Is Scalping Legal?

Scalping is a short-term trading strategy that seeks to profit from small price movements in stocks throughout the day. Scalpers may be high-frequency traders who enter and exit several trades within a matter of minutes or even seconds, trying to capitalize on fleeting market inefficiencies, liquidity imbalances, and volatility. The goal of scalping is to accumulate a…

Scalpers seek to profit from small market movements, taking advantage of a ticker tape that never stands still. For years, this fast-fingered day-trading crowd relied on Level 2 bid/ask screens to locate buy and sell signals, reading supply and demand imbalances away from the National Best Bid and Offer (NBBO)—the bid/ask price that the average person sees. They would buy when…

Since scalping involves very short holding periods, the main risk is that the price of a stock will move against a trade in the very short term. To minimize this risk, scalpers often set tight stop-loss orders to exit a trade quickly if it goes against them.

Forex scalping involves trading currency pairs over very short timeframes, in high numbers. A lot of forex scalpers will focus on high volatility events around economic data and breaking news, where large market moves are almost guaranteed. A standard lot in forex is the equivalent of 100,000 units of the base currency, but thanks to…

Scalp trading works by buying and selling large quantities of an asset, but only holding the position for a short period of time. Scalp traders would either go long by buying low and selling high, or go short by selling high and buying low. Having both avenues of profit enables scalp traders to find a…

Finally, pull up a 15-minute chart with no indicators to keep track of background conditions that may affect your intraday performance. Add three lines: one for the opening print and two for the high and low of the trading range that set up in the first 45 to 90 minutes of the session. Watch for price action at…