scalping - no longer worth doing?

[The Silk Run]

Scalping pre-race Horse Racing markets was my flight-path to trading. Thoroughly enjoyed it but parked it just before the pandemic reigned on us all !!!

[rik]

Automated maybe lets be honest scalping needs a lot of patience

[jamesg46]

I’ve always been sceptical of scalping as a strategy but that’s probably because I’m not effective at doing it. Mentality if I can’t, nobody can sort of thing.

I’ve come to realise that it doesn’t suit me, I’m too lazy to focus or I just don’t know where to implement it… but that’s me and I’m sure there are plenty making money from it.

[Derek27]

Scalping pre-race Horse Racing markets was my flight-path to trading. Thoroughly enjoyed it but parked it just before the pandemic reigned on us all !!!

Yes, that pandemic that killed off scalping several years ago was awful.

[Geordie]

Still have mine

Me too. Time to revisit it to see what ideas it gives me

[adryan87]

Of course i need to find info if i want to do something..i am not that good to reinvent the wheel..so i need to to look at others...ok,for You guys all seems to be so simple..Sometimes i succed to scalp..maybe because i am more focused..i don't know...

[jamesg46]

Watching my trades back from yesterday & I did scalp in 1 race, I think I took 32p from it

Not sure why I was scalping but when I watched it back I probably could of put a fair few more scalps through.

https://youtu.be/PasJUiuFQ7o

Anyway, there’s the video of me making a fortune.

[The Silk Run]

Nice one James. Every little counts

[jamesg46]

Nice one James. Every little counts

Do that a few million times and I’ll have my dream car

[stueytrader]

I would guess, to some extent, we all have to use scalping at times whether we want to or not - e.g. when we are exiting a market that has not quite managed a swing we were aiming for?

So, in that respect scalping can be very similar to 'scratching' a market trade, just with a tiny bit of extra profit added?

But, that seems very different, as it's using scalping as an emergency exit strategy, rather than trying to actually scalp as the entry strategy.

And if we were going by the 'trading what you see' ideas in trading, then we would vary whether or not the scalp was directly in mind on the entry point, depending on the market behaviour.

I also think of a scalp as a 'baby swing', as it is always potentially the beginning of a larger swing - every swing has to begin with a smaller move, often a single tick 'scalp'. But, that essentially is why I often don't look for the scalp, because I'm already seeing that as a sign that there will be a swing!

Linked and tricky decisions and trading concepts indeed.

[wearthefoxhat]

Scalping is worth doing as a way of learning about how the market moves and how you react to it. When done manually, you fine tune how you deal with the exit. If done properly, you protect your trade by minimising a loss. Also, embrace the scratch trade. The wins look after themselves.

As already mentioned, automation best handles this process without the emotion.

IMO, swing trades are best for manual trading in combination with semi-automation.

[Realrocknrolla]

Also, embrace the scratch trade. The wins look after themselves.

Absolute GOLD comment!

[stueytrader]

Also, embrace the scratch trade. The wins look after themselves.

Absolute GOLD comment!

Yes, agreed.

But this does emphasise the close proximity by which a 'scalp' and a 'stratch' exist in trading - a winning scalp is really as close as you can get to breaking even, while still making a profit.
Adding the losing scalps (which are essentials if using that approach) makes taking lots of 'nearly scratches' i.e. scalps, into a fairly breakeven area of operating for most I would guess.
Yes, good for practice, but I couldn't understand many approaches that only used scalping.

[Euler]

I guess some of this depends on how you define scalping. This sort of question popped up years ago on this forum by somebody that was trying to prove trading was 'impossible' and that profitable traders were just 'lucky'.

So I scalped only and posted the results. At which point he declared that I wasn't actually scalping of course in the sense in which he understood what is was.

[jamesg46]

Euler raises an interesting point there in regards to how scalping is defined.

When you go on yt and watch people scalping it’s usually in a very trigger happy manner, entering multiple bets on both sides, cancelling some, scratching some etc etc. That imo is chaos, it’s what I would define as “Active scalping”. You’re manually very active.

Then there is what I would define as “Passive scalping”. This is where bets are left in the market outside of the current touch price but within range and left for the market to pick them up.

That’s my limited understanding of scalping, I’ve never really put too much thought into it but I’d be interested to read how others define scalping.