i recently spoke with a recruiter for a small start up firm. the guy described their strategy as "scalping" and said it was all about high frequency and small profits, not a big learning curve. theres no capital contribution, and the payout is roughly 50%. some people i know who have been trading for a while said it might not be very lucrative, but im thinking if i don't make money the firm doesn't make money, right? so how can i go wrong? can somebody provide insight into this kind of trading? what might be some pitfalls i should look out for? what questions should i ask the recruiter to help me determine if this could be lucrative or not? is it also possible that theyre looking to hire people to churn the account and generate commissions for their broker-dealer, without much regard if the trader makes enough money for himself? can scalping be very profitable or is it kind of a dead end? is this a good opportunity or a waste of time? please, help guide me!
he lied to you high frequency scalping can be done with 5 tics up down minimum but scalping for 1-3 ticks up down is not possible for human being only for algos NOW If you are scalping 5 ticks or more successfully you are a rare human being. So what firms do is they let you scalp and they automatically take the other side because 99% of scalpers are loser if you are 1 in 100 that is good. They turn off taking other side for your specific account tis a trick aunt Helga tis a trick
don't listen to that guy below. scalping at a prop firm is the easiest way to become a successful trader. starting as a retail trader you are most likely undercapitalized with no experience. that is a born to lose proposition. compare that to prop trading where you put up no bank, don't have to eat the losses and have a tiny fee structure that allows you to make hundreds of trades a day. it's a mystery to me why all people who are interested in trading don't start at a prop shop. if you are good you will make excellent money and if you aren't then you will know that trading is not for you and you can move on with your life. invariably, people who know nothing about prop shops are the ones who have bad things to say about it. it's just pure ignorance talking.
scalping can be automated. which is why prop trading by humans manually trading is a dying species. scalping is low risk low profit strategy mostly for daytrading. scalping is too small for fund managers and waste of time for swing traders. only reason for scalping is the you can take huge leverage you other wise would not take overnight. in scalping you can max out leverage wheres swing trader cannot use too much leverage. i like scalping because you don't need to take any positions overnight and don't need the risk and don't pay any interest on overnight positions and life is easier with no overnight positions... scalping is making quick money. easy money and low risk but low profit mostly high frequency traders..which many guys have automated. if you do it manually it's gets very tiring and exhausting on the head and feels like 'real' job.
on cue, the non-prop traders aka failed frustrated retail traders show up to denounce what they fail to understand. there is another thread where people are talking about how much capital you need to successfully trade and people are throwing around numbers like 500k and 1 million!!!! why in the hell would you put up your entire life savings to trade when you can get 1 million BP with 5-10k bank at a prop shop? to the original poster: go look at the P/L threads in the journal section from the past few years. you'll find all the best traders are prop traders. people who started scalping with a few hundred shares for a few cents and are now capable of making 6 figures in one day with the same strategy. with the accelerated learning curve, no capital and low fees all beginning traders should start at a prop firm to maximize their chances of success.