I'm not trying to be combative - in fact I'm trying to be helpful. So in answer to your post:
Sure, my experience is limited and i don't claim to be a legendary trader in fact i've not had time to day trade this year...
It's big of you to admit that. Most people on trading forums make millions of pounds a year
. But given what you've said, how can you claim that it's wrong to say you can't make a living scalping spot forex with an SB or retail bucketshop? At the very least, you don't know.
i don't see how you can say that SB will rape you. Surely the price that goes out to me for EUR/USD is the same chart by the micro pip that will go to you.
Wrong. The price that goes out to you won't even be the price that goes out to your SB company or bucketshop. On this topic, what is the actual price at any given moment? You know what it is on an exchange-traded product, but OTC? It's whatever someone says it is, effectively. This might matter or it might not.
And if your strategy will work on DMA i can't see why it won't work on SB.
Because with DMA it is in your broker's interests that you win, keep trading, and keep paying commissions and fees. Trading with an SB/bucketshop, they are on the other side of your trade. That doesn't mean you can't use them or that they don't want profitable customers - you can, and they do. But they want profitable customers they can make money off, and this does not include scalpers.
I can't see million sometimes billion £ firms taking risks to do over a scalper
They wouldn't be million / billion firms very long if it became known that you could scalp profitably with them. They'd be bust within a few months. You have to understand that if you start making good money from scalping, you are hurting them. They will not allow this to continue, and frankly, why should they?
You can use traditional SB firms to trade profitably - even if you are trading short term. They will gouge you of course, but that is a cost of doing business. In fairness, it's probably not a bad price to pay for all the advantages and features they offer, particularly when starting out.
But when (if) you get bigger, it just doesn't make any sense to stay with them. Go to a real broker where there are no tricks, costs are lower (real costs are NOT the narrow spread you see on your EUR/USD SB ticket), and you are trading in the real market.
If you really want SB, there are (as far as I am aware) two companies that offer actual DMA, for futures at least. You pay more than you would with a regular broker, but you get the SB wrapper and costs are still lower than you get with the "high street" SB companies. But most important, they are not on the other side of your trade.
SB companies and bucketshops don't care if you are profitable - they care if they are profitable. They use lots of means to ensure that they are. If you can overcome these, you can trade profitably with them, but you cannot do this if you are using them to scalp, because your profit knocks their profit. If you want to use them, you need to trade in such a way that they make money from your trades as well as you.
