a day for good income, another only 1 scalp per week.
Nowdays all of the brokers allow scalping, because they can make lot of money from fees (ECN brokers) or part of spread (stp or market makers) … Before several years they didn’t scalping, because their system hedge your positions in tens of seconds, so they once you closed your position, you made money and they lost.
400, I dont think so, even 40 would be on the overtrading side.
I tend to agree with purple. all I do is scalp to pay my bills…BUT, i scalp futures (the cost of doing business is SUBSTANTIALLY less than with spot forex), and generally have 5 - 10 great trades a day… (out of a 10 - 14 hour trading period), maybe other 5 - 10 good ones…and the rest…win or lose…are more questionable.
Needless to say, my most profitable days are somewhere in the range of 15 - 30 trades a day…on average. My best day ever was less than 40. Anytime I start hitting 50+ trades… 90% of the time it’s because my intraday profit was up a lot…then down back to break even…then I basically would “start over” around U.S. session open.
In other words…if i hadn’t messed around with substandard setups… I’d have made double or triple what I did.
You have to realize…the smaller the time frame…the more setups… but the quality of each setup goes down. Sooo… theres a fine balance, between finding levels that maximize your edge, without diluting your profits. I tend to believe in any given market that is no more than 5 - 10 trades in a 24 hour period…even under the best circumstances.
And when I do have those 30+ trade days…those are the result of taking maybe 3 or 4 quick trades off of one basic setup. To be frank, if I could better teach myself to hold that single badboy for the full run, rather than getting on and off the bus as it goes to my destination… I’d probably average about 10 - 15 trades a day…and i’d probably make double the money.
Confessions of a full time scalper…
Jay
Pete, I scalp (relatively speaking) my trades are resolved by 8 - 20 pips, and in a matter of minutes (average hold time between 15 - 30 min per trade)
it is faster to get 2 - 3 pips… but the problem is, finding 30 good setups a day, that will give you a 2-3 pip profit, that WON’T go against you more than 2-3 pips in the first place.
if your taking…say…less than 5-8 pips on average for each trade… you will have quite a few winners… but then a single loser can cost you more than 5 or 6 winners make.
You have to be right… a lot. and I mean… a lot. Trust me…I know.
It’s actually easier to have 50% winners and 50% losers, with your winners making twice as much as your losers lose… than it is to have 85% winners, 15% losers, with your losers being twice as big as your average winner.
Considering a 2 pip spread, and an average profit target of 5 pips, and a stop of 5 ticks,. you have to be correct 70% of the time…and that’s just to break even!
So, not only do you have to be correct 70% of the time… but you also have to be correct to the extent that a trade only goes 4 pips against you…after that, your stopped out.
So if you increase the size of your stop… say, to 20 pips. This way…you have enough “wiggle room” to hit your target.
Well, now you have to be correct about 88% of the time…again…just to break even!
It’s starting to look pretty difficult here… the 2 pip spread is a real killer…and a single loss wipes out 4 winners, PLUS you gotta pay the equivilent of 2 winners just to take those 5 trades. (2 pip spread X (4 winners + 1 loser)) = 10 pips of cost.
So, win 4 times, make 20 pips.
20 pips minus 8 pips (2 pip spread on 4 trades) = 12 pip net profit
12 pip net profit minus 20 pip loser = -8 pip loss
8 pip + 2 pip cost = total losss… 10 pips.
ok…80% profitable on a 5 pip target and 20 pip loss and 2 pip spread will cost you…but what if you have two
more winners in a row…now your breakeven…right?
wrong. The spread is 2 pips a trade…or 4 pips.
Make 10 pips on two more profitable trades, now your 7 trades, 1 loser, and that just puts you at breakeven… oh,
but a 2 pips spread on those two trades…your now down only 4 pips.
One more 5 pip winner…and you only pay 2 pip spread! now, your only down 1 pip.
It literally takes a 90%+ win ratio to make a profit with a 5 pip target, 2 pip spread, and 20 pip stop loss.
And, you can NEVER make a mistake. Ever. Never enter late. never exit early, never get emotional.
I’d dare say this is an inhuman task.
Hope this clears up the “difficulty in successfully scalping”
Jay
Jay,
How do you figure scalping futures requires less money? Margin, overnight margin etc are all 2.5k-5k minimum, where spot is $600 to open an ECN account and start trading minilots…