Good Home for a Forex Scalper?

[Sonicscooter]

I have had this conversation several times with IG, the staff all said the same thing, that they are not bothered what time frame you use on their platform, so i asked specifically about scalping, and received the same answer. Maybe different SB have different policies, perhaps you're just making sweeping statements.

I don't scalp so don't have an axe to grind, and if i did, i wouldn't use an SB.

 

[Sonicscooter]

As posted on the other thread regarding this...BORING subject......


Yesterday i emailed IG regarding scalping, they are happy with it on their platform.


No doubt some poster will question what i have stated on this forum several times and i'm sick of repeating myself to numb wits....so if you don't believe me.

EMAIL THEM YOURSELF.........

 

[Forexmospherian]

I had 3 live accounts with GFT UK between 2006 and 2011/12 and was short term intra day trading with them with capital accounts ranging from approx $70 k up to $220k and trading with stakes ranging from 5 lots up to approx to about 22 lots per pip.

On smaller size stakes under their limit - approx £100 per pip - I would get entries normally under 1 second - maybe 2 seconds some days. Above £100 - approx 15 lots my entries could take from 20 to 45 seconds - to stop me scaling for just a few pips.

I then found out with stakes over approx 10 lots they would not let me exit a trade under 3 minutes.

I adjusted to their rules and even then on 2 pip spreads I would make over 30 pips a day on average with between 5 and 10 trades a day - all lasting normally between 10 mins and 60 mins with average wins approx 8 pips.

I had many months earning over $20k per month with them and they would make before my net earnings $5 to $12k of spread fees.

This was before ECN and straight through etc but its still possible if you know what you are doing and strike the right deal with a SB

Large money and clout does help - as with everything in life

Regards


F

 

[montmorencyt2w]

Hi peeps,

Looking for some advice on SB brokers for a specific forex strategy.

I used to work in the market (LSE) back in the late eighties, traded options, bonds and stocks for private and institutional clients. Also worked in M&A. I'm therefore reasonably savvy but I split from the market after not many years and went washing dishes and working in ski resorts, travelling and general fun, etc.

For reasons I won't bore ya with I've ended up physically disabled and don't have oodles of cash, despite my promising career start but I do have a grand spare to party in the spread betting market with (and too much time on my hands).

For two weeks I've been practicing a trading regime on the DFMarkets dummy account - I trade about five times a day using no more than 50% of the margin I'll be funding whatever account I might open.

I'm usually in and out of the market in 5 -15 minutes on each trade and making reliable daily profits I'm happy with. Occasionally I'll let a trade run longer but I'm ruthless about cutting losses.

I've decided to take the plunge and go live with this strategy but reading this thread am wondering about which SB company to go with as, from some comments herein, it seems I'd be classed as scalping and not welcomed at every door. Trying to research firms on the net seems like wading through treacle for some reason.

The DFMarkets platform has been working for me - I've yet to wade through their full T&C's to check if my trading would be acceptable to them and I've found it hard to find recent reviews/recommendations for them.

I've also looked at Alpari who offer SB accounts trading on MT4 - look OK but again need to read/wade through the full T&C's.

Does anyone have any comment on either of the above brokers please? Or, any specific recommendations of SB brokers who will not object to the kinds of trading described above?

Any helps and advice gratefully received.

This is not a recommendation, since I have never used them, but I'd have thought Prospreads were worth considering, and it looks like they are scalper-friendly.


I was surprised to see that the minimum initial funding now is only £500. I thought it used to be £10k. However, they now offer minilots, so maybe that's the reason.

From the Trading Platform section of their website:

The ProSpreads platform allows you to trade in 4 different ways:
Order ticket – This is the more traditional way of executing any order and is typically utilised by the longer term or less seasoned pro.
Single click – This method is used by the more experienced individual, where speed and simplicity are important. A simple click of the mouse will instantly execute a ‘market’ on ‘limit’ order with a user defined default quantity.
Depth of market – otherwise known as Level 2 execution. Users can place their orders on level 2 screen which shows the underlying depth of market.
Ladder – The ladder is the most popular way to trade and allows the user to place the most common types of order on a dynamic depth of market screen. This is the scalpers choice for executing spread bet orders.
Whichever way you choose to execute your spread bet, ProSpreads will not restrict the level you place any of your orders. You are free to place your limit and stop orders at any price, including at a level which is inside the underlying market spread!

