Guide 1.7
Beginner, 7 min read. Checked with Scalpel 1.12.8 on .
In short
Scalpel opens in SIM, a paper account that fills your orders against the live Level 2 book, so you can learn it with no money at risk. Load a symbol on a desk, press Shift+1 to buy 100 shares, watch the red stop and green target appear on the chart, press Ctrl+X to sell half and Esc to flatten the rest. That is the whole Scalpel loop; do it ten times before you change anything.
Scalpel is opinionated. It does one job: long-only scalping of US stocks, built first for the pre-market (04:00 to 09:30 New York time) and fine in regular hours too. There is no shorting, no options, futures or crypto. It is also keyboard and audio first: every action has a key and every fill, exit and stop has a spoken callout, so your eyes can stay on the book. This first session teaches you exactly that rhythm. Why it is built this way: guide 1.9.
Before you start
Look at the header. MODE 1 must read SIM, and ACCOUNT, on the right, says SIM too. A new install always starts in SIM with $25,000 of paper cash. Next to MODE, the clock shows New York time and the session 2: Pre-market, Regular hours, After-hours or Closed.
Click the symbol box in the header of desk D1, type a ticker and press Enter. A list of matches drops down as you type; Up and Down move through it. The desk fills with the quote, the Level 2 ladder, the tape and the chart in a second or two.
For a first session, pick an active stock with plenty of prints on the tape and a spread of a cent or two. A thin, jumpy stock teaches you about slippage before you know the keys.
Under the chart is the order bar. The four green buttons are your buy presets: 100 sh, 250 sh, 500 sh and 1000 sh out of the box, fired by Shift+1 to Shift+4. Above each is the dollar size that press would buy right now: 100 shares at a 5.71 ask is $571. The red sell row lights up once you hold shares.
Press Shift+1. Scalpel sends a buy limit 10 cents above the ask (the buy Offset), which fills straight away at the best offers on the book, never above your limit. You hear the fill called out, and the desk changes:
Scalpel arms the stop for you on every entry, sized to how much the stock has been moving (1.5 times the recent 1-minute range, the ATR), with the take-profit at twice that distance (2R). A wider catastrophe net sits further down as a backstop; it is not drawn.
These stops are watched by Scalpel, not left at the broker. Before the open, exchanges accept only limit orders, so an ordinary stop order cannot protect you, and a stop-limit can be jumped in a thin book. Scalpel watches every trade instead and, when price trades through your stop, sends a marketable sell. The catch: it only works while Scalpel is running and connected. All of it in guide 5.1.
Press Ctrl+X (Cmd+X on a Mac). Scalpel sells 50 shares at the bid and calls it out. The position strip now reads LONG 50, and the stop and target stay where they were for the rest. Ctrl+C sells a quarter, Ctrl+Z the lot.
Press B. The red stop jumps up to your entry, so the rest of the trade can no longer lose (before slippage and fees). A stop only ever moves up: if it is already above your entry, B leaves it there. Shift+T makes it trail behind new highs instead (guide 5.3).
Press Esc. Scalpel closes every open position on every desk, the same as the red Flatten All button in the header, and says so. It cancels any buy still working first, so nothing keeps filling after you are out. This is your panic key: learn where it is today.
The ORDERS & POSITIONS panel under the chart has a Positions tab (now flat) and an Orders tab with your fills; NET P&L at the top includes commissions. The header's DAILY P&L shows the day so far. Switch VIEW to Analytics for your SIM statistics (guide 6.4).
| Minutes | Do this | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 0 to 3 | Steps 1 to 3 above | Know where SIM, the clock and the order bar are |
| 3 to 6 | One full trade: Shift+1, Ctrl+X, Esc | The loop, start to finish |
| 6 to 10 | Three more, eyes on the ladder, not the keyboard | Your fingers learn the keys; the voice confirms each one |
| 10 to 12 | Let one trade run into its stop | Hear what a stop-out sounds like and see where it fills |
| 12 to 15 | Press ? and read the cheatsheet | Every key on one screen |
SIM is a cash account that books every fill against what the live book actually showed. A buy takes the offers on the ladder up to your limit; if they run out, the rest keeps working at your limit, like a real order, until it fills from new prints or you cancel it (Ctrl+Q, or Shift+Q on a Mac). A sell priced above the bid, such as half at the ask, rests at its price until trades reach it. A stop-out fills where the market is: at the price that crossed your stop or the bid, whichever is worse, less your SIM slippage. A gap through the stop costs you the gap, as it would live. Commissions are charged at IBKR's rates. What SIM cannot show is other traders reacting to your order, or hidden size taking your place in line, so live fills on thin stocks will be a little worse. More in guide 6.1.