I have been on this site for years and see people throwing around the term 'scalping' like it's for real. I know that market is fractal and you can pretty much apply the same technique to any time frame... but there is a point where the edge is diminished by the bid/ask spread. So how the hell is holding some thing for a couple of minutes can even be remotely possible, other than just getting lucky with noise. somebody enlighten me.
See what you get when you buy 1.25% below the low of a 1 minute bar on a stock with a 1% target. You'd be surprised how often you'd win.
Yes it is quite possible. And profitable. I do it everyday. Take a look at SKF on a 42 tick chart. Cause that's what I use to trade. When the (what I called) "Microbursts" come along, you ride it. SKF moves up or down by $1.00 or more in less than 1 minute. On a 1-minute chart what you'll see is a price spike. Is it "noise"? Raps are nothing by clapping your hands and mumbling fast to some people. And therefore "noise". Noise or not noise is in the eye of the signal interpretor.
Pay a visit to http://www.investopedia.com It has a dictionary and articles for all kinds of things. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/scalping.asp
Some traders go direct access and are able to negotiate flat prices and trade 10k share lots just to recieve ECN rebates.
Because what you deem noise, what you see as random, someone else sees as their trading opportunities and setups. You use the word "lucky" because you don't understand the way some people trade. Which is fine, there are many ways to approach trading. It just depends on how YOU set out to learn the game.
Hmm, well, I put money with this once, made 10k on 100k, and quit after it lost 3k. Net up 7k, but much too volatile. I still think it works, but I get the feeling the OP is too lazy to actually do the work required to figure out whether he has an edge or not.