Scalping for Beginners: A Simple, Clear Guide

To make money on your stock market investments, you don’t have to wait weeks or months. With scalping, you can make money within minutes during your trading sessions.

In this beginner’s guide, we give you a complete overview of this trading strategy. What is it? How does it work? Which is the best broker for scalp trading?

What Is Scalping in Trading?

By definition, scalping is a trading strategy that involves opening and closing positions over a very short period of time. It lets you profit from small price movements by placing many limited-risk trades. It is a short-term approach to trading based on the idea that:
it is easier to anticipate small market fluctuations than large moves.
Etymologically, to scalp means to remove the skin from the skull with a sharp object. Applied to trading, the term hints at where the method comes from: scalping means taking profits on your trades as soon as they appear.

Scalping is a fairly popular approach among traders. Among other things, it lets you see whether your trades are profitable within a few minutes of a session. It can also be seen as a timeframe: it defines the maximum time positions are held to a single session, while advocating constant entries and exits over the hours and minutes, or as soon as a profit is made. This makes it an intraday trading strategy.

Investors who practice scalp trading are commonly called scalpers or scalp traders. They often have experience in the financial markets, which makes them better able to decide when and how to invest. Nevertheless, scalp trading is not reserved for this type of trader; beginners can use it too.

If this topic interests you, also read “Scalping Definition” and “Forex Signals on Telegram: A Simple, Clear Explanation“.

How to Scalp Trade

Getting started with scalp trading is fairly simple. Just follow these steps:

• Choose a broker: Start by choosing an online broker that allows Forex and CFD scalping
• Open a trading account: You need a live account on a brokerage platform
• Make a deposit: You need to fund your account to access the markets
• Start trading: Place your first trade on a short timeframe of a few minutes or a few hours.

Best Brokers for Scalp Trading: Our Top 6 for 2025

Although scalping is quite popular, unfortunately not all brokers allow it. Investors often need certain conditions to be able to scalp, and not all brokers meet them.

Here is our selection of the 6 best online brokers for scalp trading.

• AvaTrade: High-performance platform for scalping
• IG Markets: 17,000 financial instruments for scalp trading
• Plus 500: Best CFD broker for scalp trading
• XM: Best spreads for scalping
• XTB: Best fees and commissions for scalp trading

AvaTrade: High-Performance Trading Platform

A regulated and secure online broker, AvaTrade has for several years ranked among the best brokers for all types of traders. Particularly popular with short-term traders, it makes it easy to understand the markets and grow your gains.

Founded in 2006, AvaTrade offers its online trading services in France and around the world.

In addition to its FCA, CySEC, NSE and ASIC regulation, the broker has just added a new one: the Banque de France. It is a broker that has won several awards for the quality of its regulated online trading services. It is also one of the brokers approved by the AMF (Autorité des Marchés Financiers) for its activities in France.

To trade on AvaTrade, you can use its MetaTrader platforms, software and trading apps. They are powerful, intuitive, responsive and smooth, and you can use them on your smartphone or computer.

The trading software the broker offers for scalping is as follows:

• WebMetaTrader 4
• MetaTrader 4 (MT4)
• MetaTrader 5 (MT5)
• AvaTrade GO app
• AvaOptions app

If you know nothing about trading, let alone scalping, the broker provides a large range of free training on different trading topics:

• You can follow video courses that explain the ins and outs of intraday and short-term trading techniques and strategies.
• The broker also provides e-books and written articles that clearly explain how to behave in the financial markets depending on the technique you choose for your investments.
• At AvaTrade, you can learn how to use economic indicators to your advantage to make short-term gains on your trades.

The online broker also offers a wide variety of derivatives you can trade. Its leverage varies depending on the instruments you choose.

Depending on the derivative category, you can benefit from the following leverage:

• Currency pairs: 400:1;
• Stocks: 10:1;
• Commodities: 100:1;
• Indices: 200:1;
• FX options: 20:1;
• ETFs: 20:1
• Bonds: 20:1

IG Markets: A Wide Range of Financial Instruments

IG Markets is a broker well suited to short-term trading. It is reliable, secure and offers excellent services to scalpers. The broker provides a complete platform that lets you manage your high-frequency trades effectively. Founded in 1974, it is one of the oldest brokers offering brokerage services to French traders. It guarantees the transparency of its activities through FCA, BaFin and Banque de France regulation.

