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Scalping strategies and methods

What is Internet trading?

Technically Internet trading is a process of trading or an act of purchase and sale on the financial Forex market over the Internet.  Some Internet traders who trade Forex compare trading with hunting and see themselves as wild animals. Others describe trading as like being a ship in a violent storm at sea. Some even see trading as a lucky fountain where people throw in coins and make a wish. Forex trading using a scalping strategy is more like the lucky fountain full of coins.

On the face of it, you would think that simply gathering up the coins from the bottom of the fountain is easy and risk-free.  But the bottom is slippery and you can easily slip over and scatter all the coins. This strategy represents the generation of profit from Forex market transactions, which sometimes last less than several minutes. So, unlike Internet traders, who operate with large amounts of money and are ready to wait for a long time to make a profit, traders using scalping strategies make money on a large number of small transactions.

To use a scalping strategy successfully, it is very important to learn how to exit a transaction with minimal losses.

Here we will consider three trading approaches which use a scalping strategy to make profit. They are:

• Play on Time, Trade against a Trend and Trade along a Trend.
• Play on Time
• This category has a number of variants to it.

The first method is known as the 15-minute opening range breakout. The distinctive feature of this method is that profit is taken very quickly and a transaction rarely lasts longer than one minute. The method used here is to wait for a breakout to form and then enter the market a couple of ticks higher than maximum or a couple of ticks lower than minimum. Having made one point profit, you should close your position.

The next method can be called “shake-up at 10 o’clock”. This is based on New York time, where an attempt to reverse trend occurs at that time. You wait for the first 15-minute bar to close and watch. If the market is near the day maximum within the first half an hour, you should be ready to open a short position and vice versa : i.e. the market is near the day minimum then you should open a long position. You enter one tick after the maximum of the last 15-minute bar at short positions and one tick after the minimum at long positions. Having made a one and a half point profit, you exit.

The final variant is called “shake-up at 1500”, again, New York time. Here you should buy if the Forex market was moving down for half an hour before 3pm and sell if the Forex market was moving up. The exit rules are similar to the previous methods. Cancel all orders in half an hour.

Trade against a Trend

A method of trading against a trend is known as a “cents collector”. To do this you examine candle charts to find bullish and bearish “swallowed” candles. This strategy allows you to perform transactions only in the first and the last hours of trade. As soon as you make a one point profit, you should exit.

Trade along a Trend

There are various methods when trading along a trend. The first one is known as forex scalping with standard deviation. This approach suggests a re-entry into the Forex market at pullback, i.e. you should enter the market only at major pullbacks. In case of an ascending trend you should buy on pullbacks down, and if there is a descending trend, you should sell on pullbacks up. While working with this method it is better to use a 10-minute candle chart and a moving average with period 10, putting them one above another. Having made two points profit, you should close the position.

The next Trade along a Trend method we will look at is called the “anti” method.

To do this you need a 5-minute candle chart on which you should use the slow stochastic with a period of 7 and its moving average with period 10. When the stochastic crosses the moving average above at the close of any 5-minute period, you should buy and vice versa. Again, having made two points profit, you close the positions. Repeated entries are not recommended in this strategy. We’ve briefly described several forex scalping strategies in this article. Internet traders, who use these approaches should act quickly and resolutely. But you should be prepared for losses and understand that a scalping strategy doesn’t bring large profit instantly. You will gather your profit slowly, but each earned cent will give you priceless experience of trading on the Forex market. As a result, your Internet trading skills will be sharpening. Don’t forget that there is no such thing as easy money and it takes effort and patience to make large profits!

Read more about forex scalping

Why 95% of novice traders lose their money within 1 year


It’s well known that 95% of novice traders lose their money within 1 year. But is this actually true and if it is, why is this happening? I believe it is true. And here’s why.More than 95% of novice traders with small initial deposits lose their money. Note that I’m making reference to “small initial deposits”. The greater size of the initial capital the less likely you are to lose money and vice versa.  So, if you have an account of less than $1000, it’s very likely you will lose this money. In fact, there’s a 97% chance it will all be gone within the first 3 months.

