[SwingTradinJay]

Well, I could still argue swing trading is much better to start with. Not all swing systems have big stops actually, which allows me to sleep. Lol. Also, position sizing assures I sleep.

I'm redirecting any new traders to stay away from scalping-unless they WANT to be food..aka: Getting Scalped!

If you do good scalping, keep doing what works...I mean professional scalpers need noobs to attempt scalping, otherwise there's a lot less money on the table...as a swing trader, I'm not hitting bids or asks every 10 minutes, thus much less risk.

Everyone finds their own style that works, but not if you blowup.

I have fairly easy trades which are hundreds of pips, and sometimes it may last hours-days, but I've found waiting to be a better Risk:Reward ratio.

Plus, retail scalping is more of a joke, unless your spreads are super tight? I swing gbp/jpy which has a pretty wide spread. Even eur/gbp is too wide...
I could scalp eur/usd, but there's no point. I can do less-work for more reward.

I have a buddy who hit 900% since he started scalping 2 min charts: the only problem is his risk reward...at times I've seen him bet the farm, for only 10-70 pts on a currency pair...which tells me he's not the only gambler/trader out there! But hey, keep doing what works...
It was cool to see his account go from 4.5k-40k lol.


I believe Jesse Livermore was quoted saying something about how the longer trades made him the most money versus the "small wiggles during daily movement."

[SwingTradinJay]

Originally Posted by OAC »

It has always been swing traders bad mouthing scalping and not the other way around. I wonder why ?
May be they don't get much soundful sleep during the night ?

Lol, I can answer this...
Swing traders bad mouth the scalpers cuz' they once got scalped!

...and how many scalpers scold themselves because their entry was good for a much bigger profit? Ah ha, the mystery of the markets

[OAC]

The first scalp trade I have ever done was with Nasdaq stocks back in 1996 in the days of the SOES bandit. I was working out of this trading firm and we did a form of scalping called fishing. Let say a stock is tanking fast usually due to some news release and is dropping fast from 70s to 50s and currently trading at 51 1/8 ask, 50 7/8 bid. I would submit a bid at 50 7/16. Because of the panic and the large amount of sell orders that came in, my bid at below market would mistakenly get hit because they saw the 7, but mistaken 1/16 for 1/8.
So I would get filled on 50 7/16 for 1000 shares and immediately hit the bid of 50 7/8 for 1000 shares and pocketed for myself $437.50 in about 5 seconds.
It was like free money.
And I felt like a bucket shop operator. Haha

[Hlm]

I take it by scalping you mean aiming for a few ticks, scaling in and out, and possibly trading off the pressure shown on the DOM. There is a lot of space between scalping and swing trading.

[diablo272]

Originally Posted by SwingTradinJay »

...and how many scalpers scold themselves because their entry was good for a much bigger profit? Ah ha, the mystery of the markets

The purpose of scalping is to make many small wins instead of one big one. A scalping system is DESIGNED to take small profits, and if you find yourself regretting following your system, you will probably have trouble regardless of your timeframe.

I have a few other counterpoints to make regarding scalping. First, you say that by scalping, you miss out on profits. Well if you swing trade, you also miss out on profits, like when a market is consolidating for example. You also mention that lower trade frequency means lower risk, but this is not necessarily true and is completely dependent on the two systems you're comparing (what is the expectancy for the swing system and what is the expectancy for the scalp system?). Finally, you mention that scalping is not good for "risk-averse types", but again this is very ambiguous. While you may be more comfortable keeping a trade open for hours or days on end, it is more comfortable for others to only keep trades open for seconds or minutes at most, but to have a higher trade frequency.

It sounds to me like scalping may not suit you, but that you are in no place to be telling others that scalping is "BS".

[OAC]

Originally Posted by Hlm »

I take it by scalping you mean aiming for a few ticks, scaling in and out, and possibly trading off the pressure shown on the DOM. There is a lot of space between scalping and swing trading.

When a scalp trade fails, it becomes an intra-day position trade.
When an intra-day position trade fails, it becomes an overnight trade.
When an overnight trade fails, and you go back to your day job and become a swing trader.

[BennyHey]

Originally Posted by SwingTradinJay »

It is actually easier to catch 500 pips in one trade than it is to catch 25 trades of 20pts each. Scalping is a mistake for most...

I doubt the bigs sit around to scalp for a few pips...No they do not
Plus you're working against the spread, market makers, and expert scalpers with highly specialized scalping platforms...

If all you do is scalp, you leave hundreds, sometimes thousands of pips on the table...
I mean all you need is to swing correctly and you've got a cool 150-500 pips in a few days.
And it's not even WORK! It's getting in, monitor, and wait. To me trading is about doing as little "work" possible...I've already read books, scalped hundreds of trades..i've learned the hard way and paid in cash and screen time: so trust me, scalping is BS (for newbs and risk-averse types).

peace

I agree, I think most trading systems for sale out there have an inverted Risk/Reward ratio. That said you need to have a very high winning percentage just to break even. I have spent a lot of money trying to increase my knowledge and find most of these types of courses to not hold up under real world trading conditions. Slippage, commissions, and not getting filled on limit orders chew theses systems up.
I think you are better off starting with a system that has at least a 2-1 RRR and fewer traders per day. This will preserve your capital for a while while you are still learning the ropes.

BennyHey

[Hlm]

Originally Posted by OAC »

When a scalp trade fails, it becomes an intra-day position trade.
When an intra-day position trade fails, it becomes an overnight trade.
When an overnight trade fails, and you go back to your day job and become a swing trader.

Haha, nice.

I just wanted him to clarify because many times when people talk about scalping, they are referring to reading resting orders in the DOM and/or a strategy that is time frame dependent (can't easily and effortlessly be played on longer time frames). For someone who uses a time frame independent strategy, a setup is no different if it's aiming to take a few points over a few minutes or a few dozen over a longer period.