IG Markets has won several awards for the quality of its brokerage services. By choosing this broker, you benefit from secure investments.

On its platform, you also benefit from extended trading hours on no fewer than 70 US stocks and indices. With a minimum deposit of €300, you can trade more than 17,000 financial instruments across exchanges worldwide.

The regulated broker’s derivatives fall into the following categories:

• Indices
• Currency pairs (Forex)
• Stocks
• Commodities
• Bonds
• ETFs

The broker is ideal for trading highly volatile markets, which is why it is very popular with scalpers. It also helps you optimize your money management to avoid any risk of losing all your capital.

You benefit from relatively low spreads compared with competing offers:

• Forex: EUR/USD: 0.75 pips; GBP/USD: 1.23 pips; USD/JPY: 0.79 pips
• Stocks: Tesla: no spread but a commission of 2 cents per share
• Commodities: Gold: 0.3 pips
• Indices: CAC40: 1.00 pips

For trading, IG Markets offers solid, robust platforms backed by excellent market analysis tools. One of the platforms available is MetaTrader 4, which is ideal for short-term Forex trading and has an excellent technical signal analysis tool.

IG Markets also gives you privileged access to the ProRealTime platform and its charts for real-time analysis of financial instruments. The broker lets both long-term investors and scalpers trade via APIs.

Plus500: Best CFD Account for Scalp Trading

Plus500 is a British broker founded in 2008 that offers its brokerage services around the world. The broker is one of the pioneers of trading contracts for difference. In particular, it introduced the ability to do CFD trading with high leverage, whatever your trader profile.

As part of its diversification policy, Plus500 also offers a wide range of financial instruments, letting you diversify your portfolio and trade several products at once. You can buy and sell positions on no fewer than 2,000 instruments, including more than 1,800 stock CFDs, for short-, medium- and long-term trading.

The categories of financial products the broker offers for short-term trading are:

• Indices: you can trade indices by country and by sector
• Currency pairs
• Commodities
• Stocks
• Options
• ETFs

Whatever the financial instrument, you will not pay commissions on your trades with this broker. In addition, scalping trades benefit from leverage of up to 1:50.

Here are some of the spreads available at Plus500:

• Forex: EUR/USD: 0.6 pips; GBP/USD: 2 pips; USD/CHF: 2 pips
• Commodities: Gold: 39 pips; Oil: 2 pips
• Indices: DAX: 0.98 pips; CAC 40: 3.5 pips.

XTB: An Innovative Platform

Founded in 2002, this Polish broker offers its brokerage services in just over fifteen countries worldwide. It is one of the brokers most popular with traders who want to scalp.

It is a reliable and secure broker for your investments. It stands out from the other brokers presented so far because it has a French branch with offices in Paris.

It holds numerous licenses: FCA, KNF, CySEC, IFSC. It is a broker supervised and approved by the AMF, and it guarantees the transparency of its financial activities and the security of your investment funds.

The broker also offers a demo account, which lets you get used to the features and to managing a virtual portfolio in the financial markets. As for financial assets, XTB offers a wide variety. You can trade around 4,000 products across different categories:

• Currency pairs (Forex FX)
• Indices
• Commodities
• Stocks
• ETFs

You can also trade stock CFDs and Forex CFDs. For each financial market, the broker offers fairly attractive trading conditions. It can boast of offering its clients some of the lowest fees for short-term trading in volatile markets.

For your trades at XTB, you get:

• Spreads as low as 0.1 pips on currency pairs;
• Leverage of up to 1:30;

Some of the spreads you can get at XTB:

• Forex: EUR/USD: 0.9 pips; USD/JPY 1.8 pips; AUD/USD: 1.9 pips;
• Commodities: Gold: 35 pips; Oil: 4 pips;
• Indices: DAX: 1 pip; CAC40: 1.2 pips.

As for trading platforms, the regulated broker offers several intuitive, fast platforms:

• xStation Mobile;
• xStation 5;
• MetaTrader 4

XM: MetaTrader Platforms

XM is on our shortlist of the best CFD and Forex (FX) brokers for beginner scalpers. It offers some of the lowest brokerage fees. The broker also provides its clients with a secure trading offer thanks to ASIC, CySEC and IFSC regulation.

