How would you define "scalping"?

Quote from sgsaxton:

Strictly speaking it happens on the floor of the exchanges but I define it anywhere form 10 - 15 pips at a clip, a half dozen times or more a day. I've heard others say 40- 50 pips but there doesn't seem to be a standard definition when it comes to forex. What are your thoughts?

Steve

Your probably close to the mark on that.
Since spreads came down from 3 pips only a year or so ago - it's become a different field, forex seems to move a little different than it used to. Personally I feel that once spreads are below 1 pip forex will start to mirror less trendy markets and scalping will not be so poo - pooed by the trend following crowd.

Eur and yen when range bound move in 10-15 pip clips. Even when starting a trend the Euro likes to back and fill by these amounts to push forward to its next swing point. USD/YEN has perhaps 15 to 20 (or more) such moves (that can be profitably taken) in a 24 hour day (Must be that big US dollar deficit they are financing...).

Swissy usually bounces in 30 pip increments half a dozen or so times euro/us session - even when setting up a major move. It seems the larger the spread the bigger the incremental moves (and corresponding less frequency of moves).

The "Best" thing to do is to "scalp" the 4/8 hour or daily charts - ie look for a swing settup and then zoom in with your scalping mindset/tools (tight stops) and try and grab it at it's nadir point - sometimes it takes 2 or 3 goes at it (or more) and your up ungodly hours...and then "scalp" for 10-15 pips between such settups.
 
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