Guide 14.5
Beginner, 5 min read. Checked with Scalpel 1.12.8 on .
In short
Spend your first week in SIM learning one thing a day: the keys on day 1, sizing by risk on day 2, stops on day 3, the scanner and intel on day 4, and a full session under a daily loss limit on day 5. Review every day in Analytics, and judge the week by your process (losers held to about 1R, no moved stops, the daily limit respected), not by the P&L. Go live only when that process is boring.
SIM fills against the real Level 2 book, so a week there teaches the parts of scalping that hurt most to learn with money: pressing the right key under pressure, sizing the same way every time, and taking the stop. It will not teach you to be profitable, and nothing guarantees that: fast small-cap trading carries a significant risk of loss, it is very difficult, and many people who try it lose money. What a good SIM week gives you is habits.
Before you start
Before each practice session:
Set SIM start ($) in Settings > Risk to your real account size and reset: SIM uses and saves the balance shown on the button. Pick your IBKR commission plan on the same tab (guide 6.3). Leave the default share presets for today.
Load a liquid, slow stock and spend the session on the keys alone: Shift+1 to buy, Ctrl+X to sell half, B to move the stop to breakeven, Ctrl+Z to get out. Listen to the callouts until "Filled, level one" and "Out, half" mean something without looking (guide 10.1). Press ? whenever you forget a key. Practise Esc to flatten everything, so you know what it does before you need it.
Goal: 20 round trips with no wrong key.
Switch the order bar's method to Risk (Cents) and set four dollar risks in Settings > Sizing that suit your account (guide 4.2, guide 14.4). Before each press, read the size line above the button and nudge the Stop stepper for the stock. Set the fat-finger and max-position caps to your account (guide 7.2).
Goal: every loser today costs about the same dollars.
Watch the red working stop and the green take-profit draw on the chart after every fill. Try each way of managing them: drag the stop on the chart, press B once you are up, press Shift+T to trail a runner, and let at least a few trades stop out by themselves (guide 5.1, guide 5.3). Notice that Scalpel watches the stop: in LIVE it only works while Scalpel runs and is connected.
Goal: no stop moved down, ever.
Get up for the pre-market. Put a desk on SCAN with the IBKR scanner, and follow the routine in guide 14.2: shortlist names with a catalyst chip, skip names with red dilution chips, load two or three on trader desks. Let the dilution entry guard stop you once, so you know what it feels like (guide 9.7).
Goal: every trade today has a reason you can say out loud.
Set Daily loss ($) to what you would accept losing in a real day, with Auto-flatten on daily loss on (guide 7.1). Run the whole routine from the pre-market to your stop time. If the RISK LOCK trips, stop for the day: do not click Resume trading, and do not switch mode to get around it.
Goal: the plan followed start to finish.
Pick Analytics in the header's VIEW picker (guide 6.4). Look at three things:
Goals grades your win rate and payoff. After one week it is a curiosity, not a verdict.
Not after one week, for most people. Look for these, over weeks:
When they are true, work through the checklist in guide 6.2 and start live with your smallest button. Expect live fills and live nerves to be harder than SIM, and keep coming back to SIM to practise anything new.