A rule that voids profits on trades closed within 60 seconds: one scalping week recounted

[Fairman]

A rule that voids profits on trades closed within 60 seconds: one scalping week recounted

Hypothetical rule, used to show the sums: profits from trades closed within 60 seconds do not count towards the target, though losses on those trades still do. Some firms have versions of this, and each differs, so read the exact wording.

One week of invented scalps: 40 trades.
Under 60 seconds: 14 trades. 9 winners averaging +$55 and 5 losers averaging -$40. Reported: +$495 - $200 = +$295.
Over 60 seconds: 26 trades netting +$640.

Reported P&L for the week: $935. Counted P&L under the rule: $640 from the slower trades, minus the $200 of losses on the fast ones, which is $440.

Less than half of the reported profit counts. A week that looked like 0.94% on a $100,000 account counts as 0.44%. If the target is 10%, the pace you thought you had is half what the firm sees.

Scalpers who exit on a quick profit by habit are the ones affected. The fix has to be in the plan: a minimum time in trade, or a different exit.

[FXS HongKong Scalper]

A useful recount. A scalper relying on quick wins can see a large part of their profits not counted under such rules. Holding trades just past 60 seconds to qualify might change the strategy's behaviour, so testing whether the edge survives that change is important before taking a challenge with such a rule.

[Fairman]

How much of your own trading is under the threshold is easy to count. Export the history, compute close time minus open time for each trade, and use a spreadsheet filter at 60 seconds. Look at three figures: share of trades, share of total profit, and expectancy of the fast group against the rest. Many people discover that the fast group is a distinct habit, for example exiting at the first sign of a reversal, with a smaller average win than the slower trades. If the fast group has a clearly lower expectancy anyway, the rule costs you little, and if it has the best, you now know what the rule would change.

[Fairman]

Holding for 61 seconds to beat the rule is a trap. It can turn a +$55 exit into whatever the price does in the extra time, which on a fast pair is a few pips either way. For a 5 lot trade each pip is $50, so a 2 pip move in the wrong direction costs $100, more than the profit you were protecting. A cleaner approach is to move the entry, so you take the trade where the setup has a longer natural duration, such as entries on the retest rather than the first break. The average time in trade should come from the setup, not from a stopwatch on the screen.

[Fairman]

Read how the rule counts losses. In the example, fast losses count and fast wins do not, which is asymmetric. Another version simply flags the account for review without changing the numbers, and a third excludes both wins and losses from the metrics. Each leads to a different recount. If both are excluded the fast group simply disappears: in the example, the total would be $640, with 14 trades removed. Compared with $440 and $935 this is a third answer from the same week. Ask the firm's support exactly which one applies, and keep the reply, since the wording on a public page often leaves it open.

[Fairman]

Execution matters here too. Trades that take 40 seconds to resolve are not unusual on M1 setups around the London open, with targets of 4 or 5 pips and tight stops. A fast market resolves them quickly, and a slow one drags them past a minute. That means the share of trades under 60 seconds changes with conditions, so a week in a quiet market might show 8% of trades under the threshold and a week of fast news-driven pairs 40%. Check several weeks, not one, before deciding how much of your style the rule touches.

[Shadow Trader]

Blunt opinion: a minimum holding time clause in an account agreement says more about the broker's execution model than about the trader.

When a broker requires trades to stay open for, say, a minute or two, the reason is usually that its pricing or hedging cannot cope with trades that close faster than it can offset them. That is a fair business constraint, but it also signals that the setup was not built for scalping in the first place.

The way it is enforced matters more than the number. Some brokers just ignore trades under the limit for bonuses or rebates. Some remove profit from short trades. Some close the account after warnings. Those are very different things, and the wording is often vague, so it is worth reading the exact clause rather than the marketing page.

The rule can also interact with strategy in odd ways. In some agreements a trade closed by a stop after 20 seconds counts the same as one closed by hand, and in others it does not.

If scalping is the plan, a broker whose terms explicitly allow it, and say so in writing, removes a whole class of surprises.

Which brokers state their scalping policy in plain language, and which ones bury it?