It mainly stands out from the others with its small minimum deposit: you only need to deposit €5 to start trading at XM. It is also a broker approved by the AMF for its activities in France.

The broker offers its clients 4 types of accounts, depending on the profile of the traders who want to open one.

These are:

• The Micro account: designed for beginners. It lets you trade micro lots with 1:30 leverage
• The Standard account: for trading standard lots conveniently with the broker
• XM Zero: an ideal account for starting to scalp. It lets you trade standard lots with low margin and fees from 0 pips.
• The XM Ultra Low account: this live account includes all of the broker’s trading offers. You can trade micro lots as well as standard lots and benefit from spreads from 0.6 pips.

Commission at XM is €3.50 per €100,000 traded on the financial markets. You also have access to more than 4,000 financial instruments at XM.

Here are some of the spreads charged at XM:

• Forex: EUR/USD: 1.7 pips; GBP/USD: 2.5 pips; USD/JPY: 1.8 pips
• Indices: CAC40: 1.8 pips; DAX: 2 pips
• Commodities: Gold: 35 pips; Oil: 5 pips

To trade on XM, you can use the intuitive MetaTrader trading platforms:

• MetaTrader 4 software;
• The MetaTrader 5 platform;
• XM WebTrader.

You can easily scalp Forex, CFDs and futures on them at XM. They run smoothly and support Expert Advisor (EA) trading robots.

Scalp Trading Strategy Example

To give you a clear idea of what scalping is, we will simulate an order placed on an M1 chart. The MetaTrader 5 platform was chosen for the example. The aim is to place a buy order on the EUR/USD Forex pair and show you how it works. Here are the steps to follow:

Set Your Chart to Scalping Timeframes

The preferred timeframes for scalping are:

• 1 minute (M1)
• 3 minutes (M3)
• 5 minutes (M5)
• 15 minutes (M15)
• 30 minutes (M30)
• 1 hour (H1)
• 4 hours (H4)

You can choose the one that suits you according to your preferences and/or trading plan. For the example, we set the chart to 1 minute. Here’s how:

• Go to the toolbar at the top of the page and select “Charts”
• Then select “Timeframes”
• Choose “1 minute”

This changes your chart display and shows the asset’s price history over the previous minutes based on the ask and bid prices.

Analyze the Market with Indicators

Indicators are used to bring out the trend and find entry points. Based on the historical price curves, you will determine the scalping strategy best suited to the asset you plan to trade.

For our test, we chose the Ichimoku trend indicator. Here’s how to add it to your chart:

• Go to the toolbar and click Insert.
• Select “Indicators” then “Trend”
• Choose “Ichimoku” and set the lower Kumo cloud to “yellow” and the upper one to “blue”.

The Ichimoku trend indicator above applies to the EUR/USD Forex pair. Now the aim is to enter the trend once an entry opportunity appears outside the Kumo cloud (the area shaded yellow). In other words, as soon as the price curve leaves the historical cloud area, you should take a long or short position.

Once you have set up your chart and completed your technical analysis, you can place your scalping order. However, you should add two automatic orders to it: a stop loss and a take profit. Aim for a small number of pips per trade. In other words, play it safe to make your trade a success.

Pros and Cons of Scalp Trading

Like all other trading techniques, scalping has its strengths and some weaknesses. To help you decide whether the strategy is right for you, here is a summary of its pros and cons.

Types of Scalp Trading

There are different scalping strategies depending on the indicators you use for short-term trading. The most popular are trend indicators such as Ichimoku, MACD, RSI and Heikin Ashi.

Other technical indicators can also help you define your scalping strategy:

• Fibonacci;
• Renko charts;
• Bollinger Bands;
• Fibonacci retracement;
• Momentum;
• Pivot points.

The Best Account for Scalp Trading

Scalpers generally turn to limited-risk accounts. For this trading technique, they protect you from trades that could put your capital at risk. They shield you from setbacks when using short-term trading tools such as leverage. How? By protecting you against the risk of a negative balance.
What you need to remember is that brokers can charge certain fees when your trades are not profitable. This often leaves traders in debt to the broker. A limited-risk account protects you against this.
Information about it is fairly discreet on most brokerage websites, so be careful if you plan to start scalping the markets.

