If you consistantly make money trading news on forex. Do the banks contact your broker and have your account shut down? Since for every dollar you make, they lose one? (if you get filled at the bank's prices).
There's quite obviously a bunch of clever guys in both camps, spot and futs, so perhaps one or more of you could answer a few questions I have about trading FX. (a) If you get the price and size you want does it matter what instrument you use ? (b) Do any of you actually know what price you want, other than relative to the current market ? (c) If actual price isn't important, what is the most important factor when opening a trade ?
the above remark is some kind of joke isn't it ? of course scalping can be done, I know quite a few people who do this day in day out profitably. I am not saying it's easy to learn, in fact it's incredibly hard ...
I myself don't trade the news as such, althoug I might be in from 10 minutes before for example. But in a general sense I would agree with the original poster, if you are really going to be playing the news as such (which still seems a dumb idea to me, fundamentals hardly move the markets in the short term, it's technicals that do, these last get me in nicely before the news) I would trade trade futures. Haven't met anyone however that's clever enough how to interpret fundamental figures coming out, let alone the swings that come with them. In my view the market is going to do after news what it was set out to do allready before and that shows up in the technicals. Worst case, if that's not too clear for me I get flat just a few seconds before news come out. On a side note: I am almost always in the market, always reversing, only in a worst case scenario (me not reading context properly being the cause as is often, like in 95%, very clear a few seconds after the fact) I get flat.