The 1/5 is the execution/comission to the prime broker cost, not the spread. The interbank spreads are 0-5 pips depending on the market you trade but you dont have to PAY the spread, you can bid/offer and be filled at the bid/offer, see full depth of liquidity, no first come first serve order book, etc. Give "Trade your Way to Financial Freedom" By Van Tharp a good read. It will help you figure out why you are or aren't making money over the long run and how to implement solid risk management and exit strategies. I trade with 3 screens, the middle screen right in front of me, is my money management, and trade entry, Exit strategies,trade tracking, Daily journal, etc. All the stuff the really matters in trading is my main focus the other side monitors have the analysis etc on them. There's some good scalping systems at forexfactory. The FX Prime by Canadian Dude is decent, philip Nels 5 minute strategy is decent. You have your head on straight by trading with the trend when scalping, especially since you have to have small negative deviations from your entry. Scalping has the advantage of a high opportunity factor. If you only make 0.1 x your risk on average and can do 10 trades/day at 1% risk/trade that's 1% a day.
Anyway it is cheaper than Oanda and more over than MB Trading. a way cheaper. as you know I am not long term in this.Just 3 months of live trading so far and before 3 months of demo. First 2 live months i practiced but my returns always high. 5-25% a week. But I did have big draw downs in the end. so, i started anew a month ago and generally my progress is very fast. you will see it from my live records. Money/ risk management is a last frontier. Actually I know about 1%rule per trade, 2% per day, 5 per week and 105 per month. But how to implemen it. For now i am doing good. As I understand entries is also part of risk control and my entries are mostly good. I need to control loss on bad entries. It would be great to learn propper risk control. I would certainly trade even better with it.
Trade your way is great. The definitive Guide to Position sizing book at www.iitm.com is even better. It's a huge manual and will take you through the risk/how much process with a fine tooth comb, and give you several ideas to work from. Scalping is great, it just needs to be approached wisely, and the most important factor is the trader behind the screen! As you will learn from Van Tharp, Entries are probably the least important, it's your exit's that determine the outcome of the trade. Your exits say when you take a loss or a profit. Let's say you set up your strategy to gain 1/1 risk reward and with your % winners, you would do really well. Anything above 50% with a 1/1 risk reward will be profitable, 75% winners on that should be a good idea to shoot for. So you could take your stop loss at 5 pips plus spread, so 8 pips all together, set your exit at 8 pips, and shoot for a reasonable degree of accuracy and you will make excellent returns. If you risk 1/2% of your account per trade, do 10 trades/day, at 75% accuracy you will have 7.5 trades win 1/2% and 2.5 trades lose 1/2%. That's 2.5% a day. You could scale it based on your confidence and profitability to as much as 3%, once you get to 3% though you'd better be 75% accurate or it might start to negatively impact your performance. Avoid the risk of ruin at all costs. 1/2% is what i'm comfortable with, and I go up to 1% once I have a buffer built up. This is just examples, hope it helps in some way!
Thank you. I will practice it will my second live acocunt. i wonder. I set stop loss at 5 plus spread and profit at 8. pips. But I rarely take 8 pips. i see hesitation I close position and take profit. But stop loss tends to go to the end. It is always an enigma to me.
by the way, a lot of situations that is untradable with 2-3 pips, are very much tradable with 0-0.5 pips spread.
MOst people are wired to be careful with your profits and careless with your losses. You could simply set a OCO order, stop @ 8 pips, exit @ 8 pips and either one or the other will get hit. If you picked your entry well you should have a good % of winners.
Exactly! Imagine bidding at the bid, being filled, and offering a couple points away. The opportunity factor would go through the roof on that kind of trading.
here is my few between sessions trades so far for today. Managed account i trade in the mornings. Account is up 8.08% in 3 days. it is my testing account. OANDA FXTrade From: November 6 00:00:00 2008 EST To: November 6 23:59:59 2008 EST Serge Shpin shiko2000 Account Number: 313168 (CAD) Account Name: Primary filter transaction history time range of transaction history customize transaction history format for transaction history transaction history help page Account Summary Account: Transaction History Time Range Date Click here to pick the date OR Select a Time Horizon: OR From Click here to pick the date To Click here to pick the date cancel Filter Transaction History Type: Administrative Orders Trades Currency/Currency Pair: CAD EUR/USD cancel * Note: Save only applies to the Type filter. Customize Transaction History Amount Balance Pair Duration Upper Bound Interest Take Profit Lower Bound P/L Price Stop Loss Date Ticket Tran Link Transaction Units apply cancel Transaction History Format HTML CSV cancel Previous version of transaction history Ticket Date Expiry Transaction Pair Price Units Stop Loss Take Profit Tran Link Lower Bound Upper Bound Interest P/L Amount Balance (CAD) 416206567 November 6 16:00:00 2008 EST Interest CAD 0.0035 0.0035 64.69 416220171 November 6 17:21:23 2008 EST Sell Market EUR/USD 1.2734 100 1.2762 1.2709 0.0000 64.69 416220780 November 6 17:23:19 2008 EST Close Trade EUR/USD 1.2729 100 1.2762 1.2709 416220171 0.0000 0.0587 0.0587 64.75 416220841 November 6 17:23:34 2008 EST Sell Market EUR/USD 1.2727 100 1.2755 1.2702 0.0000 64.75 416221566 November 6 17:27:28 2008 EST Change Trade EUR/USD 1.2727 100 1.2756 1.2711 416220841 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 64.75 416221624 November 6 17:28:21 2008 EST Close Trade EUR/USD 1.2725 100 1.2756 1.2711 416220841 0.0000 0.0287 0.0287 64.78 416223064 November 6 17:35:50 2008 EST Sell Market EUR/USD 1.2694 100 1.2722 1.2679 0.0000 64.78 416223321 November 6 17:36:52 2008 EST Change Trade EUR/USD 1.2694 100 1.2726 1.2684 416223064 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 64.78 416223750 November 6 17:38:00 2008 EST Close Trade EUR/USD 1.2688 100 1.2726 1.2684 416223064 0.0000 0.0731 0.0731 64.85 416224024 November 6 17:38:24 2008 EST Sell Market EUR/USD 1.2680 100 1.2708 1.2665 0.0000 64.85 416224766 November 6 17:40:28 2008 EST Close Trade EUR/USD 1.2682 100 1.2708 1.2665 416224024 0.0000 -0.0240 -0.0240 64.83 416226086 November 6 17:45:01 2008 EST Sell Market EUR/USD 1.2684 100 1.2712 1.2664 0.0000 64.83 416226125 November 6 17:45:12 2008 EST Close Trade EUR/USD 1.2682 100 1.2712 1.2664 416226086 0.0000 0.0239 0.0239 64.85