scalping - no longer worth doing?

[adryan87]

1 step forward,10 backA very sure thing to lose your bank

[adryan87]

So,here..to back or not????

[adryan87]

??

[Realrocknrolla]

I’d give up straight away trading off a mobile phone!

Disaster

[Kai]

You're probably not going to have a fun time scalping at these types of ranges below crossovers like 3.0 or 2.0.

Where people usually go wrong is trying to use scalping as a generic strategy on every market, or on trending markets etc. In effect, they end up using the wrong strategy on the wrong market, so it can't exactly be a big surprise when they get wrong results as well.

[jamesg46]

Scalping long term requires stamina. It isn’t the easiest strategy. (On a personal level)

Personally for me scalping is only used when I see the opportunity too. Save the stamina for the wife!

There are many other strategies to make money out of a single market. If that opportunity doesn’t appear, I know the next market will present one!

Most of my time when trading I am looking for opportunities/reasons to enter the market. The actual time I have money in the market isn’t comparable.

That’s exactly how I feel about scalping… i find it exhausting. It mentally fu*ks with me too, I feel so much more pressure going for a 1 tick scalp than I do for a swing trade.

I get so bent out of shape if I lose more than a tick, it will leave me fuming with myself… I just don’t have the personality for it.

How those guys who machine gun the market with bets which get cancelled, scratched, re - placed etc can trade all day is beyond me… I’d need a nap & a comfort blanket between trades & a psychiatrist at the end of the session.

[zippus]

I like this thread. Some decent advice on here.

It's definitely possible if you can manage the downside. Trading the crossover points is a decent way of doing it IMHO. I started scalping on the ladders earlier this month and was doing great until a couple of trades went against me yesterday. I was guilty of over-staking and poor exiting but it's something to work on.

[Realrocknrolla]

Scalping long term requires stamina. It isn’t the easiest strategy. (On a personal level)

Personally for me scalping is only used when I see the opportunity too. Save the stamina for the wife!

There are many other strategies to make money out of a single market. If that opportunity doesn’t appear, I know the next market will present one!

Most of my time when trading I am looking for opportunities/reasons to enter the market. The actual time I have money in the market isn’t comparable.

I’d need a nap & a comfort blanket between trades & a psychiatrist at the end of the session.

[Kai]

Scalping long term requires stamina. It isn’t the easiest strategy. (On a personal level)

Personally for me scalping is only used when I see the opportunity too. Save the stamina for the wife!

There are many other strategies to make money out of a single market. If that opportunity doesn’t appear, I know the next market will present one!

Most of my time when trading I am looking for opportunities/reasons to enter the market. The actual time I have money in the market isn’t comparable.

That’s exactly how I feel about scalping… i find it exhausting. It mentally fu*ks with me too, I feel so much more pressure going for a 1 tick scalp than I do for a swing trade.

I get so bent out of shape if I lose more than a tick, it will leave me fuming with myself… I just don’t have the personality for it.

How those guys who machine gun the market with bets which get cancelled, scratched, re - placed etc can trade all day is beyond me… I’d need a nap & a comfort blanket between trades & a psychiatrist at the end of the session.

Lol, because you already know that the reward of 1 tick is probably not worth the risk you're exposing yourself to in those situations.

But "scalping" is supposed to be the opposite when utilized properly, the concept is to get a fast scalp which you can recycle multiple times. For this you obviously need a LIQUID market, because scalping in a dead market is more speculating than scalping.

When you see or hear people "actively scalping", that's not really scalping either, it's market making. This means putting stakes everywhere on both sides and managing the risk from there based on what gets matched, usually applied on sideways trading markets where traders feel fully in control.

[jamesg46]

Scalping long term requires stamina. It isn’t the easiest strategy. (On a personal level)

Personally for me scalping is only used when I see the opportunity too. Save the stamina for the wife!

There are many other strategies to make money out of a single market. If that opportunity doesn’t appear, I know the next market will present one!

Most of my time when trading I am looking for opportunities/reasons to enter the market. The actual time I have money in the market isn’t comparable.

That’s exactly how I feel about scalping… i find it exhausting. It mentally fu*ks with me too, I feel so much more pressure going for a 1 tick scalp than I do for a swing trade.

I get so bent out of shape if I lose more than a tick, it will leave me fuming with myself… I just don’t have the personality for it.

How those guys who machine gun the market with bets which get cancelled, scratched, re - placed etc can trade all day is beyond me… I’d need a nap & a comfort blanket between trades & a psychiatrist at the end of the session.

Lol, because you already know that the reward of 1 tick is probably not worth the risk you're exposing yourself to in those situations.

