Guys, no MT4 broker with a regular retail (non-ECN or Currenex-type) feed will allow scalping. Part of what we do is fund traders and we have been looking for a scalping MT4 broker for the last year for our bot programs and there are none. Believe me. The thing is that I have met a lot of traders that have EA's that will "pick off" retails brokers and take them to the cleaners. They won't allow this and will trade against you or disable your account if you do this. The future of scalping is not the retail, fixed-spread, no-commission BS model. That model is completely artificial. MT4 is designed to allow brokers to play all sorts of games with the price "feeds." Any MT4 administrator that's your buddy will tell you this. The future of active trading (and of forex in general) is the ECN-based and the Currenex-type model. If you use this model, you will pay a commission when you trade. This is the way the equities and futures markets work already. I have spoken and been in negotiations with all the MT4 firms that are trying to integrate the Currenex feed into MT4. No one has successfully done this yet and there are a lot of problems doing so. For example, MT4 was not designed to accept "partial fills," but currenex has this option. This increases the number of orders rejected especially in a fast market. I just got off the phone with COESfx and they are sending me an MT4 demo with their "live" feed, but I don't think they got everything ready yet. I am not sure what their liquidity is either compared to Currenex or HotSpotFxi. We'll see. Good luck.
A full-scalping would often lead to serious medical complications. This included profuse bleeding, infection, and eventual death if the bone of the skull was left exposed. Death could also occur from septicemia, meningitis or necrosis of the skull.
Hold on there pilgrim. Understand that CurreneX has "hubs" of liquidity. So this means that depending on the "hub" your broker has you in, that is where you will execute. Soooo, 0035 might be showing on the "DOM", but you cannot execute against it because the .0035 is in another hub. This is how they can add liquidity, just add more hubs to your account. It also keeps you penned in. I have heard that CurreneX also has a "last look feature" for the Prime Brokers, or "market making banks". This allows them to reject an order if it moves against them. I personally have not seen this, nor am I saying it exists, I am just saying that I have heard that it happens. In our communications, Hotspot has assured us that they do not have this weakness, what you see is what you get. Now as far as Oanda, IB and I think MB are concerned they both have those "artificially" widening spreads during volatile times. The reason I say artificial is that the market does not trade that way, and on the CurreneX and Hotspot feeds you don't see much widening at all. So that model would not be a true ECN, because they are interfering with the natural ebb and flow of the market. If you want to see a true ECN at work, get a Level 2 demo and watch the qqqs, my favorite to trade, and you will get an Idea how it is supposed to work. So the thought of having Level 2 on Forex is, in my observation, "Many Moons Away" The Ever Dukesque VIPER
TradeViper, Thank for the info! Understand that CurreneX has "hubs" of liquidity. So this means that depending on the "hub" your broker has you in, that is where you will execute. Soooo, 0035 might be showing on the "DOM", but you cannot execute against it because the .0035 is in another hub. This is how they can add liquidity, just add more hubs to your account. It also keeps you penned in. Michael B.
You haven't done your home work, @ danger66 I think http://www.z-forex.com/ allow scalping and they have MT4.
james, z-forex.com is an introducing broker for MIG Investments in Switzerland. MIG offers "fixed spreads" with no commissions. We all know that "fixed" spreads are exactly that - "fixed." First of all, the last thing someone who truly wants to scalp should do is go with a broker that offers "artificial" spreads. Second of all, I work with traders that have been kicked out of every US and European broker for scalping. MIG Investments is no different. I have heard pretty bad stories about them too. Lastly, nowhere on MIG's site do they mention the word "scalping." The fact remains, if you want to scalp, don't go to a fixed-spread broker. Toby400, I have been told by an experienced scalper that OANDA does not allow scalping or news trading. I work with a trader that has been kicked out by them already for scalping. TradeViper, you bring up a good point: what the heck is "scalping." I would say, "generating quick, small profits," but that brings two subjective terms into the definition: "quick" and "small." What is "quick?" When I look for a scalper, I look for someone that gets in and out of most trades in 0 to 1 minute. What is "small?" I don't really put a limitation on this. Why would I? But in general, scalps are between 1 to 3 pips - even though scalping during news releases can generate substantially more than that. Just my two-cents worth. Couldn't help myself.
Generally speaking your dealer/marketmaker does not care if you are profitable or not. but... If you interfere speed-wise with their hedging routine or in some case their ability to trade against you ...then you are attacking their purse-strings, thus they intervene. Thus scalping...picking...taking advantage of temporal imbalance...naughty trading...and the likes pop up in the global retail forex world. Scalping began back with the SOES traders....this was temporal imbalance arbing in the naz with speed...this is where "scalping" came from and its origin... Michaael B.
Invetopedia http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/scalping.asp A trading strategy that attempts to make many profits on small price changes. Traders who implement this strategy will place anywhere from 10 to a couple hundred trades in a single day in the belief that small moves in stock price are easier to catch than large ones. Traders who implement this strategy are known as scalpers. The main goal is to buy (or sell) a number of shares at the bid (or ask) price and then quickly sell them a few cents higher (or lower) for a profit. Many small profits can easily compound into large gains if a strict exit strategy is used to prevent large losses