Scalping

Scalping is a trading style built around taking many small, quick profits over the course of a session rather than waiting for one big move. A scalper might be in and out of a position in seconds or a few minutes, targeting a small price move, then repeating the process dozens or even hundreds of times a day.

The logic is that small, frequent gains can add up, and small moves happen far more often than large ones, so there are more opportunities to act on. To make this work, scalpers usually trade liquid instruments with tight spreads (the gap between the price you can buy at and the price you can sell at), because that spread and any commission eat directly into a profit target that might only be a few cents or ticks wide. They also lean heavily on fast order execution, since a delay of even a second or two can turn a planned small win into a small loss.

The nuance that trips people up is that scalping is not just "day trading but faster." It changes the math of the whole approach. Because each individual trade aims for a tiny gain, transaction costs, slippage (getting a worse price than expected when an order fills), and platform speed matter proportionally much more than they do for someone holding a position for hours. A strategy that looks profitable on a chart can quietly lose money once realistic costs and fill delays are included.

Scalping also demands constant attention and quick decision-making, since positions are opened and closed rapidly and there is little time to reassess once in a trade. Some traders scalp manually by watching price action tick by tick; others use automated systems designed to execute the same repeatable pattern faster and more consistently than a human could.