But if your account is $50,000 or more, then you are more likely to make money trading on the forex market.
This presentation isn’t saying that you should open an account with a large sum of money but it will show you how you can make money on the forex market starting with a small initial deposit.  Before we can do that, we need to understand why traders with large accounts are more likely to earn in the forex market.

The 3 most important reasons are:

1.      Brokers provide better conditions: spread, execution time, no dealing desk
2.      Traders with larger accounts will usually deal in lots that make up a smaller percentage of their overall deposit; about 1-2 %. Whereas traders with smaller accounts trade with lot sizes that account for about 10-20 % of their deposit.
3.      Traders have access to more information - forex analytics,  etc.

Ok.  So how can you start trading and be successful with a deposit of $5000 or more?

First of all you should set up with a real ECN brokerage company.
Do not expect that the broker will bring your orders to the interbank, because banks and institutional brokers have a lot minimum of 1. But a lot of brokers have their own price aggregators and they will allow you to trade with lot of 0.1 without manual intervention. But don’t just choose any broker and be wary of online reviews as they are usually created to advertise a particular brokerage company that may not be the most reliable.

Second - Money management.
You should not risk more than 5%. Actually I would recommend 1 – 2%.For example if you have a current account balance of $10,000 and the expert advisor can open 3 orders simultaneously, your order size should be 10 000 x 5% / 3 orders = 166 = 0.17 lot I’d also recommend not using any Martingale strategies or trading without stop loss.

Third - Information and Knowledge
There is a saying that if you have never worked the lathe and you try to carve detail, you’re very likely (about 97% likely!) to damage your fingers. Similarly, the forex market punishes inexperienced traders.It usually takes about 3 -5 years to develop your own profitable strategies and become successful in the forex market.You can lose a lot in this time including your enthusiasm for trading and thousands of dollars.

So this is why I would recommend that you find and buy a good stable, forex robot and start earning money within a couple of hours.

This does not prevent you from simultaneously developing your own method of forex trading.

As a guide, the Forex Robot should be tested on real accounts for at least 1 year. You should also check how the robot trades in both flat and trend market conditions. As with broker reviews, don’t always trust the online forex robot reviews or ratings, as they are also usually only advertising a specific forex robot, which won’t always be the most reliable.
What you should trust are time-tested forex strategies, developers and real account proofs.  So with this in mind, I would recommend the expert advisor TFOT. You can find more information about this robot here: http://iticsoftware.com/fxrobot-tfot

execution speed


Are you a Forex Trader, Forex Money Manager or Forex Signal Provider? If so, have you ever thought about how much execution speed matters? And how often does the speed of executing really make a difference?

As an example, let’s look at fast market conditions during a period of economic news: In a fast market, there can be up to 250 price changes per minute. This means that the market can move four ticks in one second.  So for an average price of a EUR/USD currency pair there will be changes of 2 pips per second.

In this scenario a 1 second delay leads to a loss of about 200 USD on each standard lot. If you open 5 orders per day you can lose 200 x 5 = 1000 USD per day.

Execution speed makes a difference in another way as well. We all know that there is an edge to being first in the queue because the sooner a trader places an order, the more likely the order will be filled when the market touches that level. Also, do you know where your orders will be resting if there are Internet connectivity problems?

So the main factors affecting the speed of execution:
- Trading terminal delay
- Internet connection delay
- Broker execution time

If you use a MetaTrader 4 terminal, delays will occur at each stage of the transaction. Specifically there will be delays from using MT4 itself, plus the delay as information travels across the internet and the time it takes for the trade to be executed by the broker:
MT4 delay = 600 milliseconds
Internet connection delay = about 100 milliseconds
Broker execution time = about 200 milliseconds

And if you use two or more Expert Advisors, this can increase the delay as MT4 only has one flow, so when the first Expert Advisor sends an order, the other expert advisors wait.

How can you reduce this latency?

First, open an account with Real ECN Brokerage Company with stream quotes. Then find a virtual server near the broker’s server with a fast internet connection. You can then ping the broker’s server from the VPS.
If you use two or more expert advisors, install two or more MetaTrader 4 terminals with the same account number and password. And use one terminal for one expert advisor.

By doing this, you will avoid any delays due to the error “trade context is busy”.
If you trade on several accounts, for example you are a forex money manager or signal provider, you are most likely to be using a forex account copier.

