Whip me in to shape scalpers :D

the hare said:
Is he still trading, or did he quit whilst he was ahead, or does the story have an unhappy ending ?

Its always argued that if you have an edge then even with very aggressive position sizing such as optimal F, your equity, even with the 95% drawdowns is still usually greater than it would have been with simple fixed fraction. I'd probably be OK doing it on a small account for the lulz but not sure I could live with it day to day .
Click to expand...

He done the clever thing and *quit* whilst he was ahead (albeit a little down from the 150k or so peak of the account).
I think he went from 150k down to about 120k and called it a day. Still not bad for a years messing around from an 8k account.

I say he quit. He still trades a little but at tiny stakes in relation to his previous trading experiment. I think he trades at about £5 per point pretty much for fun.

He believe his success was down to:
1 - luck
2 - Daily advice from someone he met online and traded with in an msn chatroom. She was an elliott wave trader and was pretty bloody good. My dad would copy most of her trades and do very well
3 - we also had a system that we used with good effect for a few months (i've spoken about it somewhere before) which gave us 30 pips or so everyday for months and months on end. At £150 per point, the account can grow quite nicely!
 
Black Swan said:
A few things;

Firstly you can't scalp with an SB firm, by defintion scalping is exploiting inefficiencies, being in/out of trades in seconds not minutes..the likes of IG/CMC won't put you on referall if you stay under their radar, you're not big enough for them to consider you a cheat <irony alert?> you'll simply run out of luck. 3 pip spread, 2 pip 'lag', 2 pip guaranteed stop..it'll fail as an edge but even if it didn't you're paying 50%+ more than you need to and forget finding a permanent method for now MM (capital preservation) is everything.

Once you feel confident and If you're commiting ten grand to your first effort then go with the likes of IB, DBFX or Dukascopy, who are excellent, but the platforms on offer (J-forex etc) are a touch clunky. Cracking firm though.

DBFX you'll be paying approx. 1.2/7 pip spread on the Euro and you only need $5,000 to open an account. They lease fxcm software, the platform is the best in the industry imho. In fact why not open a micro with fxcm to test run it? Then smoothly move over. Even on micro you'll be paying less spread on FX than with an SB firm.

If you make ten grand, or whatever your allowance is, then think about the tax implications..not before, dont get lulled into the tax free SB marketing nonsense. You could always make 20K on FX and not pay tax with the most basic of imagination.

Now if that was yesterday figures then sorry to say this but you may have got lucky picking the bounces in the range. It was a 5hite day for me as a swing trader yesterday ergo it was good for range/intraday/noise traders. There were some luverly 20 pip opps on cable..a nuisance for me.

Oh and risk, you'll hear it a zillion times risk no more than 2%, 1% preferably per trade. If you're going to trade off a 15 min TF or 1000 ticks the your average loss should smooth out at circa 20 pips, you could use a stop of this size...up to you, you'll know exactly how big a cheque you're potentially writing out for each trade. I know guys with 1:1 who do OK from 1000 tick charts on the basis of more winners than losers 60/40%...
Click to expand...

Thanks, and yea cheers for the tips of the above firms will probably go that route if all goes well, to start off as im still learning how about Alpari? As you can start an account with any amount of money, Everyone seems to be loving their service too and its not just scalping i'd be doing, here's some of their spreads:

EUR/USD 1.6 pips
USD/JPY 2.0 pips
EUR/GBP 2.0 pips

What do you think of Alpari? They run MT4 too which is another reason i would like to use them
 
Looking at GBP/USD & EUR / GBP they seem pretty flat right now, although Wall St and FTSE are choppy, i may to try my method out on them with IG for now and see what i get... does anyone know of a good trading platform that offers all the stock? And not just FX

Thanks
 
redart said:
He done the clever thing and *quit* whilst he was ahead (albeit a little down from the 150k or so peak of the account).
I think he went from 150k down to about 120k and called it a day. Still not bad for a years messing around from an 8k account.
Click to expand...

Your dad is clearly a wise man. Most noobs would have lost the £150k plus a lot more trying to chase their losses. Well done to him.
 
Doomberg said:
Thanks, and yea cheers for the tips of the above firms will probably go that route if all goes well, to start off as im still learning how about Alpari? As you can start an account with any amount of money, Everyone seems to be loving their service too and its not just scalping i'd be doing, here's some of their spreads:

EUR/USD 1.6 pips
USD/JPY 2.0 pips
EUR/GBP 2.0 pips

What do you think of Alpari? They run MT4 too which is another reason i would like to use them
Click to expand...

