Scalping is Risky?

[CALLumbus]

People should try to get out of that binary black or white thinking.

Is scalping risky ? What is risk ?

There are countless forms of risk, so first you would have to define what it means to you.

Scalping can decrease some forms of risk (less exposure to adverse movements by less time in the market), but it can also add substantial risk, for example by using huge leverage (to make the small moves you scalp worth the effort).

So there is no "scalping is the best" or "scalping reduces risk" etc. It always depends.

For my personal preference, scalping has been my choice of trading for the past ~10 years. I love the fact that I can be done with my work within 1 hour after market opening. And it helped me to adapt my personal "trading infrastructure" in such a way that I was able to eliminate all avoidable risk factors, especially those that can completly break you and your account.

 

[Laissez Faire]

People should try to get out of that binary black or white thinking.

Is scalping risky ? What is risk ?

There are countless forms of risk, so first you would have to define what it means to you.

Scalping can decrease some forms of risk (less exposure to adverse movements by less time in the market), but it can also add substantial risk, for example by using huge leverage (to make the small moves you scalp worth the effort).

So there is no "scalping is the best" or "scalping reduces risk" etc. It always depends.

For my personal preference, scalping has been my choice of trading for the past ~10 years. I love the fact that I can be done with my work within 1 hour after market opening. And it helped me to adapt my personal "trading infrastructure" in such a way that I was able to eliminate all avoidable risk factors, especially those that can completly break you and your account.

Agreed. This is the trading style I've gravitated to lately as well. It started out as an experiment, but it's now my main trading plan as the results have been remarkably consistent and since I'm still holding a day time job it's easier to manage without burning out completely.

Done after 2 minutes today.

 

[CALLumbus]

Agreed. This is the trading style I've gravitated to lately as well. It started out as an experiment, but it's now my main trading plan as the results have been remarkably consistent and since I'm still holding a day time job it's easier to manage without burning out completely.

Done after 2 minutes today.

Nice, 2 minutes is really not too much work

Do you still focus on the ES or you prefer the NQ for scalping ?

 

[Laissez Faire]

Nice, 2 minutes is really not too much work

Do you still focus on the ES or you prefer the NQ for scalping ?

Only ES for now.

I don't have enough experience with NQ and so far ES only seems to be working, although I can see why some would prefer NQ instead.

And you?

 

[CALLumbus]

Only ES for now.

I don't have enough experience with NQ and so far ES only seems to be working, although I can see why some would prefer NQ instead.

And you?

90% NQ, the other stuff is mostly for fun and to stay in touch with the different markets.

 

[kroxobor]

Scalping requires a lot of market pattern study and a proper risk management strategy. Since there are numerous trades involved, traders have to deal with several entry and exit points. I think people have a better chance to reap bigger profits in swing trading than scalping.

yeah, another point to take into consideration is transaction costs, in case of heavy scalping they often erase all profit that's why demo trading can be misleading.

 

[Overnight]

yeah, another point to take into consideration is transaction costs, in case of heavy scalping they often erase all profit that's why demo trading can be misleading.

I believe most trading software demo engines can be programmed to implement commissions and fees into the demo trades. It is up to the user to do this though, because by default they are all set to zero.

 

[kroxobor]

I believe most trading software demo engines can be programmed to implement commissions and fees into the demo trades. It is up to the user to do this though, because by default they are all set to zero.

Yeah when you do that many systems become garbage, also slippage is hard to incorporate into backtesting as well, and if you add markup the list of valid trading systems narrows even more.

 

[Dr_Trade]

I believe most trading software demo engines can be programmed to implement commissions and fees into the demo trades. It is up to the user to do this though, because by default they are all set to zero.

Agreed, when I started my forex learning I always added a column of commissions to know what the actual returns. This thing gives us the picture of actual returns.

 

[KCalhoun]

I made $$$ scalping UVXY friday, I've scalped for 20+ years, it's imo alot less risky than holding stuff overnight with gap risk.

I'll likely scalp HX BENE CLF MARK etc today

I love daytrading, though I don't like swingtrading when shit gaps against me, like my KOLD today : p