What Is the Best Market for Scalp Trading?

Forex is often considered the best market for scalping. Scalpers are particularly fond of it because it is very flexible for short-term investors. In the currency market, asset volatility is fairly high, which increases the profitability of buying and selling positions within minutes.

For example, say you want to open positions on a Forex currency pair, in this case EUR/USD. On a 15-minute chart, you can spot entry points for long or short positions. Even if you reduce the timeframe to 1 minute, an opening can appear within seconds.

The Best Scalping Strategies: How to Analyze the Market

If you want to become a good scalper, there is a fairly simple solution: learn a few short-term trading strategies. Most were designed by professional traders and are based on their experience, their own trades and existing technical indicators. Here are some of the most effective:

The News Trading Strategy

Following the news is a scalping strategy that relies mainly on the economic calendar and financial news. These tend to create impulse moves that generate relevant entry points for scalpers.

It is a very popular strategy among beginner traders because it doesn’t particularly require technical analysis tools. Most beginners find signals hard to understand at first. With this approach, you only need to follow the financial media regularly, which makes investment decisions easier.

For example, you place two stop orders around the economic calendar release each day, one buy and one sell. They are almost always set within 5 to 10 pips of the asset’s current price. The gap between them generally depends on the impact of the news and the volatility of the asset. For these orders, set a stop loss of the same value, followed by a take profit at double that value.

In these conditions, get into the habit of using the jolt or impulse move to sell or buy. Don’t rule out the possibility that the price falls back and makes you lose money. To improve the quality of your news trades, we recommend using simple settings such as M1, M1 Extreme and M5.

The DAX Scalping Strategy

Using the DAX scalping strategy will help you trade volatility. It was designed specifically for very short-term trading on this stock index, which is very popular with scalpers. Like most strategies, it uses technical analysis to determine when to trade.

To use this DAX scalping strategy, you rely entirely on a simple moving average. For it to be effective, you place it 3 times on your chart with different time settings, each varying by a few seconds or even minutes over the defined periods. They will then show you the right moment to open or close positions on the index. More precisely, once you have placed and set up the 3 curves, they should show you when, and for how long, the average is most effective at identifying entry points.

The following values are recommended for the 3 simple moving averages:

• 7;
• 20;
• 200.

It is also important to set your chart timeframe to 5 minutes at most. This reduces the number of decisions you have to make within seconds and gives you an overview of more concrete signals.

However, some scalpers choose a 1-minute chart for DAX scalping. We only recommend this to traders with more experience in the financial markets. For beginners, a 15-minute timeframe is already a good start.

You should set a take profit when buying and selling lots. Try to set it at double your stop loss. There is no specific advice on this in the strategy so far, so you will have to rely on your trader’s instinct to place them in the best spots.

Scalping with Moving Averages

In scalping, moving averages are used to track the trends of markets and their derivatives. For this to work, you need 3 averages: one shorter and two longer ones.

To explain better, let’s take an example in which we want to analyze the trend of the Forex market, more specifically the GBP/USD currency pair. We place our three moving averages, one shorter and the other two closer to the asset’s price movements. The first is set to 7 periods and the other two to 20. We chose to set the chart to 3 minutes. Now we wait for MA1 (moving average) set to 7 to cross below MA2 set to 20 to find an entry point in the direction of the trend.

This applies both to opening and closing positions. The strategy does not recommend a specific timeframe for plotting the lines, so choose the one that suits you best.

Ichimoku Scalping Strategy

The Ichimoku scalping strategy is used to visualize a market’s equilibrium at a glance. Considered by many scalpers to be the best short-term strategy for Forex and CFDs, it is based on the Ichimoku Kinko Hyo trend indicator. The indicator lets you see not only the trend of a market such as Forex, but also its reversals. In other words, it first lets you see which are the best assets to trade, and second, anticipate possible price changes.

In this scalping strategy, moving averages are not what help you identify strong and weak signals. Medians are the analysis tool used here, and they are recommended for bringing out entry points depending on the situation.

The principle is fairly simple: everything depends on how you interpret the Ichimoku indicator’s signals. The method works even in highly volatile conditions, giving you an accurate price history based on your settings. It also recommends opening positions when the price of the derivative moves outside the Kumo cloud. In other words, if you decide to follow this strategy, you should buy or sell the lots you want to trade when the financial instrument breaks away from the cloud area of the chart.

