What is, in your opinion, the best scalping strategy, that you can use to trade from 9AM to 10:30AM, that is, half hour before and an hour after opening, and consistently make between $100 and $400 a day, with a margin account around $50,000?
Sell the greed and buy the fear. Seriously, this will show up on charts as the little spikes you see on a 1-5 minute chart. You need real good volume (+10,000,000 per day) and fairly narrow spreads.
Watch the tier two stocks in the chips/bios/software index on the Naz. Buy/Sell a break above previous day's high/low and cover it the first time after 15-25 cents (at least half the position) for it will no doubt fail (usually) the first time it tries to make a high/low above/below the previous days high/low. If it holds/consolidates relatively well after failing the first time, and then tries again for a 2nd or 3rd time, hold on (at least part of the position) for a larger move as you have a little more confidence it will sustain itself. Obviously look at volume (tape) and other indicators like broader market action, TRIN levels at time of breaks etc and this should add to or take away from the confidence factor you can assign to the trade (ie how quick should you take profits and/or cut losses). On more days than not you will get a handful of trades from this and if you take tight stops you can squeeze out a few hundred and every now and then get a home run day out of it.