Scalping is something that requires a great deal of skill because you need to get in and out of positions relatively quickly, and you obviously need to attempt to make a profit from every trade that you make, whether it’s based purely on price action or if you are trading off the short-term charts such as the 1-minute and 5-minute charts.
You will find that this is one of the quickest ways to make money as a forex trader because you can open and close a position in a matter of minutes (or seconds in some cases). However you can also lose money just as fast if you are not careful, which is why it is a good idea to only trade during certain periods of the day.
I don’t really scalp the markets myself anymore, but there are definitely some periods of the day that are more profitable than others.
Best Time of the Day for Scalping…
I would say that the best time of day to scalp the forex markets is the first hour of the London trading session, ie 8.00 – 9.00 AM UK time. This is particularly true if you are trading any pair that is based on the British Pound or the Euro, for example.
That’s because you often see some decent price moves during the first hour of trading as the overall trend for the day starts to establish itself.
It is not unusual to see a big price move upwards or downwards for many of the major currency pairs during this time, and you will often see some decent opening range breakouts during this time, which are often fairly easy to trade and can yield some excellent returns.
Another benefit of this opening hour of trading is that there are generally no economic data releases or fiscal statements scheduled for this time. Therefore you can scalp the markets based purely on price action or technical analysis safe in the knowledge that the prices won’t be affected by any external influences.
If you are not available to trade at this time of the day, then another good time to trade is when the New York market opens at 8.00 (EST), which is 3.00 PM UK time. By this time many of the economic data releases have been announced, and you have an overlap of the UK and US markets because they are both open during this time.
The pre-opening hour between 7.00 and 8.00 AM EST is another good time to trade because you tend to get a lot of volatility during this time, which is a core requirement for many scalpers.
Worst Time of the Day for Scalping…
With regards to the worst times of the day to scalp the forex markets, it is basically any time of the day when markets are quiet and subdued. If the price of a particular currency is trading in a sideways pattern and is barely moving, it is obviously not a good time to be scalping the markets.
Therefore if you are trading a GBP, EUR or USD-based pair, then you wouldn’t want to be trading when both the European and American markets are closed, for example.
Similarly, if you are an Australian trader who likes to scalp the AUD/NZD pair, you wouldn’t want to be trading this pair when the Australian and New Zealand markets are both closed because the price of this pair will generally move a lot less during this time.
Closing Comments
A lot of scalpers only trade during a certain window each day, and generally choose a specific time when their favorite pairs are the most volatile.
So the point is that you don’t need to be sat at your computer screen all day long. You just need to be at your desk ready to trade when your scalping strategies are most likely to generate a decent profit, which for most people is at the start of a particular trading session.
You also need to use a broker that has very tight spreads, such as Forex Time, for example, that has spreads starting from 0.1 pips for ECN accounts, because a typical spread of 3-4 pips will make it a lot harder to make money on a consistent basis.
This stuff makes sense.