Forex is a highly volatile type of trading market. Get more information on how to trade here. You need to have a range of strategies to succeed in such a cut-throat business.
There are many ways in which you can involve yourself in the market. One of the most popular ways is through scalping. Forex scalping is an increasingly popular way of entering the market by adopting a minimal amount of risk.
Read on if you want to find out more about how this part of Forex trading works.
What is Scalping?
The Forex scalper adopts a position of low risk and low reward. As we know, the amount of reward directly correlates with the amount of risk you take on. Scalpers will place a number of small bets instead of a few large bets.
This is only part of what characterises a scalper, though. Most scalpers will only remain in their chosen market for a few minutes at the most. It’s a strategy designed to take the top off a trend and profit from it. Most transactions typically last about two to five minutes.
The reason why you shouldn’t attempt to make the trade last any longer is because the risk becomes too great. Anything longer than five minutes tends to increase the risk by such an amount it constitutes conventional day trading.
Scalpers must confront the main danger of sliding into day trading tendencies, such as when they’re attempting to ride profits. A successful scalper will have a larger number of small yet profitable investments than bad ones.
Where Does the Inspiration Come From?
The inspiration for the scalping strategy comes from traders who want to ride out luck. Luck will always play a part in whether someone has a successful day of trading or not. The scalper believes they will be able to ride out bad luck by having smaller investments. Even if they don’t succeed, they’ll be able to have multiple wagers fail before they enter a crisis.
On the other hand, a conventional day trader might suffer a couple of losses. They would declare it a serious crisis because of the increased amount of money involved.
Scaling In
Scaling In is one of the most highly debated strategies within scalping circles. It’s a risk management-based strategy that can prove effective in small doses.
Most trades will involve a trader having a single position with a single entry. If this fails, the game is up and you’ve lost your money. Scaling in will involve multiple entry points. It might involve creating a central position and designating multiple entry points in the form of halves and quarters.
If you’re unsure about the movement of a currency, this could be the best option for you. It’s also ideal for hedging your bets should the market turn against you.
Some people will simply remove all their positions when they’re happy with the position of the market after their trading time has elapsed. Others will remove positions and make new ones as the market moves.
It involves a close attention to detail and the ability to make quick decisions on the fly. Some previous fundamental analysis will be helpful.
Using the Moving Average
There are so many Forex tools used to calculate the moving average of a specific market. Use one of them. Make sure the tool can also plant the average on your graph. This will enable you to tell when the graph is operating at above its average or below its average.
Now you have an idea of where the market is and how likely it is to go up or go down. You want to try to spot an entry point at the start of a trend. Use your favourite technical trigger to find your entry point. Oscillators are amongst the most common technical triggers available.
Once you’ve found your entry point, make your trade. The moving average bar will continue to move. If you start to see the bar dropping down again, it could indicate a new trend in the market. Traders who have entered at the point of a false trend will want to evacuate immediately.
A false trend is where you’ve placed a trade with the view to riding an upward or downward trend, but it’s turned the other way. As a scalper, get out of there. Day traders might be willing to ride it out, but there’s no telling whether it will recover before your five minutes are up.
It simply means you entered at the wrong point. Try it again by repeating the steps given in this section.
Shooting Star
If you’re playing with currencies with medium volatility, such as the USD/GBP currency pair, you might want to try the shooting star strategy. With this strategy, you’ll be working for five minutes, so it edges the boundary of scalper and day trader.
Look for a shooting star trend after a large upward trend. In this case, you’ll be looking for the currency pair to ascend above the moving average. The shooting star frame is where the graph mimics the movement of a shooting star by curving upwards above the average.
You’re looking for the currency pair to become overbought. This is where you open your sell order and pounce. This price isn’t sustainable. At around 14 periods above the average, there’s no chance of this price remaining for more than a few minutes.
The reason why it becomes overbought is because most people will attempt to ride the profit. You’ll catch people without sufficient knowledge and software off their guards.
It’s an easy way to make up to a 50 per cent profit without doing much of anything.
Diversification
Overall, you have to attempt to diversify the way you approach the Forex market. You shouldn’t sit in front of your computer looking to employ a specific strategy, or you’ll miss out on other opportunities.
The key to scalping success is to learn how to spot openings for different strategies, and this can only come with extensive practice.
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