1 min scalping: Your opinion and what to look for

Sorry. You would have to back test, and find something which works for you. Some of us have lost tons of money, and psent thousands of hours back testing. In order to have what we have now.

In scalping your either correct, or incorrect once your candle closes. Pending orders and open an order if price closes across this line scripts are key.

It appears someone else posted the Sonic VSA indicator for you - it is basically the same as Better Volume or any other VSA-based indicator, using the candles spread and volume (in this case tick volume of course) to determine direction. Tom Williams, supposedly, used to enter at the close of the peak volume bars (in my case, candles), albeit on daily charts, instead of waiting for confirmations, as I have suggested here with the 1 minute chart. Obviously, there are many ways of skinning the cat, but its just one pattern I've noticed that works repeatedly. On countertrend trades with the VSA indicator, I would hold for 3-6 pips or whatever the next 1 or 2 candles would give me. However, I am primarily a trend scalper (as defined by my 5 minute 50 SMA) and the volume peaks that would signal an entry into the trend I would typically try to hold onto for 6- 12 pips or so. Its more of a secondary setup that I use, but one that I like to have around nonetheless.

Different day same setups - volume spike BB counter-trend buy and BB trend shorts -
(as a side note, I wouldn't take every counter trend setup and that is the tricky thing with BB bands or any method really - is it a breakout or is it stretch that should be faded? So I prefer trend trading, but as we know trends always end. But for the counter trend the later in the move the better in my humble opinion and experience.)

I am not fond of 1M because it can be full of noise IMO. I know you're into minimal pips, but why don't you use a 15M, 1H or 4H and wait for a set up for 20+ pips 2-3 or more times??

It just seems risky trying to fish for 2 pips multiple times a day because I assume you use very high leverage, and one trade that goes against you can tear the account up. Than again if you have a 1-2 pip SL eh IDK

If we went back and thought about the fractal nature of markets, then the noise experienced on the M1 is equivelant to the noise experienced on the M15 or the H1 or the D1. The difference is that on the M1 the noise will require me a stop of 7-10 pips, but on the M15 it would be 20-30 pips, on the H1 it would be 50 pips, etc.... But to be honest, I don't believe in this concept of "noise" - the noise is activity, of traders entering longs, entering shorts, making an opinion about where the market will travel and is the same on all the charts. On the 1 minute you have bars that drift back and forth until some big traders decide to take a position and the liquidity they dumped is immediately apparent. This occurs on the H1 as well, the market will meander and then there will be a massive dump of liquidity that occurs. This just happens more frequenty on the smaller time frames, and thus, for me, provides many more trading opportunities.

The best traders I have ever met or spoken with have traded M1 or smaller timeframes to provide exact entries with minimal drawdown. The best trader I've ever witnessed trade enters on 1 minute or 5 second charts and looks for the pattern that drew him in on the 1 minute to then occur on the 5 minute, and then occur on the 30 min, etc. and uses his initial 1 minute chart entry as a position trade on the daily time frame for 100s of ticks/pips with 5-7 pip stop losses. He doesn't talk about R:R, but he's trading between 5:1 and 20:1 RR on a lot of trades.

The other best trader I've ever had the priveledge of speaking with and who graciously offered to help teach me trades off of 1 minute and smaller time frames and closes on those time frames. It affords him maximum leverage (although I think he is close to trading mostly unlevered at this point), frequent entries (10-60 per session) and certainty of result. He will certainly admit that the market is chaotic, but why then would moving up in the trading "window" (time frame) create any less chaos? To me it seems like it creates larger losses, fewer opportunities, and feels more like guessing. But I'll also quickly admit that's just my disposition toward trading.

One last thing - just because your trading small time frames, doesn't mean you have to go for 2 pips nor take large losses. I will take 2 pips if I don't get the movement I want within a certain amount of time, but just because I entered does not mean I will close at 2 pips - I shoot for 6-15. My average loss is larger than my average win, but not drastically by any means, and at a 89% hit rate over my last 250 trades, that's fine with me. However, again I will readily admit that having a high win rate can also be a double edged sword and I can emotionally be unaccepting of losses and wait too long to close. So that can be a problem, of course.

