My honest words about Scalping - 30 years in the market

[HansFX]

Hello,

I am writing this because I see many young people on this forum asking about scalping. I am 60 years old now. I trade the currency markets since the 90s. I have seen the big crashes, the big booms, and many traders who lose everything because they have no patience.

You ask me if scalping is good. I tell you: Scalping is not for "easy money." It is very hard work. It is like a job. You must be very disciplined.

If you want to do this, listen to my advice from many years:

The Spread is your enemy. In scalping, you take small moves. If your broker has high spread, you lose the profit before you even start. You must have a low-cost broker, or you just give your money to them.

Do not trade everything. Many beginners try to trade EUR/USD, GBP/JPY, Gold, and everything at one time. No. You pick one or two. You must know the "personality" of the pair. If you do not know how it moves, you cannot scalp it.

Execution must be fast. You cannot wait for a "perfect" signal that takes one hour to form. You must see the move and act. But—and this is important—you must have a Stop Loss. No excuses. If the trade goes against you, you cut it. You do not "hope" it comes back. Hope is not a strategy.

The Timeframe. I usually look at the 1-minute and 5-minute charts for scalping. But I always look at the 1-hour chart first. You must know where the "big" trend is going. Do not try to fight the big move just because you see a small move on the 1-minute.

Control your emotions. This is the most important. Scalping makes the heart beat fast. If you feel angry or you want to "get back" what you lost, you must stop. Go drink a coffee, walk outside, and come back later. The market will be there tomorrow.

Scalping is good for some, but it requires a very strong head. You must follow a rule. No "feeling," only the rules.

I hope this helps some of you. Much success to you.

Regards,

Hans

[PTScalper]

wow, interesting and well written

Welcome here.
Im looking forward to hear more about your trading style and experiences.

[FTtrader]

Hello,

I am writing this because I see many young people on this forum asking about scalping. I am 60 years old now. I trade the currency markets since the 90s. I have seen the big crashes, the big booms, and many traders who lose everything because they have no patience.

You ask me if scalping is good. I tell you: Scalping is not for "easy money." It is very hard work. It is like a job. You must be very disciplined.

If you want to do this, listen to my advice from many years:

The Spread is your enemy. In scalping, you take small moves. If your broker has high spread, you lose the profit before you even start. You must have a low-cost broker, or you just give your money to them.

Do not trade everything. Many beginners try to trade EUR/USD, GBP/JPY, Gold, and everything at one time. No. You pick one or two. You must know the "personality" of the pair. If you do not know how it moves, you cannot scalp it.

Execution must be fast. You cannot wait for a "perfect" signal that takes one hour to form. You must see the move and act. But—and this is important—you must have a Stop Loss. No excuses. If the trade goes against you, you cut it. You do not "hope" it comes back. Hope is not a strategy.

The Timeframe. I usually look at the 1-minute and 5-minute charts for scalping. But I always look at the 1-hour chart first. You must know where the "big" trend is going. Do not try to fight the big move just because you see a small move on the 1-minute.

Control your emotions. This is the most important. Scalping makes the heart beat fast. If you feel angry or you want to "get back" what you lost, you must stop. Go drink a coffee, walk outside, and come back later. The market will be there tomorrow.

Scalping is good for some, but it requires a very strong head. You must follow a rule. No "feeling," only the rules.

I hope this helps some of you. Much success to you.

Regards,

Hans

Hi Hans,

thank you for comming.
30 years of experience is quite extremely good.

How do you handle stress from trading/scalping if i may ask?

[HansFX]

Hello,

I am writing this because I see many young people on this forum asking about scalping. I am 60 years old now. I trade the currency markets since the 90s. I have seen the big crashes, the big booms, and many traders who lose everything because they have no patience.

You ask me if scalping is good. I tell you: Scalping is not for "easy money." It is very hard work. It is like a job. You must be very disciplined.

If you want to do this, listen to my advice from many years:

The Spread is your enemy. In scalping, you take small moves. If your broker has high spread, you lose the profit before you even start. You must have a low-cost broker, or you just give your money to them.

Do not trade everything. Many beginners try to trade EUR/USD, GBP/JPY, Gold, and everything at one time. No. You pick one or two. You must know the "personality" of the pair. If you do not know how it moves, you cannot scalp it.

Execution must be fast. You cannot wait for a "perfect" signal that takes one hour to form. You must see the move and act. But—and this is important—you must have a Stop Loss. No excuses. If the trade goes against you, you cut it. You do not "hope" it comes back. Hope is not a strategy.

The Timeframe. I usually look at the 1-minute and 5-minute charts for scalping. But I always look at the 1-hour chart first. You must know where the "big" trend is going. Do not try to fight the big move just because you see a small move on the 1-minute.

Control your emotions. This is the most important. Scalping makes the heart beat fast. If you feel angry or you want to "get back" what you lost, you must stop. Go drink a coffee, walk outside, and come back later. The market will be there tomorrow.

Scalping is good for some, but it requires a very strong head. You must follow a rule. No "feeling," only the rules.

I hope this helps some of you. Much success to you.

Regards,

Hans

Hi Hans,

thank you for comming.
30 years of experience is quite extremely good.

How do you handle stress from trading/scalping if i may ask?

