Scalping is one of the most entertaining forms of trading. You can make several hundred and even thousand dollars in a few minutes but you can also lose that same amount of money within seconds. This seat of the pants roller coaster style of trading attracts many traders, mostly new traders.

It is easily to get sucked in, especially if you have some early success, but remember failure is right around the corner. Everyone who has had some immediate success with scalping has always had several days where they have almost lost their shirt. It’s inevitable that this happens and is extremely likely because new traders use too much leverage and don’t use a money management system.

Not only is scalping hard to be successful at over the long time because it’s mostly discretionary trading on the retail level, retail traders do not have the correct tools or brokers to scalp effectively.

Retail traders do not know this dirty little secret: Your broker wants you to fail! But you thought they only earned money on the spread! Most retail brokers also act as the market maker for their customers, that means that your broker is on the opposite end of each one of your trades!

If that wasn’t enough dirt, you also do not get to see the market as it actually is! The price feeds on your retail account lags the major banks currency feeds, so you can’t really scalp in real time.

Although the pip fees at most retail Forex brokers isn’t too high, it’s still too high to truly scalp. I know have had this thought: I would make a killing if I didn’t have to pay so many pips on each trade. It’s a valid thought and it’s why professional scalpers don’t use retail brokers. Imagine how much money you could make if your pip spread was under 1 pip? You could truly scalp the market all day long for micro pips.

Professional scalpers either use an ECN or they have account directly with the major banks. This is how they are able to truly scalp the currency market and earn those little fractions of pips which equate to big dollars when you use leverage.

So what should you do? Well you should probably look into trading with an ECN or if you can afford it get a direct account with a bank feed.

One last thing that you don’t get on a retail account are an order flow book. An order flow book will allow you to know when trades are being made and for what amount. This will allow you to know when a bank is about to pump in a large amount of money to move the market. There are traders who scalp the order book without using any charts.

As you can see, there are a lot of secrets that your broker is keeping from you. You are missing out on so many opportunities to get an edge when you trade with a retail broker.