Scalping
Also known as: Scalp Trading
Scalping is the practice of opening and closing trades very quickly — often within 30 seconds to a few minutes — to capture small price moves repeatedly. Scalpers may take 20-100+ trades per session and rely on tight spreads, fast execution, and disciplined risk per trade.
Scalping is highly sensitive to trading costs: a 0.5-pip wider spread can flip a profitable scalping strategy to losing. Rebates, ECN execution, and low-commission accounts are scalper essentials. Many brokers explicitly allow scalping; some restrict it.