Almost all forex account copiers are based on MetaTrader expert advisors or scripts.
Expert Advisor (or scripts) compares open orders on the master account and sub-accounts every 0.5 – 1 sec.
So this adds in yet more delay bringing your total delay up to a minimum of 3 seconds.
So how can Money Managers or Signal Providers reduce latency and save thousands for you and your clients?
PowerTradeCopier – this is a forex account copier based on MT4 API. This software works directly with brokers’ servers and you do not need to run and keep running MetaTrader 4 terminals.
PowerTradeCopier sends thousands of orders to different brokerage companies at the same time via 250 flows.  
This approach allows you to open / modify /close orders 1.5 seconds faster so saving money for you and your clients.

Other features are:

Copy orders from 4 digit quotes to 5 digit quotes and vice versa.
Work with different quotes symbols (EURUSD_FX, usdjpy_m, etc.).
 Copies signals of Expert Advisors as well as manual trades
With PowerTradeCopier you can copy trades via the internet – useful for forex signal providers.
PowerTradeCopier contains the FIX API module that allows you to send your orders to banks or brokers via FIX protocol.
For example: Currenex, ADSS, AMIFX, MIG Bank, etc.
For more information about PowerTradeCopier please visit the website at:  http://multiterminal.net

Forex Robot

So what is a Forex Robot?

'Forex Robot' can be an alternate name for the system-based approach to dealing.  Robots are sets of established guidelines that determine the point at which hotspots in markets that particular stocks should be bought or sold.
Forex Robot will use the standard technical analysis devices to assist with the specification of the guidelines.
To present an illustration, its criteria might be started upon indicators such as Stochastic Oscillators, Bollinger Bands, Relative Strength and Moving Average.

Just how do the Forex Robots work precisely?

It could be that one tool may well allow a buy to occur right after a particular point of the relative strength is exceeded. Nevertheless, this won't make up a 'system' so far as the Forex Robots are concerned as it only pertains to just one component of a deal, so it is standard for rules to be composed of blended indicators.
So, it could be the situation that short-term and long-term moving average limits the Moving Average Crossover system incorporates, designs a guide that declares the short-term must go higher in comparison to the long-term before acquisitions could be performed. Or, when the opposite situation takes place, the Forex Robots will elect to sell.

Rules of this nature will supply the basis for the system's results therefore ought to successfully regulate risk, give long-term stability and boost the gain for each and every deal. To satisfy all these goals, each and every rules' limits needs to be modified.  From the instance of the Moving Average Crossover, a dealer should decide if either the 10 or 30 day average is the better approach to maximise its performance prior to modifying.

Only modifying one principle would have a little impact on outcomes that the Forex Robot can generate. A system's all round success is dependent upon how its parameters should be blended.

So, exactly what might the Forex Robots deliver?

  •  Rather than making use of a person to deal and perform recurring analysis, the Forex Robots will be thoroughly formulated and optimised systems that can immediately decide the best signals and even execute the particular deals.
  • By using automated decision-making procedures, a dealer eliminates emotion from trading.
  • It is actually often the entirely human instinct of fear or greed that could over-ride his or hers measured decisions so taking a loss.
  • You will discover trading systems created by particular organizations readily available as a bundle which means you can get set up instantly.

On the other hand, you have to pay a routine fee so that you will be in a situation to view trading signals they have set up rather than purchasing their systems. A few organizations will not present reliable results, therefore proper care is necessary.
Look at organizations with the Forex Robots that can help you by permitting you to trial the system on a 'live' basis.

Do you know the points to be familiar with when evaluating the Forex Robots?

To completely make the Forex Robots requires a tremendous amount of one's time to produce.
A significant amount of evaluation must be completed following the system having been designed.
Following on from the testing, it is most likely more adjustments will have to be carried out.
Paper-trading of systems live ought to be carried out to increase the robot's performance.
Even after the system becoming live, additional re-designs could possibly be needed

It is essential that when putting together the Forex Robots there is a complete understanding of the numerous technical analysing signals together with their function.

You must still expect to become aware of the different parameters and rules even though you go with using another person's services rather than your own.

