Who's who: Pipsers vs. Dealers
To grab a couple of points of profit on the market, close a deal, reopen it, grab and run away - that is the whole essence of pipsing. How do brokers treat pipsers and is it true that dealers have an unspoken fight against pipsing?
Market noise
In the market, even in calm times, there is never a single price. Every second, bank dealers are throwing their own prices into the Reuters Dealing system quotes. Every second, for the same instrument, there are dozens of quotes with a difference of 2-3 or more points. Sometimes, depending on the volatility of the market or the instrument itself, this difference can reach tens of points.
All these quotes are retransmitted to the dealing systems of DCs and to the trading terminals of the clients of DCs.
Some DCs set up filters and cut unnecessary quotes, averaging and smoothing the flow. This eliminates market noisebut delays occur with strong directional movements.
Other brokerage centers broadcast quotes as they are, cutting only obvious outliers. As a result, we often, especially in a sideways trend, see the following picture: one or two quotes up, two or three quotes down, two or three quotes up, one or two quotes down. There seems to be a movement, but in fact, the market stands still.
It's called market noise.
What do pipsqueaks do?
Pips traders focus solely on playing within a narrow range of market noise with the goal of getting 1-2 or more pips up by opening on buy, and 1-2 or a little more pips down by opening on sell. Opening and closing of trades takes place within secondsand such a deal remains open for several minutes. In MT4 terminals, where automatic trading is allowed, this is done by specially trained Expert Advisor scripts.
Of course, if the range of market noise is wider than the spread quoted by the dealer, the pipsing tactic becomes super profitable.
Dumping spread
Since the beginning of mass use MetaTrader platforms In the last five years, in pursuit of clients, many brokerage centers have started to narrow the spread down to zero. This in turn has given rise to a huge army of pip traders. These are not investors, these are not traders, these are gamers, for whom Forex is nothing but a kind of Tetris. And they naively wonder why dealers do not like them so much.
So why do dealers don't like pipsetters after all?
Dealer's task ensure that the risks on the total aggregate position of all his clients (investor-traders) open with him do not exceed the risks on his similar position open with a counterparty - another dealer.
Depending on the party and the total volume of the client position, he periodically increases or decreases the volume of his position with the counterparty, which should always be more profitable for the dealer. This is what his job is all about.
Pips gamer's task to catch their pips at the extremes of market noise. And since such deals have phantom character, of course, the dealer cannot take them into account when conducting his position at the counterparty. The only and the most effective remedy against "rodents" is to widen their spread and delays in quoting. Otherwise, all honestly earned profit of the dealer will be eaten up by pips.