They're fine, most FX firms are imo. Oanda is 1 pip spread on the Euro and it is really one pip spread so if you intend to stick with the lower (small) tfs then they may be a decent shout.
 
fwiw Oanda have a good reputation, they have decent (i.e. non fixed and reflective of underlying) spreads and pay you carry.

apparently they also now are on MT4 but truly thats a shocking platform so avoid it like the plague.
 
Yeah i was thinking between Ondara and Alpari... everyone seems to rave about MT4, how come you don't like it mate?
 
Another vote for Oanda. I used Alpari and wasn't impressed with execution speed/spreads. I don't really care about trading software, but it's not an issue now that you can use MT4 on Oanda if you so wish. Only annoying thing about Oanda is it's a bit more paperwork to open an account.
 
Well that could be an issue as my billing address is in the UK and im in spain and expect to be here for a few months, anyone used Pro spreads?

"ProSpreads’ dynamic spread card allows clients access to a FTSE 100 spread of just 0.25, when their monthly volume exceeds 200 lots."

That seems pretty epic good, i did ok on FTSE today just using IG Index... if i had somewhere with really low spreads i would of done better, as a large spread steals the edge on scalping
 
mate I would p!ss away the idea of relying on rebates before you've even dipped your toe. Get the docs thru with oanda for the extra effort, once you have an account they are unlikely to close it.

FWIW multicharts now apparently have a FX package but no experience of it... all I know is that "proper" multicharts is well regarded by those that use it.
 
Had a chat with one and they gave me this link:

http://fxtrade.oanda.com/why/spreads/recent

looks about 1.7 on there for most average although they said their target for EUR/USD is 0.9

And Dash, what do you mean about rebates bud? i meant that not being in england would mean i wouldn't be able to sign the documents and sign them back
 
I trade on Oanda because they are totally automated and there is not anyone on the desk to "go for a pint". I am logged into their server and every trade is instant when I click buy or sell. They now offer an MT4 platform which I am using.

Good Trading,
JahDave
 
Oanda; now on the face of this you'd only choose Oanda, and they are very good. However, the methodology may be in question due to the fact that they are also money changers, therefore the satisfaction and success rate may be questionable..

Today, Monday 18th October 2010, is the day that all US forex brokers must disclose their account profitability and number of non discretionary accounts. I’ve already published Interbank FX’s and FXCM’s numbers here and today I’ve gone ahead and compiled a comparison table of US brokers. Ten brokers have reported the numbers so far while I couldn’t find FXDD and Advanced Markets numbers yet. CMS Forex and Easy Forex are out of the game as you already know.. It’s not yet clear whether SEC brokers such as Citi or Deutsche will need to provide these numbers as well.

Now you can compare various brokers account profitability and see where your own broker stands. With the exception of OANDA, which completely stands out from rest of the brokers both in terms of account profitability and in number of accounts, all other brokers show more or less same numbers – around 25% profitable accounts on average. PFG shows the worst profitability with only 21% profitable and IG Markets is the smallest US brokers with only 464 accounts (a fraction comparing to the numbers of the largest US broker in terms of accounts – OANDA).

Please note that it’s not yet fully known whether all brokers used same methodology when counting these numbers.

http://forexmagnates.com/us-forex-brokers-account-profitability-comparison/
 
Clearly, this information is false. 25% profitable accounts? But we know it should be 15% as 85% of traders fail! :D

PS I still use Alpari/MT4 and think they're great. Two weeks ago, I came to within 0.1 pip of my stop and it reversed for profit. Can't argue with that.
 
shadowninja said:
Clearly, this information is false. 25% profitable accounts? But we know it should be 15% as 85% of traders fail! :D

PS I still use Alpari/MT4 and think they're great. Two weeks ago, I came to within 0.1 pip of my stop and it reversed for profit. Can't argue with that.
Click to expand...

Is right...and you can't ever, ever, ever, ever make more than 1% on FX per day..it's written in the T2W constitution and it's universal law doncha know..If you do make more than 1% you have to give some back, otherwise it'll all break..

I have a lovely Syrian lady from Alpari phone me up on a regular basis, discussing opening a corporate account with them, but I'm/we're OK for now..
 
another vote for oanda, simple to use platform and you don't have to use fixed lots as you trade in units. only negative is the spread sometimes stay wide on news long after other brokers return theirs to normal, so not much good for sneaky post news scalps.
 
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