Looks quite attractive to me, and now it only costs £500 to try.

Hmm..there used to be a Prospreads thread here...is it still going?

A downside for some may be that it's offshore (Gibraltar), and not regulated under UK law, although it is regulated under Gibraltar law. (Though I presume that if Gibraltar went bust, the UK would have to bail it out, just to save face, after all the fuss we've made in the past about hanging on to it).

What's to lose by trying it?

....just looked back at your post - I think I was confusing it with someone else's - but I don't think what you are doing is the kind of scalping that most SB firms usually hate.

Do you depend on MT4, btw? Don't think you'd get that with Prospreads, but, as well as Alpari, there's GKFX, IG and Capital Spreads offering MT4 these days (as I was surprised to recently find, having been out of the game for a couple of years). So long as it's only indicators you are needing (and not EA's), you can always use a small account with an MT4 offering for the indicators, but trade elsewhere for execution - no trading from the MT4 chart of course, but that may not be a problem.

Whatever you end up doing, I wish you lots of luck, and don't forget to let us know how you get on.

---

BTW, are there any independent charting providers who provide MT4, so you can code indicators on charts that are independent of the broker you are using, does anybody know? - Thanks.

 

[montmorencyt2w]

http://www.financial-spread-betting.com/Scalping-spreadbetting.html

In the same series of (very interesting) clips from a long interview, he says in response to a question, that the average length of trade with CS is about 5 minutes. He seems perfectly relaxed about this, so I think the OP's trading style should be acceptable to CS, and probably any half-decent SB provider.

 

[montmorencyt2w]

Hi peeps,

Looking for some advice on SB brokers for a specific forex strategy.

I used to work in the market (LSE) back in the late eighties, traded options, bonds and stocks for private and institutional clients. Also worked in M&A. I'm therefore reasonably savvy but I split from the market after not many years and went washing dishes and working in ski resorts, travelling and general fun, etc.

For reasons I won't bore ya with I've ended up physically disabled and don't have oodles of cash, despite my promising career start but I do have a grand spare to party in the spread betting market with (and too much time on my hands).

For two weeks I've been practicing a trading regime on the DFMarkets dummy account - I trade about five times a day using no more than 50% of the margin I'll be funding whatever account I might open.

I'm usually in and out of the market in 5 -15 minutes on each trade and making reliable daily profits I'm happy with. Occasionally I'll let a trade run longer but I'm ruthless about cutting losses.

I've decided to take the plunge and go live with this strategy but reading this thread am wondering about which SB company to go with as, from some comments herein, it seems I'd be classed as scalping and not welcomed at every door. Trying to research firms on the net seems like wading through treacle for some reason.

The DFMarkets platform has been working for me - I've yet to wade through their full T&C's to check if my trading would be acceptable to them and I've found it hard to find recent reviews/recommendations for them.

I've also looked at Alpari who offer SB accounts trading on MT4 - look OK but again need to read/wade through the full T&C's.

Does anyone have any comment on either of the above brokers please? Or, any specific recommendations of SB brokers who will not object to the kinds of trading described above?

Any helps and advice gratefully received.

Are you still around 5UMBloke? I thought of you, because I happened to notice that FXCM UK seemed to be explicitly welcoming (or at least tolerant of) scalpers (however they define the term).

e.g. http://www.fxcm.com/uk/platforms/metatrader-4/benefits-fxcm-mt4/

(in the "trade execution" tab). (And Jason seems fairly laid back about scalping in the FXCM thread.)

Please don't take this as a recommendation, more of a "got to be worth thinking about", sort of comment, if you have no satisfaction elsewhere.
(and it would be nice to hear how you get on, wherever you end up trading).


EDIT: Just for fun, I typed in "scalping" into the search box on their site, and got 3 pages of hits. I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions.

 

[neil324]

15 minutes scalping? That's swing trading.