Hi FTtrader,

the first 5 years was not easy, after that i found out strategy, which suits to me and thanks to that im naturally curious, i like to watch global markets anyway.
With experience will come better filtering of your trades. And with better filtering will come less stress.
Plus i love take photos of wild birds, so i spend lot of time in forest, so it is my natural way how to relax.

[FTtrader]

Hello,

I am writing this because I see many young people on this forum asking about scalping. I am 60 years old now. I trade the currency markets since the 90s. I have seen the big crashes, the big booms, and many traders who lose everything because they have no patience.

You ask me if scalping is good. I tell you: Scalping is not for "easy money." It is very hard work. It is like a job. You must be very disciplined.

If you want to do this, listen to my advice from many years:

The Spread is your enemy. In scalping, you take small moves. If your broker has high spread, you lose the profit before you even start. You must have a low-cost broker, or you just give your money to them.

Do not trade everything. Many beginners try to trade EUR/USD, GBP/JPY, Gold, and everything at one time. No. You pick one or two. You must know the "personality" of the pair. If you do not know how it moves, you cannot scalp it.

Execution must be fast. You cannot wait for a "perfect" signal that takes one hour to form. You must see the move and act. But—and this is important—you must have a Stop Loss. No excuses. If the trade goes against you, you cut it. You do not "hope" it comes back. Hope is not a strategy.

The Timeframe. I usually look at the 1-minute and 5-minute charts for scalping. But I always look at the 1-hour chart first. You must know where the "big" trend is going. Do not try to fight the big move just because you see a small move on the 1-minute.

Control your emotions. This is the most important. Scalping makes the heart beat fast. If you feel angry or you want to "get back" what you lost, you must stop. Go drink a coffee, walk outside, and come back later. The market will be there tomorrow.

Scalping is good for some, but it requires a very strong head. You must follow a rule. No "feeling," only the rules.

I hope this helps some of you. Much success to you.

Regards,

Hans

Hi Hans,

thank you for comming.
30 years of experience is quite extremely good.

How do you handle stress from trading/scalping if i may ask?

Hi FTtrader,

the first 5 years was not easy, after that i found out strategy, which suits to me and thanks to that im naturally curious, i like to watch global markets anyway.
With experience will come better filtering of your trades. And with better filtering will come less stress.
Plus i love take photos of wild birds, so i spend lot of time in forest, so it is my natural way how to relax.

Hello HansFX,

i got it. I think that if you want to be successful forex trader you have to have some kind of edge against other traders, what i know few of successful i see, that they are excelent in Math or Programming, so they have great logic or the love checking news, so they see where the world economy goes or where are risks.

[Fairman]

HansFX, thank you for the straight talk. Thirty years does not make every sentence gospel, but the core list you gave is the same list that keeps showing up when people actually survive scalping: low spreads, one or two instruments, higher timeframe before the micro charts, hard stops, and walking away after an emotional loss.

I agree strongly on spreads. On a short-hold trade, cost is not a footnote. It is part of the setup. If the average spread and slippage eat the move you are hunting, you do not have an edge — you have activity. Same for instrument count. Knowing the personality of one or two pairs beats half-watching six. EURUSD and one secondary, or gold and one major, is enough for most scalp books. More charts usually mean more excuses and thinner attention during session overlap.

The H1-before-M1/M5 point is multi-timeframe confluence in plain language. I will not fight a clear H1 directional structure because an M1 pattern looked clever. The micro chart is for timing and invalidation. The higher frame is for permission. When those disagree, I stand aside more often than I force a clever scalp. Order flow at a level only matters if the higher frame still respects that level.

What I would add is a written confluence filter and a personal edge definition. Rules without a filter still produce overtrading. My own filter is simple: session window I actually trade, level that matters on the higher frame, trigger on M5/M1 that I can describe in one sentence, and risk that fits both my account and any prop rail I am under. If any piece is missing, it is not a trade. Edge, for me, is not “I feel the move.” It is a repeatable stack of conditions with a known cost and a known invalidation. Psychology stays calmer when the filter is written before the session, not invented after a loss.

Walking away after anger or revenge urge is non-negotiable. Coffee and a walk sound soft until you measure how many accounts those minutes would have saved. The market will be there. Your process might not be if you stay glued while tilted.

Hans, your stress answer in the thread — better filtering over time, plus a life offline — matches what I see in traders who last. Curiosity about markets without needing every minute to pay is a healthier engine than adrenaline. Much respect for sharing the unglamorous version.

[LondonScalper]

Thirty years does not make every sentence gospel, but the core list you gave is the same list that keeps showing up when people actually survive scalping: low spreads, one or two instruments, higher timeframe before the micro charts, hard stops, and walking away.

HansFX’s list, and your endorsement of it, is the unglamorous curriculum.

Twenty-plus years on a London desk did not invent new commandments; it just burned off the decorative ones. Low costs, shortlist of instruments, HTF context before M1 cleverness, hard stops, and the ability to leave the chair — that is still the spine. Everything else is dialect.

Desk translation I still use Monday mornings: one bias sentence from H1/M15, two pairs maximum on the active board, stop placed where the idea is wrong (not where it “hurts less”), and a written flat time. If a session needs a fifth rule to feel clever, the first four were probably ignored.

Respect for long experience without turning it into scripture — that is the right tone. Survival habits are boring on purpose.