For example, you are trading Forex on the GBP/JPY currency pair and have set the chart to a 15-minute timeframe. The median lines form what we called the Kumo cloud above. As you are in the currency market, the Ichimoku indicator will tell you whether the market is in a balanced trend. It is recommended to enter when an entry point for a long or short position appears outside the median area.

As you can see, the Ichimoku scalping strategy or technique relies more on interpretation. Each opening or closing of a position and the number of lots to buy are up to you. The indicator simply helps you make better decisions when trading. It can be used on the MetaTrader, MT4, MT5 and WebMetaTrader trading platforms, which you can find at online brokers such as Vantage.

The time settings generally used are:

• 15 minutes for underlying trends and medium-term positions;
• 5 minutes to align with a short-term trend;
• 1 minute to buy a position on an asset once an opening appears.

Scalping with the RSI

You can also use the RSI for scalping. The RSI approach recommends opening positions in the direction of the trend. How? By using 3 moving averages as reference points to tell whether the market is rising or falling. Here, you should buy mainly when the trend is down. When the RSI indicator on your chart falls below 30, it is likely to rebound and continue above the line. From that point, an opening in the trend has appeared, and you can buy the lots you want to trade.

In the image below, we set our RSI to find an entry point on EUR/USD.

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Who Can Scalp Trade?

In principle, anyone can trade using the scalping method. Experienced investors as well as beginners can try it and make money. All you need is funds with a broker that allows scalping and a live account, and you can start speculating.

What Fees Are Involved in Scalp Trading?

Spreads and conversion fees are the main costs charged to scalpers. The best way to work out your scalping costs is to calculate them yourself. Whether you trade currency pairs, CFDs or stocks, spreads can be variable or fixed depending on your broker. The calculation is simple: subtract the bid price from the ask price in the market. This gives: Ask price – Bid price.

Let’s say you are scalping Forex. You choose the EUR/USD currency pair and want to know the spread you will pay. If your broker uses variable spreads, take the ask price of 1.9083 and the bid price of 1.9080 and calculate as follows:

1.9083 – 1.9080 = 0.3. 0.3 is the spread that will be applied to your trade on the EUR/USD currency pair.

How Much Capital Do You Need for Scalp Trading?

The recommended capital for getting started with short-term speculation through scalping is generally €10,000. This may seem high for small and medium budgets, but the strategy requires placing a large number of orders at very short intervals.

The most volatile positions and lots (ideal for scalp trading) often require substantial investments. The amounts you invest per trade must therefore allow you to place trade after trade during your sessions. Otherwise, you won’t be able to make your money work with this trading technique. Starting scalp trading therefore requires real financial preparation.

Suppose you want to open positions on the GBPUSD Forex pair. The minimum you can buy is 0.01 lot, i.e. one micro lot. Its price is €1,000. Throughout the session, you need to place 10 to 30 trades like this to make your investment pay off.

However, some online brokers allow traders with limited funds to start with smaller amounts. On these platforms, you can start scalping with amounts ranging from €1,000 to €5,000. The positions you can open will certainly be fairly limited, with high risk to your capital, but you will be able to try scalp trading.

When to Enter a Position and How Long to Hold It

Scalping is seen as a timeframe that limits the maximum holding time of positions to a few hours, minutes or seconds. It all depends on your own scalping strategy, which determines when you can enter a position and how long you will hold it. Other factors also come into play, including:

• The technical indicators used;
• The direction of your position (long or short).

For a long position, scalpers usually enter when the price reaches support levels. Supports are the lowest levels the price can reach as it moves within a given timeframe. The idea is to play the rebound, hoping the price does not reverse. The process is the same for a short position, but here you focus on resistance levels, which are the highest levels a price can reach within a timeframe.
The key point is that once you have spotted an entry point in the trend, you should exit once your take profit is reached. The same goes for your stop loss. You must set them when you place your order, and only then; otherwise your broker will not apply them.
You can also use automatic orders or a trading robot. Scalpers usually set these additional orders to target a few pips or limit losses. On average, this is 3 to 5 pips per trade. However, you can raise or lower your target depending on your analysis.

