For most people, intraday trading is an intriguing world that can serve as an excellent source of additional income. For yet others, day trading is the only source of income. These are the people who are well-versed with trading and aware of the various advanced, trading methods and strategies. One such term that perhaps only advanced traders are familiar with is scalping. Here’s an introductory guide on scalping and scalping indicators.

What is scalping, and who is a scalper?

Scalping is defined as a style of trading in which traders attempt to book profits off small changes in prices, typically after executing a trade and becoming profitable. Such traders generally trade with a strict, pre-planned exit strategy since a single massive loss can most likely eliminate their many small gains, obtained with hard work. Scalpers rely on several factors to make their trades successful, including scalping indicators, live feed, direct-access brokers as well as the capacity to place multiple trades, to make their trading strategy successful.

Top 5 Scalping Indicators and Strategies

Traders interested in mastering the art of scalping should learn about the five best scalping strategy indicators. They are as under:

1. The SMA Indicator

The Simple Moving Average Indicator or SMA indicator is the most basic type of indicator traders rely on to device a trading strategy. It shows traders the average price of their trades, over a specific time. Essentially, it helps traders understand whether the price of their securities, commodities, foreign exchange, etc., is moving up or down, thereby helping them to identify a trend. SMA is regarded as an arithmetic moving average in which traders typically add the recent closing prices and then divide the price by the number of periods to calculate the average.

2. The EMA Indicator

The Exponential Moving Average or EMA indicator is another useful indicator that enables traders to give more weightage to recent prices, while SMA assigns equal weightage to all values. The EMA indicator is regarded as one of the best indicators for scalping since it responds more quickly to recent price changes than to older price changes. Traders use this technical indicator for obtaining buying and selling signals that stem from crossovers and divergences of the historical averages.

3. The MACD Indicator

Yet another popular indicator used by traders is the Moving Average Convergence Divergence or MACD indicator. It is one that suits various types of traders. The MACD helps in understanding momentum and to follow and capture trends. Mainly, the MACD indicator displays the relationship between two moving averages of a security’s price. Traders calculate the MACD scalping indicator by subtracting the 26-day EMA (exponential moving average) from the 12-day EMA, with the 9-day EMA set as the MACD default setting or signal line to mark buying and selling triggers.

4. The Parabolic SAR indicator

The Parabolic Stop and Reverse or SAR indicator is another excellent indicator that shows traders a price action trend. The SAR scalping indicator displays chart points below the price during an upward trend. Conversely, the indicator displays chart positions above the price during a downward trend, signaling traders that prices are retracting. The SAR indicator helps traders determine an asset’s future, short-term momentum and assists in understanding when and where to place a stop-loss order. It works best when markets are demonstrating steady trends.

5. The Stochastic Oscillator indicator

The Stochastic Oscillator indicator, also known as a momentum indicator is another popular indicator used for indices, forex, and CDFC trading. It follows the simple premise that momentum precedes the price. Thus, traders use this scalping indicator for obtaining signals of the actual movement, immediately before it occurs. The indicator also functions on the assumption that an issue’s closing price typically trades at the higher-end of the action-price of the trading day. Although it seems a bit complex, traders consider the Stochastic Oscillator indicator as one of the most reliable tools for buying and selling indications.

Final note:

Scalping indicators can prove helpful while executing trades. However, it can be quite challenging to master them. That said; you can learn about these indicators with time and experience with the help of an excellent trading platform and advisory services. To learn about scalping indicators, reach out to us at Angel One.