Roundup: Will your scalp survive costs? Minimum targets, cost in R and the journal cost column
Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2026 8:23 am
Roundup: Will your scalp survive costs? Minimum targets, cost in R and the journal cost column
Cost threads are scattered across the strategy board, and most of them make the same uncomfortable point in different ways: plenty of M1 ideas look fine on a chart and die once spread, commission and slippage are counted. Here's the combined version, with the practical tests people use.
The basic arithmetic
The "Spread and Commission Eat Scalpers Alive" thread starts with the number to sit with: on a 5 to 10 pip target, a 1.5 pip spread is 15 to 30 percent of the target gone before the trade moves. A reply puts it in setup terms: a tidy M1 pattern needing 8 pips of movement is often unworkable on a pair and session where all-in cost is 1.5 to 2 pips.
The tight stops thread shows the same thing from the risk side. A long enters at the ask and stops out on the bid, so with a 1.5 pip spread and a 10 pip stop, price only needs to move 8.5 pips on the chart to stop you. That's 15 percent of the risk gone at entry. On a 30 pip stop it's 5 percent. Percentages matter more than pips.
Two rules of thumb
Include the spread in size
The spread-in-risk thread changes the sizing input: real loss distance is stop distance plus spread, not stop distance alone. A reply suggests using the average spread at your trading time rather than the live one, and another notes it matters more on longs for some setups, since you fill at the ask and exit on the bid.
Let the journal tell you
Two journal threads are the most convincing part of this cluster. The cost column thread added spread plus commission plus slippage, in R or cash, to every closed scalp. Within a fortnight, AUDUSD and EURJPY that "felt clean" were costing 0.3 to 0.5R more per trade than EURUSD in the same session, and Friday afternoons that looked fine stopped looking fine.
The EURUSD cost tags thread found something similar: the pattern itself was fine, the first fifteen minutes of the London open weren't, once cost sat in its own column.
What survives
The "strategies that survive costs" thread lists why ideas fail: small average winner relative to cost, high frequency multiplying a small cost, stops slipping in fast moves, and market entries during momentum paying the widest spread. The survivors have bigger average winners relative to cost and fewer trades. A reply in the original thread said the same in one line: once the spread maths sank in, targets got wider, trades got fewer, and the broker came later.
What's your all-in cost as a fraction of your average stop? Under 0.1R, or higher than you'd like?
Threads this pulls from
Cost threads are scattered across the strategy board, and most of them make the same uncomfortable point in different ways: plenty of M1 ideas look fine on a chart and die once spread, commission and slippage are counted. Here's the combined version, with the practical tests people use.
The basic arithmetic
The "Spread and Commission Eat Scalpers Alive" thread starts with the number to sit with: on a 5 to 10 pip target, a 1.5 pip spread is 15 to 30 percent of the target gone before the trade moves. A reply puts it in setup terms: a tidy M1 pattern needing 8 pips of movement is often unworkable on a pair and session where all-in cost is 1.5 to 2 pips.
The tight stops thread shows the same thing from the risk side. A long enters at the ask and stops out on the bid, so with a 1.5 pip spread and a 10 pip stop, price only needs to move 8.5 pips on the chart to stop you. That's 15 percent of the risk gone at entry. On a 30 pip stop it's 5 percent. Percentages matter more than pips.
Two rules of thumb
- The minimum target rule: average target at least four to five times total cost. With 0.2 spread, 0.7 commission and 0.1 slippage, that's 1 pip of cost, so a 3 pip target leaves the cost eating a third of it.
- Cost in R: spread plus commission plus estimated slip, divided by the planned stop. A 0.8 pip cost on a 2 pip stop is 0.4R lost before the idea works. That thread logs it separately for EURUSD and gold because the ratio changes a lot.
Include the spread in size
The spread-in-risk thread changes the sizing input: real loss distance is stop distance plus spread, not stop distance alone. A reply suggests using the average spread at your trading time rather than the live one, and another notes it matters more on longs for some setups, since you fill at the ask and exit on the bid.
Let the journal tell you
Two journal threads are the most convincing part of this cluster. The cost column thread added spread plus commission plus slippage, in R or cash, to every closed scalp. Within a fortnight, AUDUSD and EURJPY that "felt clean" were costing 0.3 to 0.5R more per trade than EURUSD in the same session, and Friday afternoons that looked fine stopped looking fine.
The EURUSD cost tags thread found something similar: the pattern itself was fine, the first fifteen minutes of the London open weren't, once cost sat in its own column.
What survives
The "strategies that survive costs" thread lists why ideas fail: small average winner relative to cost, high frequency multiplying a small cost, stops slipping in fast moves, and market entries during momentum paying the widest spread. The survivors have bigger average winners relative to cost and fewer trades. A reply in the original thread said the same in one line: once the spread maths sank in, targets got wider, trades got fewer, and the broker came later.
What's your all-in cost as a fraction of your average stop? Under 0.1R, or higher than you'd like?
Threads this pulls from
- Scalping and Spread Costs: The Minimum Target Rule
- Scalping Strategies That Survive Costs: What Changes After Commission
- Spread and Commission Eat Scalpers Alive
- Why Spreads Hurt Tight Stops More Than You Think
- How to calculate all-in cost in R-multiples not just pips
- Cost column in the journal changed my pair choices
- EURUSD journal: how cost tags changed my behavior
- Including the spread in my risk calculation, the small number that changed my size