But "scalping" is supposed to be the opposite when utilized properly, the concept is to get a fast scalp which you can recycle multiple times. For this you obviously need a LIQUID market, because scalping in a dead market is more speculating than scalping.

When you see or hear people "actively scalping", that's not really scalping either, it's market making. This means putting stakes everywhere on both sides and managing the risk from there based on what gets matched, usually applied on sideways trading markets where traders feel fully in control.

It seems it is a very popular but miss understood strategy because market making is labelled a lot on socials as scalping and very often in the wrong market environment (like you pointed out to the above forum poster). Tbh I’ve even confused market making with scalping and didn’t even think about the difference until you posted this.

[Kai]

Well, scalping 1 tick at a time with a single stake (how people usually perceive it) is generally not very efficient, by the time you get that 1 tick you could have maybe gotten 3 or 4 with a market making approach etc. Have to apply some logic and ask yourself what are you trying to scalp here, the market noise or the trend or what? On big volume markets 1 tick is good enough with larger stakes if you're patient enough, especially at higher prices where individual ticks are actually worth something, unlike the ticks below 3 or 2.

But speaking of logic again, if adryan87 above tries to scalp a swingy market then this doesn't sound very logical at all, if the price can swing back and forth with such ease at these types of swingy ranges then why on Earth would anyone want to try and scalp 1 tick at a time there, when you break it down it sounds like an extremely naive approach.

How I see it the goal with scalping is to win a similar amount of ticks like you would from a swing trade, on markets that DON'T present swing opportunities. But many probably see it as a generic strategy to use on every market!

Goes without saying that some markets are just plain shit as well, not liquid enough to scalp and without clear-cut swing opportunities, but it's not like somebody is forcing you to trade them. Discarding shit markets is believe it or not a +EV approach

[Realrocknrolla]

Well, scalping 1 tick at a time with a single stake (how people usually perceive it) is generally not very efficient, by the time you get that 1 tick you could have maybe gotten 3 or 4 with a market making approach etc. Have to apply some logic and ask yourself what are you trying to scalp here, the market noise or the trend or what? On big volume markets 1 tick is good enough with larger stakes if you're patient enough, especially at higher prices where individual ticks are actually worth something, unlike the ticks below 3 or 2.

But speaking of logic again, if adryan87 above tries to scalp a swingy market then this doesn't sound very logical at all, if the price can swing back and forth with such ease at these types of swingy ranges then why on Earth would anyone want to try and scalp 1 tick at a time there, when you break it down it sounds like an extremely naive approach.

How I see it the goal with scalping is to win a similar amount of ticks like you would from a swing trade, on markets that DON'T present swing opportunities. But many probably see it as a generic strategy to use on every market!

Goes without saying that some markets are just plain shit as well, not liquid enough to scalp and without clear-cut swing opportunities, but it's not like somebody is forcing you to trade them. Discarding shit markets is believe it or not a +EV approach

Love the terminology.

Generally speaking discarding shit is good all round!

[wstewart]

Hi guys

Good thread for someone like me.

I trade crypto but I'm looking to get into the sports markets using auto(or semi) automation and trades that get me a decent amount of ticks. That it would seem to me would be swing trading??

I am doing the good old fashioned, not very effective older style, scalping and I am doing this as I go through some materials that I have.
It's a good way to see how the market moves etc.

I obviously am no good at it and sometimes I win and sometimes I don't. I am in practice mode on B Angel and the thing is I don't know why I won or lost but I think it is down to sheer luck - good or bad.

Can someone point me in the right direction in terms of learning material please?

I am looking to do this full time as I already do that in crypto but it doesn't take up much of my time.

I would prefer coaching but I am completely unsure where or even who does it.

Any help would be appreciated and even if it was a list of things not to do as it will save me time will be helpful.

Regards

William...

[wilf]

If you're new, I would recommend focussing on swing trading, as I find there are a lot more opportunities. Even if you scalp and get one tick, then on the next trade it could go right through you, and then you've lost 5 ticks. If you're just trying to get one tick in every trade on every market, you'll just end up with a headache.

If you're looking to scalp, then these are the points to do it. It's just solid at 10's and with it being a crossover point even better risk vs reward.

[wstewart]

Thanks wilf, appreciate that.

I'm already looking at swing trading and got Peters free course to look at.

It doesn't take long to figure out that scalping goes up n down and there's no stability in it.

Taking a position then trading it out is my thinking and along with some experience I think that's where I'll be heading.

Swing trading for me in crypto is from 1 or 2 days to a few weeks at most. I know swing trading here is in a market that lasts 10-20 minutes or even less.

W