Keep an account statement in your pocket at all times. When people give you SHIT, just take it out, and be like "WHAT NOW BITCH?!"
We are doing pretty good this month. First 2 months losses being reduced slowly. Need few weeks of up days and we should be at par.
Someone who holds a stock for a longer period could at least attempt to argue that they believe in that company and the people who work for a living there. To paraphrase Thoreau a bit, a working man can readily see that the money gained by scalping is not on a level with money earned producing something of value, ie. working. "It is not enough to say that you work hard for your gold, so does the Devil work hard."
This is the first time I have looked at this thread. I finally looked at it because I was curious as to why it has stayed in the forefront since the premise of low respect for scalpers was a falsehood or misconception at the very least. And now I know why it is 19 pages long. Good old Day with his assinine comments to rile everyone up. I should have known.
True scalping is not what most "scalpers" practise. True scalping is exploiting the bid-offer spread - so by definition you can't scalp the ES or NQ which almost always has a 1 tick spread. Daytrading the ES is just that - daytrading, not scalping. I'm not sure why people would look down on scalpers. First of all, it provides a valuable service - lowering the bid-offer spread paid by long-term traders and investors. If I am a position trader, I would much rather have several scalpers active in my stock or future that I wanna trade, that way I get a tighter spread and thus lower transactions costs. If you are patient, you can often see when a scalper is long or short, then offer him an exit a few ticks below the ask or above the bid, he'll take it most times. Scalping is also extremely low risk (over the long-term) when done properly. It's rare to have a losing month as a scalper. You can also earn extremely high returns on capital until you start running into size constraints. Scalping is the best way to turn $25k into $250k+, no question.
Scalping the market is something everyone would like to be able to do suceesfully. However, beings very few have what it takes to successfully do it, it is beneficial for the ego to demonize those who are successful....it has nothing to do with respect or no respect for scalpers and everything to do with personal ego, IMO. Who in the hell wants to admit they can't do it, when it is much more ego comforting to demonize those who do?
The reason you go for small profits is because you are trying to buy something that is 0.1% undervalued, and sell it back at fair value. There is no reason to stay long anymore when it reaches fair value. Since you are only buying when the price is undervalued, related markets are going up, and you have a solid bid 1 tick lower to lean on if wrong, you usually won't lose too much if you have to get out. The risk/reward is not skewed to the downside, quite the opposite. If I buy at 120.10, and there are solid bids at 120.09 and 120.08, and the offer is 120.25, and the lead market (e.g. S&P) is ticking up, then my risk is 2 ticks and my reward is anything from 12 to 24 ticks. With momentum on my side the odds are even >50% of getting a winner. That is skewed alright - skewed in my favour. Scalping doesn't require margin at all, you can use it if you want to juice returns (at higher risk), but it's not necessary. 0.2% a day works out at a great annual return, and is doable without margin. Bear in mind also that scalpers can react to news first - on a typical "disaster" day, scalpers usually have some of their best profits. It's not uncommon to lose at first on a piece of news, then make it all back and then some in the subsequent volatility.
But nowadays especially, being a professional poker player is kinda like a junior version of being a rock star. You'll get more pussy saying "I make millions a year as a poker pro" than "I make millions a year as an equities analyst at Goldman Sachs", and more people will be interested in you and your gambling stories. The only people who will turn their noses up are the suburban 2.4 kids and a white picket fence types, and who cares about those boring f*cks anyway. Most other people attracted to the film noir image of poker professionals.
This isn't really scalping, since USDJPY is a liquid market with a 1 pip spread. Scalping is buying on the bid and selling on the offer, this requires a bid/offer spread of *at least* 2 ticks minimum, and to be feasible really it needs quite a bit more than 2 ticks. What you were doing was directional punting on a daytrading timeframe. This has no inherent edge (actually a small negative edge), and requires *serious* skill and experience to pull off well. It is nothing to do with scalping. Scalping has almost nothing to do with "mindset" or psychology, and almost everything to do with market structure, typical bid/offer spreads, and liquidity. Forget psychology, and find markets with wide bid/offer spreads that you can work with.