Now I'm just rambling... pardon the long response.

jmflukeiii & Master kiwa great explanations! I have same win rate but i am more conservative in leveraging so my portfolio grow "just" 10 percent in last week. But i would like to add one more pro for scalping. Even if people think that it is more noise in 1 min charts I would like to tell you that for me it is less stressfull. Or better to say it is not stresfull.

another question i would like to ask here is adding to a losing position. We already know that fx is fractal by nature and that price almost always come back to previous level. So on larger TF this could take days, weeks, months... in 1 min TF this usually happened much much quicker. My question to you is: would you add to losing trade on 1min chart because of the nature of the market?

I use 7 pip stop on usjy, audusd, $3 on gold, and they get hit less than 10% of time. I do not wait to get hit and in trade usually less than 2 min. Every 10th or so trade earns more than 7 pips. Remainder is usually +2 pips.

I can comfortably trade 2 contracts. Plan to scale to 10. Anyone tried this before in above markets ?

I love 1min scalping as i dont have patience. Easier for me to give up a so-so setup if i know another one will be coming around soon...just trading the babon method of favorite, and doing well. could be better, and im getting better.

How long trading sessions do you usually have when scalping? Are you able to combine it with a full-time job, trading on evenings?

I usually trade 3 hours. Luckily i live in China, so my timezone is quite well.
I come home from work at 7pm, relax and eat until 8pm, when the NY session starts. I trade it until 11, and thats it.
Enough for 1-3 setups on the currencies i watch and like 25pips per day, which will double my account once per month
(in theory), in reality i am exhausted and make wrong decisions, so right now i am averaging around 50% per month.

For the record. Using high leverage doesn't kill your account. Using high leverage + high equity is what causes damage to an account. Those of us who use high leverage with high equity are waiting for a setup which would result in us not closing in red. The problem with using higher tf like 15 mins. One should always enter on the start of a new candle. Yet in most cases the wick are 20-30 pips on th 15 min candle. So your pip-drawdown is way to high. In order to gain an accurate entry, one should focus on the 1m.

Great thread. It really inspired me! thank the author and all replies.
I have a question about cost in trading or spreads in this 1 min scalping strategy, seems no one have disscussed about it so far. As I think in 1 min scalping trading are frequent, cost must be a issue, right?
I use a retail broker. the spreads are commonly 1.2~2 pips for AUDUSD, 1~1.5 pips for EURUSD, 1.2~2 pips for USDJPY. Are your spreads similar to mine or less than mine? Does these spreads appropraite for scalping 1 min?

They are but you can get smaler spreads for example on Peperstone.

I have another question for you. About Envelopes. We can see that PA in some way respect the 150, 300... EMA (THX for hint Kostas ) Does anyone has any experience about Envelopes or bolinger bands from this EMAs. Is there any masimum move from this EMAs at which we would know that the market is exagerating?

In past i have idea about Bolingers. That at 3rd or 4th standard deviation from mean the market will turn back to the mean. I got idea from bell curve. Any idea if we could use Envelopes or bolinger bands as a alarm that the market goes too far too quick?

hi,

i am into 1 min scalping also but i am looking for a reliable broker. Can anyone recommend any good ones they are using besides yadix?

thank you!

Here is the template with indicators. May not be exact but almost the same.

Hi IamThat

(by the way, I always liked that nickname)
What is the difference between doda-bollingerbands and regular bollingerbands?

thx!

PGPB

How far do you guys keep the stop loss? if you are looking to scalp 5 pips or 10 pips? and have you ever been tempted to run 2 orders? 1 for scalping and when that has hit your 10 pip target, then go to break even and use the second order for the swings, if it breaks more, you make a killing, if it dont, then you got break even. Anyone try this?

No idea. I found it here: http://seekforex.com/doda-bollinger-...r-plus-signal/
I just managed to find it after seeing the request for the template. I have not used it so far..

paperstone is good but armada is the best, instant execution, 0.2 pips and the best comissionss