Scalping vs Swing Trading vs Day Trading

Besides scalping, there are other popular trading techniques in finance, including:

• Day trading
• Swing trading
• Hedging
• Buy and hold

Each of these investment approaches has its own specific features based on how it works. Here are some of the main ones:

See the best stock broker for 2025 on this page.

What Position Sizes Should You Use for Scalp Trading?

We recommend trading positions of 5 macro lots on average when scalping. However, position sizes can vary depending on your funds and how much you want to invest. If you have followed our advice on the capital required for this strategy, you have nothing to worry about. With €10,000, you can enter and trade the trend of most assets in volatile markets.

The key takeaway is that it’s best to start trading with lots of 5.

Choosing a Scalping Broker: The Essentials

Before you actually start trading, you need to choose a scalping broker. This means the broker you plan to use must allow this type of trading. It will be your gateway to the stock markets. But what factors should you consider when choosing? Here are a few questions to ask yourself before choosing a broker:

Which Financial Instruments for Scalp Trading?

Scalping requires highly liquid financial instruments, such as Forex and CFD derivatives. Major currency pairs such as EUR/USD, GBP/USD or GBP/JPY are assets you should have access to. Scalpers usually pay attention to this because trades are short term. The broker you scalp with must therefore guarantee access to these markets.

There are also many other financial instruments you can trade, such as stocks, indices and ETFs. They are not the most volatile assets, but they should not be overlooked either. The broker you plan to invest with should let you trade their derivatives.

What Are the Fees and Commissions?

Ideally, you should choose the broker with the lowest fees and commissions. Scalping requires you to place more orders than other forms of trading. If fees and commissions are high, they may eat into your returns. Individual scalping trades are hard to make profitable on their own; what improves your performance is repeating winning trades. Fees and commissions vary by type; at most brokers you may pay:

• Spreads: charged on trades.
• Commissions: charged on currency conversions. If you want to trade with an Australian broker, for example, fees will apply to the exchange from euros into the brokerage platform’s currency.
• Inactivity fees: charged to trading accounts that go a certain time without trading.
• Account management fees: charged by the broker to maintain your client access to the financial markets;

In other words, taken individually, scalping trades are not profitable enough to absorb high fees and commissions. A broker that offers reduced fees and commissions for high-volume traders is a good option.

What Leverage?

Leverage can range from 1:20 to 1:500 depending on the broker. It lets you buy or sell more lots in just a few trades. Under ESMA and AMF rules, leverage must not exceed ratios of 1:20 to 1:30. In this case, start by choosing a broker that lets you use leverage and that gives you enough information about how to use it. You need to know whether or not you could end up in debt to the broker if your trades are not profitable.

What Regulation?

ESMA and AMF approval are the most important factors when choosing a scalping broker to trade in France. These bodies ensure, respectively, that brokers’ activities in the eurozone and in France comply with current legislation. Don’t hesitate to check the AMF blacklist before choosing a particular trading platform.

Tips for Successful Scalp Trading

Many traders wrongly believe that this investment method is risk-free. Scalping is a speculative timeframe that requires certain skills most traders don’t have. So, do you want to become a better scalper? Here are some practical tips to help you get there:

• Only scalp in volatile markets: This short-term approach works better once this condition is met. Make sure the assets you plan to trade constantly move in irregular ways. The more often their prices change, the more likely you are to find entry points.

• Choose a Forex and CFD scalping broker: Not all online brokerage platforms allow this trading strategy. Choose carefully a broker that gives you access to the most volatile markets for your short-term trades. You can refer to our shortlist of regulated, reliable brokers at the top of the page.

• Place a stop loss on every order: A stop loss is an order attached to your buy or sell of lots to limit your losses. Stop losses are automatic and can be set according to your preferences. In scalping, you are very likely to put a large part of your capital at risk over many trades. To reduce that risk, stop losses are the best option trading platforms offer.

• Set a clear trading plan: Avoid improvising when scalping. To manage your risk as well as possible, you need a precise money management strategy. You must be able to balance the risks you take against their potential returns. How? Set reasonable profit and loss targets.