You should certainly not under-estimate just how complex this is.
  • Whenever real performance differs considerably from estimated results, it is what is known as 'slippage' and should be avoided for the system to function successfully.
  • Costs must not be ignored and really should be looked at properly when building the Forex Robots.

Commission costs are going to be sustained but additionally there'll be a variation from the fill and execution price that will affect earnings.

Just how good are Forex Robots?

It's not hard to find an effective system, best forex robot, yet it's easy to become worried about the amount of con artists that fraudulently maintain excellent results when trading.

Nevertheless the greatest example of how effective these Forex Robots are is the expanding number of professional and individual dealers and fund managers which are progressively using these systems to deal.

Finally
Building the Forex Robot is difficult.

 A comprehensive understanding of all the various criteria that can be used, combined with knowledge necessary to produce acceptable assumptions and not to mention the time and determination can make this a considerable task.

Yet, the increase in additional time, efficiency and profits is frequently considerable when the Forex Robot is done and implemented successfully.

Best forex robot 2010   Best forex robot 2011

Development of Trading Strategies by means of Technical Indicators

Traders and investors use different indicators for analyzing events of the past and forecasting future patterns and price trends. These indicators represent mathematically-based tools for technical analysis and include the Bollinger Bands indicator, moving averages and so on. While fundamentalists rely on different economic and annual reports, traders, who prefer using technical analysis, give preference to indicators, which help them to make interpretation of the market. The main advantage and purpose of indicators is ability to identify trading opportunities. For instance, a trend change may well be preceded by a moving average crossover. In this case, if a trader wants to find possible areas of trend change on a price chart, he should apply the moving average indicator to this chart.

On the other hand, indicators are used in different strategies quite often, because they allow to determine entry, exit and trade management rules objectively and impartially. When we say “strategies”, we mean a definitive set of rules, which regulate the process of trade and specify the exact establishment, management and closure of trades. As a rule, one and even several indicators are used in strategies in detail in order to establish instances where trading activity will occur.

No concrete trading strategies will be reviewed in the given article, but we will try to explain the difference between indicators and strategies, and also say some words about principles of their combined work, which allow technical analysts to determine very probable trading setups.

Forex Indicators



Traders can study and analyze many different technical indicators. There are commercially available proprietary indicators as well as those in the public domain, for example, stochastic oscillator or a moving average. Moreover, some traders often resort to services of professional programmers to develop their own custom indicators or do it manually on their own. The majority of indicators are provided with user-defined variables that are used by traders in order to adapt key inputs in accordance with their needs.

For instance, a moving average is just an average price of securities over a definite period of time. This period of time is stated in the type of MA (for example, a 50-day MA). The number “50” means that the given MA will show you the average price for a 50-day time period. As a rule, closing price of securities is used in calculation of MA, but it doesn’t mean that other price points can’t be used for this purpose (for instance, open, high or low). The trader can specify the price point for making calculations an also the length of the MA.

Trading Strategies



Let’s define a trading strategy once again. It is a set of rules, which regulate the process of trade and define order and time of trader’s actions. As a rule, filters and triggers are based on indicators and included as compounds of a strategy. The aim of filters consists in identifying the setup conditions, and the aim of triggers consists in timing, i.e. they “decide” when some action should be done.

Here is an example of a trade filter: a price that has closed above its 200-day MA. This prepares the ground for the trade trigger, i.e. for some event that causes trader’s actions. It is also known as “the line in the sand”. For example, when price reaches one tick above the bar that breached the 200-day MA, it well may be a condition for a trade trigger.



It should be noted that it is wrong thinking about a trading strategy as about a simple instrument, which buys when price reaches a position above the MA. A strategy is a very evasive tool and it can’t provide any specified details, which help to take some actions. Here are several items, which should be followed in order to create an objective strategy:

1. You should know what kind of MA you are going to use. You should also know length and price point, which will be included into calculation.
2. It is necessary to define a point above the MA, above which price needs to move.
3. You should choose the moment, when the trade should be entered. There are three options: when price reaches the specified point above the MA, when the bar is closed or when the next bar is opened.
4. You should also choose the type of order (market, limit), which you are going to use in order to place a trade.
5. Of course, the amount of shares of contracts to be traded should be specified.
6. Make decision about the rules of money management.
7. Finally, define the exit rules.

