22 September 2009

Forex Scalping Strategy--Check Yo' Self Before You Wreck Yo' Self

Forex Scalping - How To Make Real Fast Money

by Tyler Thomas

Forex scalping is often referred to as quick forex trading. This method is often used by traders who will only want to keep their positions for a matter of a few seconds or even for a minute but never longer than that. Before delving into what Forex scalping truly is, it pays to find out a little bit more about the purpose of scalping.

Purpose of Forex Scalping

The main aim of Forex scalping is to make a small but tidy profit and at the same time ensure that the risk to the trading account is kept to a minimal level. Lowering the risk is achieved through quick opening as well as closing of trades. Scalping would not serve any purpose if traders were not offered a chance to trade with accounts that they can leverage to the maximum extent possible. Unless the trader is able to operate with large sums of money (even if it is virtual money) they will not be able to profit from small moves such as a two to three points movement.

How to Perform a Scalp

A scalper needs to simply open their trading position of one hundred thousand units with a pair of currencies, typically the US dollar and the EURO. Each pip will then help him earn ten dollars and so a five pip movement will net him fifty dollars which is pretty good for doing practically nothing for a minute at most.

Forex Brokers and Scalping

A scalper who is able to consistently make profitable scalps is surely going to make a Forex broker suffer losses. This is why, the dealing desk broker at least will not agree with the style of trading adopted by a scalper and so will normally request the scalper to change his style of functioning or deal with another broker. However, brokers can also apply other methods that can help to slow down the scalper as he performs his scalps.

However, a broker that has good trades that they process with automated platforms will not generally feel threatened by the scalpers.

Forex Scalping Facts The theory behind making successful scalps is that it will only be possible to make huge amounts of money in very little time if the scalper is able to make best use of very high leverage. However, this should not make you want to immediately jump off the cliff. Rather, it makes more sense to actually start with a more reasonable leverage such as 20:1 or even 50:1 and as your skills improve, you can then increase your leverage.

At the same time it also pays to keep in mind the fact that you have to learn to trade with higher leverage but without doing anything that will result in a total loss of your investment. For this, be sure to limit your trades to not more than 10 or 15 with a very tight stop loss.

You need to also be careful about deciding on the size of your trading lot and you must do some math to calculate your worst case scenario. So, if you suffer ten consecutive losses, you will need to stop at once.

How Effective Is It? Although the Forex market functions 24 x 7, not every hour of trading is suitable for Forex scalping. You need to pick those hours when trading is most volatile and you must also be aware of the behavior of your currency pair and the most active trading sessions.

Once you enter into a trade, be sure to move stops to break even as soon as is possible. Take profits at reasonable levels and get out of the trade if the prices freeze for longer than expected.

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About the Author

Tyler is an 8 year marketer based in Washington DC.

Article source: http://www.goarticles.com/