• Be careful with leverage: Leverage is margin granted by brokers to help you trade assets your capital would not normally allow. It is a form of loan that lets you buy more lots on your trades. Why is it dangerous? If you fail to make a leveraged trade profitable, the broker will take part of your capital to cover the shortfall. You should therefore use it with great care and above all not abuse it.
• Follow an effective scalping method: Many traders who have succeeded with this trading method chose to rely on existing market analysis strategies. Choose the one that suits you best and apply it to your trades. Take a look at the approaches we described above; they may be useful.
• Learn to control your emotions: One of the most important factors in trading is mindset. Staying relatively calm is an asset that helps you deal effectively with the unexpected. Unfortunately, not all traders have this. In that case, you need to work on yourself so your emotions don’t take over. Your money depends on it.

Profitability and Risks of Scalp Trading

It is hard to put figures on how many scalpers succeed in the markets. The percentage of winning scalping trades depends largely on the amounts you invest. In other words, you can make more money by taking on more risk with your capital.

However, scalping is a fairly complex trading strategy to master, and beginners struggle at first. Only after several months of training and practice do they manage to string together winning trades. The success rate is also closely linked to the preparation done beforehand.

The better the Forex and CFD scalping training you take, the more likely you are to succeed with this strategy. While the figures don’t favor beginners (only 20 to 30% make significant gains on their trades), it should be noted that the success rate does not take into account every aspect of your trading. The amount invested is not the same on every purchase; it varies mainly with the asset’s liquidity.
That said, you should understand that the number of winning trades does not necessarily indicate how profitable your trading is. For that, compare your starting balance with your balance at the end of the session. This is a better indicator for deciding whether scalping is right for you.

Scalp Trading Training

Are you a beginner who wants to learn before trading with scalping? Here are some tips for getting quality training:

• Demo account: This is an excellent training tool for beginners. You can use it to build experience without risking your capital. It offers fairly complete trading simulations that can help you build your strategy. It is also intended for more experienced traders who want to sharpen their skills and develop new market analyses.

• Training offered by brokers: This is a high-quality way to complete your learning. Most online brokers have a training section on their official websites, helping traders learn trading techniques and tips to improve their performance.

• Trading in real conditions: All traders will tell you that the best way to improve is to trade on a live account. This lets you see how to manage your money in a real short-term trading situation and will really help you learn how to build a winning trading strategy. You’ll find scalping fun.

Scalp Trading Terms You Need to Know

Before you start scalping, here are the key terms to know:

A

• Ask price: The price at which you buy an asset in the market.

C

• CFD: A contract for difference on the value of an asset;

E

• Economic calendar: A summary of events that affect the financial markets.
• Exchange rate: The value of one currency against another;

B

• Base currency: The primary currency in a currency pair;

Q

• Quote: The indicative market price of an asset (bid and ask prices);
• Quote currency: The secondary currency in a currency pair;

L

• Leverage: Investment margin granted by a broker for buying or selling a large number of lots;
• Lot: The size of a so-called standard position in the Forex market, corresponding to 100,000 units of the base currency. Lots can vary in size and often come with a prefix: a mini lot equals 10,000 units and a micro lot equals 1,000 units;

H

• Holding: Keeping positions open over the very long term, generally for an indefinite period.

M

• Margin: The part of your trading capital set aside to open positions larger than your base capital;

O

• Overnight: Holding a position from one session to the next, usually overnight.

C

• Currency pair: A combination of currencies regularly traded against each other, for example EUR-GBP;

S

• Spread: The difference between the ask price (buy price in the market) and the bid price (sell price in the market) of an asset;
• Slippage: The difference between the expected price of an asset and the price actually obtained. It can be negative or positive.

Conclusion

As we reach the end of this article, we can see that scalping is a fairly easy trading strategy to grasp. The key point is that scalp trading simply means holding your positions for a few minutes or a few hours, then closing them once your stop loss or take profit has been reached.

To build your strategy, rely on technical indicators. They will tell you when an asset’s price trend is in your favor. If you choose to scalp, you also need to be aware of the risks involved: you can lose most of your capital in a matter of seconds. To minimize the risk, set a clear trading plan backed by effective money management. Ideally, choose a Forex scalping and CFD broker if you want to take advantage of volatile markets, and learn the definition of scalping.

Struggling to understand some scalp trading concepts? Feel free to leave us a comment!