An objective strategy can be formed only on the basis of the abovementioned preconditions.

Development of Strategies by means of Technical Indicators



An indicator itself can’t be considered as a strategy. It only plays a role of a tool, used by traders to identify market conditions. On the other hand, a strategy is a set of rules, defined by a trader, which specify application and interpretation of indicators for the purpose of making correct predictions of future market activity. Volume, trend, momentum and volatility – these are among different categories of indicators. As a rule, several different types of indicators are used by traders in their strategies. If a trader uses multiple indicators of the same type, so-called “multicollinearity” or multiple counting of the same information may occur. Such situation is not advisable because multicollinearity may influence other variables and underestimate their importance because of redundant results of multicollinearity. Therefore, it is much better to apply indicators from different categories in a strategy: for example, a trader can use trend and momentum indicators. It often happens that traders use some indicator for making confirmation of signal accuracy of another indicator.

For instance, a momentum indicator can be used to confirm the validity of the trading signal of a MA strategy. Relative Strength Index or RSI is a momentum indicator. It compares the average price change of advancing and declining periods. There are user-defined variable inputs in RSI as well as in other technical indicators, so a trader can define, for example, overbought and oversold levels. It means that a trader can use RSI for confirmation of any MA signals. If there are opposing signals, it might point to a lesser reliability of signal and probable insecurity of the trade.

Of course, a trader must do researches of the chosen indicator (or several indicators) in order to find the most appropriate application of this indicator. Trader’s style and readiness to risk should be also taken into account. The use of a strategy has one major advantage: it allows to perform backtesting, i.e. to use historical data in order to check if the given strategy would be successful in the past. Of course, there are no guarantees that the given strategy will be successful in future, but still it is a very helpful tool for development of a profitable trading strategy.

No matter what kind of indicators you are going to use, you must clearly specify interpretation of indicators and their precise actions in your trading strategy. Indicators are just tools and do not produce any trading signals on their own, so you should include them in a strategy and be as precise as possible, because ambiguity is very dangerous.

Picking out Indicators for a Strategy



Before choosing indicators a trader should decide what type of strategy he is going to create, because it influences the choice. And again, trader’s style and readiness to risk should be taken into account. If a trader is intended to focus on long-term moves and large profits, he might use a trend-following MA indicator and create a trend-following strategy; in case a trader is intended to focus on small moves and frequent small profits, he might try to create a strategy based on volatility. A trader can also use various additional indicators in order to confirm received signals.

Of course, there is another way: a trader can simply buy a so-called “black box” trading strategy or a commercially available proprietary strategy. There are advantages and disadvantages of using this type of strategies. The advantage is that all the necessary researches and backtests have already been done in advance (theoretically), and a trader shouldn’t do anything else on his own. On the other hand, there is a major disadvantage: a trader completely trusts developers of this strategy and often can’t make any customizations in accordance with his own style of trading


Conclusion



Trading signals are not produces solely by indicators. The ways of sending signals by indicators should be developed by a trader. A trader is also responsible for creation of trading strategies. Of course, it is possible to use indicators without being used in combination within a single strategy, but at least one type of indicator is necessary for creation of technical trading strategies. Creation of a strategy, which represents a set of rules, which regulate the process of trade and define order and time of trader’s actions, allows a trader to perform backtests in order to find out if his trading strategy would be viable. It also allows a trader to draw conclusions about behavior of a strategy in future. It is very important to technical traders, because it allows them to make constant evaluation of the strategy performance. Moreover, it allows traders to make decisions concerning time of closure of a position.

There are talks among traders about some king of “Holy Grail”, which would allow them to make profit instantly. Unfortunately, there is no perfection in our world, and there is no possibility to develop an ideal strategy that will bring guaranteed profit to all traders. There are many traders, and each has his own style, readiness to risk, temperament and personality. It means that everyone decides by himself what technical analysis tools he is going to use. Traders also have to make researches personally and develop strategies on their own, basing on the results of these researches.

http://iticsoftware.com

Forex Scalping

Forex Scalping Strategies Explanation Video



Best Scalping Expert Advisor 2010

Best Scalping Expert Advisor 2011

Forex Grid Strategies



Learn more about Forex Grid Expert Advisors

Forex Scalping Strategies

Probably the most popular type of forex trading strategies can be considered as a forex scalping strategies. 

