hey there ...a few years back i took a good hard look at my trading and decided i needed to up things a gear and start scalping (well short timeframe trading - holding trades for very short periods of time - averaging 3-5 mins max)

Why ?

because if you can scalp successfully, you can leverage your capital and make some serious returns over shorter timescales than any other style of trading

Simple math guys - if you are returning a decent % average return per every 100 trades then the main options for returning higher absolute returns are :-

1) increase the Capital base (increases stake per trade on same % stake) OK if you can afford it ...but can you really ?

2) maintain Capital Base but increase % staked per trade

NO NO NO - NEVER DO THIS - SUICIDE AND YOU WILL GO BROKE ONE DAY

3) increase the amount of trades you are doing per day - (ie moving into shorter timeframe trading) - welcome to scalping !

it was a painful transition .....cosy positional and swing trading (with plenty of time to think about it) were replaced by ultra fast decisions and a whole new set of rules i had to learn.....mainly from experienced and successful scalpers who kindly taught me the ropes ......

i've never looked back and these days can do pretty well just on 2 hours a day (early morning London)........if i get the chance to trade the whole London session it can be very lucrative once you get a few pairs running .....easy to spot with the right strengthmeter indicators in place

anyway its up to all traders to find their niche and edge .....but I do recommend looking at scalping once you are a little more experienced and comfortable with your trading technique.......as nothing comes close to the potential rewards (as explained above)

Neil (NVP)