Scalping tops and bottoms with incredible accuracy

My previous trades today

Good trade! Saw this one didnt catch it though :[

Now I will wait and hope to get a reversal here

Only if price action shows signs of stalling. Then I will look for 5 pips since the move down is not big enough for me to try to get 10.

LEt's see if it stalls or not.

I'm out with +5 and finished for the day. It will probably go to +10 but I didn't want to hold out for that big a retrace when the move down was only about 15 pips from the previous high. No losses today and so I will treat myself to a slice of my mother in law's vegetable lasagne.

It did go on up to +10 like I thought, but not to worry, 55 pips and a slice of lasagne is a nice morning. It's got extra cheese.

1 minute timeframe is my favorite

I know this is an older thread but I just stumbled onto it. It’s a very simple system similar to what I do. I use same ideas and trade from the 1 minute chart but only trade with the trend on the 15M and 1HR.

Hey Roofx, although I don't scalp tops and bottoms, I pretty much agree with your approach towards trading. That is, to go against what other people recommend. It's all about finding a style that suits you and then spending time on it to optimize it. most people advocate trading on 4 hour+ timeframes and waiting for the perfect setup, but for me simply waiting over one month without a trade is not trading. I have now moved to the 5 minute timeframe and designed a strategy that gets me in when there is strong momentum in one direction. I am not kidding, I have spent on average 8 hours a day for years perfecting it. I now know exactly when is the best time to enter, and when the momentum is dying, etc. It's REALLY hard to lose when there's strong momentum on your side. This is something you won't find being taught by 'gurus'. It works on all timeframes but I prefer to know my result in minutes, not days.

Also, I'm sure you realize being on the lower timeframe is really where you can make real money. I risk 1% per trade, and on average I get 2 trades a day. Over so many years and thousands of trades I have a win rate of 70-80% with each winner being more than 1:1. Now that is really incredible if you stop to think about it.

Anyway, I'm just wondering if you are still trading this way? I see your exits can be improved. Absolutely no point exiting at a fixed amount when the potential on these low timeframes is HUGE.

EDIT: wow, just noticed this was posted in early 2012. I thought it was early 2013.

hmmmm.... is this why roofx is no longer around ? Only joking.

� "I believe the very best money is made at the market turns. Everyone says you get killed trying to pick tops and bottoms and you make all your money by playing the trend in the middle. Well for twelve years I have been missing the meat in the middle but I have made a lot of money at tops and bottoms." - Paul Tudor Jones.

Somehow, I don't think he was monitoring 5M time frame though

True that, never listen to what "everyone says".

It seems that the key is to have a short SL with high probability turning point. My friend works in one of the London's floor trading futures E6 and he looks only for sup/res made by volume. He just looks on price ladder and making money Something similar can be seen on low TF. It's shows as moments when price stall in short range and then move rapidly, coming back to supply level and start rallying again. Just count number of candles containing specified price in given time on short TF. This is something we can use for low risk trades. Cheers!

I know this thread is old, but still relevant today. I am a new trader, of less than 6 months, and I instinctively started out looking for tops and bottoms, catching the odd 10 pips or so, here and there. On the (several) dummy accounts I signed up for (searching for a broker who wouldn't con me!) I made loads of money. Really, it was not difficult. On the 10,000 dollar/pound/euro dummy accounts I had, it was relatively simple to make 2 to 4,000 a week, part time. Now, I have a live account and it's all changed. As far as I know, my trading ethos hasn't changed a jot. I trade on a £500 account at 0.01 lot size. £500 is not much money to me so I am not 'frightened' of losing it. After 2 months I am up £8 and that's after many hours hard work!

So, what am I doing wrong? I still believe in the system and like I say, I am doing nothing different. I look specifically for a sideways moving market, trading 1 minute GBP/USD. It seems as soon as I put a buy trade at what I consider to be the bottom, the market goes in exactly the opposite direction and hits my 20 stoploss. Likewise with sell trades. It's not my broker. I check with two different charts from different brokers. For indicators I use Keltner channels with the MA set to 15 and the itmf_sigalert as indicators. If anyone has any thoughts, I would be extremely grateful...

Scalping is ineffective and will eventually lead to financial loss. Gaining only 5 pips is a complete joke. Real traders aim to pocket 2000+ pips

LOL. What do you know about real traders? As a real trader, anyone taking a profit of 2000 pips is what I call an investor, or in more technical terms, a position trader. That is a person who, in my opinion, knows very, very, very little about trading. For one, you simply GUESS a direction because the market is certain to turn many times before it reaches 2000 pips, and then hold it and pray it will ever reach 2000 pips. For another, you are making ridiculously low profit. While you are waiting 3 years for your 2000 pips, I am making that much per month per currency pair. LOL. Great to know you are not serious competition

As to akingsail, it sounds like you are in consolidation a lot, so you are probably not trading the right hours. Review a higher time frame chart to know the direction for the market session you are trading before you go to the 1M chart. If your higher level chart is flat, then you will be range trading the 1M chart. A 15 period setting is useless in a tight range. Since you are using 1M charts, a 15M chart should be high enough for your evaluation and keep you in the flow. If the 15M chart does not look clean, then you probably don't want to trade that pair that until it aligns to your method and gives you a signal. For the readers of this post, my advice is meant for akingsail and his described methodology. If your situation is different, please disregard.

OR, find another currency pair with more volatility ... up and down movement ... and ignore the GBP/USD until it starts moving up and down again. Try the GBP/AUD for instance

Position traders are more strategic which requires much more thought process,hence why position traders last longer and make more money because they are knowledgeable, have most discipline and are very patient. Thats the whole point of trading to be patient. Scalping on the other hand is just gambling and relying heavily on 1000 technical indicators on the screen. Scalpers believe that this is a get rich quick thing and want to throw a celebration party over a 5pip gain lol. Position trader will make one trade to gain 2000pips, but a scalper will make 400 trades since he only gains his little 5pips. If you think 5pips is something to get excited about, you wont last long. Scalpers might as well go to the casino and play on the slot machine. And if you think it take 3 years to gain 2000pips, you clearly lack knowledge of trading, because it will probably take 2-3 weeks. To be honest, scalpers are bonus because majority of you are impatient who want to trade all the time with a high loss rate, on the other side its us position traders who wait patiently to profit from your loss. Thanks man!

scalper need to stare the chart
one who stare the chart will mostly scalp
it is a vicious cycle for us non automated trader..

Nonsense.

The amount of people on this forum who are so narrow minded, it boggles ones mind.

If you are on this thread and condemning scalping , it simply means you have no business being here. Go look for your comfort zone.
There is a trading style that suits each person's personality.

agree about the narrow minded

they do not realize that there are different TYPES of trading that make up the MARKET

I scalp/swing trade using renko charts

Scapling is the worst trading method out of all methods, hence my majority of scalpers have extremely low winning trades and eventually blow up thier accounts. Trading of the 1m or 15m charts is just like gambling, you can not determine entry/exit points from noise and all the jargon indicators you plant onto charts thinking you have the biggest edge over the market. . Trading 5.00 lots with the tightest stop loss just to gain 5pips is very laughable and unwise. You might as well trade binary options But like I said earlier, majority of scalpers are loosers, position & swing traders profit from your losses.