There are several reasons for this:

  1. Not require a large initial capital
  2. Opportunity to obtain high profits
  3. Active trading style
  4. Short period in the position reduces the risk of loss

There are many definitions of scalping strategy.  The most accurate definition of scalping strategy is receive a small profit (several pips) in a short period of time.

 A little bit history....

Several years ago, the company Metaquotes from Russia has released MetaTrader  terminal,  and MetaTrader server. This has stimulated the creation of a large Number of brokerage companies with small capital and only one goal: force the trader to lose all deposit. MetaTrader server has all necessary tools  for the destruction of any strategy. Such brokers can be compared to a casino. Advantage casino over the player is a large supply of money and time.  For this reason scalping strategy which does not require large deposit and order remains open for a few minutes or  seconds, give the trader an opportunity to win.  To prevent the winning brokers decided to expand spreads and limit the distance (up to 10 pips) between Stop Loss, Take Profit and Pending Orders and price.

Factors affecting scalping

  • Liquidity – The liquidity  of a market affects the execution time and as a consequence on  performance of scalping.
  • Spread - scalper's profit  is commensurate with the  spread. For this reason, any spread  increasing may affects on performance.
  • Volatility - Unlike momentum traders, scalpers like stable or silent market.  Imagine if its price does not move all day, scalpers can profit all, making hundreds or thousands of trades.
  • Time frame - Scalpers operate on a short time frames, like M1, M5 and M15. This maximizes the number of moves during the day that the scalper can use to make a profit.
  • Money  management – usually 1 loss for scalping strategy can be 2 -10 times bigger then  1 profit. For this reason scalping strategy can have  very strict money management never allowing a loss to accumulate.

Scalping types

There are many methods of scalping. The most popular method is the opening orders in     on  the low volatility  market  in the moment when price  touch of the border of  regression channel  or support /resistance lines or High/ low level.

But I do not accidentally said  at first about  the scalping history of Factors affecting scalping.

Currently profitable scalping strategy can be created only by a professional who knows not only  forex trading but also the work of brokerage companies as well as having extensive experience in programming.  For example adding 3 lines of programming code  allows force a dealer to make a mistake,  can turn losing strategy in to a winning strategy.

For this reason for a successful scalping you need an expert adviser coded by a professional company and reliable broker. Good luck!

http://iticsoftware.com

Account Copiers Latency Comparison

PowerTradeCopier

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FIX API Module Explanation

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Expert Advisors Comparison

We get a lot of questions what is your best adviser, or what is your best indicator. I'll try to clarify some points.

Expert Advisors

We have a lot of Expert Advisors based on different algorithms. What could be the starting point when choosing a EA. I think best way is start choosing from information about account.
If your broker support minimal lot =0.1 and you account size $1000 or more; or your broker support 0.01 and your account size 100 or more, you can use scalping systems. I can recommend you Expert Advisor "SC-Market".

If your broker support minimal lot =0.1 and you account size $2000 or more; or your broker support 0.01 and your account size 200 or more, your can use scalping systems and also you can use hybrid (Scalping + Trend Following) systems. I can recommend you: Expert Advisor "SC-Market", Expert Advisor "TFOT"

If your broker supports minimal lot = 0.01 and your account $5000 or more, you can use Scalping, Hybrid and also  grid systems and systems with increasing lot (non martingale!).
I can recommend you: Expert Advisor "SC-Market", Expert Advisor "TFOT", Expert Advisor "SecureProfit", Expert Advisor "Eldorado".

Expert Advisor "Eldorado"    



Expert Advisor "SecureProfit"   



Expert Advisor  "TFOT"   




Expert Advisor "SC-Market"

Metatrader 4 Indicators

The indicator is not a trading system and part of the trading system. You should create your trading rules using indicator(s) or use rules provided by reliable sources. We have described several manual strategies and will post new strategies with recommended indicators : forex-profit-systems.com

For more than 10 years our company has been offering products and services for forex market and today we are giving our customers 25% discount for all products which were created during this term. Don't miss it - our Anniversary Offer expires soon!

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