# Why Scalpel is long-only > Scalpel is long-only by design: every sell is capped to the shares you hold, so a double press never puts you short. No shorts, futures, options or crypto. Source: https://scalpeltrade.com/guides/long-only Guide 7.3, Risk controls. Beginner, 3 min read. Checked with Scalpel 1.12.8 on 2026-10-15. By Scalpel Team. **In short:** Scalpel only buys stocks and sells what it bought: it never opens a short position. Every sell, whether a scale-out, a full exit, a stop, a take-profit or a flatten, is capped to the shares you hold, so a double press or a stop firing during your own exit can never leave you short. This is a deliberate design choice: Scalpel is built for long-only scalping of US stocks, and it does not trade shorts, futures, options or crypto. ## Opinionated by design Scalpel is specialised software. It is built for one style of trading: buying momentum in US small-cap stocks, first of all in the pre-market (04:00 to 09:30 ET), and selling into strength. It works in regular hours too, but every part of it, from the Level 2 montage to the app-held stops, is shaped around that one job. So there are things it does not do, and almost certainly never will: - **No shorting.** You cannot sell what you do not own. - **No futures, options or crypto.** Stocks only. - **No auto trader.** You make every trade. Leaving those out keeps the cockpit simple and the safety rules strict. Every exit key means "sell some or all of what I hold", never "sell, whatever I hold". ## What long-only means for your exits - **Sells are capped to your position.** Half of 400 is 200; `Ctrl`+`Z` sells exactly what you hold, never more. - **A sell with nothing to sell is refused.** With no position, the order bar's sell buttons are grey, and a sell key shows **No long position to sell**. - **Sells already working count.** Interactive Brokers reports fills a moment after they happen, and a sell at the ask can rest for a while, so Scalpel counts the unfilled part of every sell you have working. If a new sell needs shares a working sell already offers, Scalpel never stacks the two: it cancels the working sell, waits for the cancel to be confirmed, and sends one order for what is still held, at the lower of the two prices. Press `Ctrl`+`Z` twice, or let a stop fire while your manual exit is still working, and you still sell exactly what you hold. - **Stops and targets only close longs.** When a stop or take-profit fires, it sells the shares you hold, replacing any sell already working on them. - **Flatten sells to zero, not past it.** In SIM, a flatten keeps selling the rest of a position on a thin book until you are flat, and stops there. *Screenshot: Flat: the Sell row is grey and a sell key is refused. Demo data.* ## Why it matters Accidentally going short is one of the most dangerous mistakes a fast trader can make. A short position has no ceiling on its loss, and the stocks momentum traders trade, small caps on news, are exactly the ones that squeeze hardest. The usual cause is not a decision to short: it is a stacked exit, a double-tapped key, or a stop and a manual sell going out together. Scalpel makes that impossible by design. It does not make trading safe. Long positions in fast small caps can and do fall hard, and most people who trade this way lose money. Your protection on the long side is your size, your stop and your daily loss limit ([guide 4.2](https://scalpeltrade.com/guides/trade-fixed-dollar-risk), [guide 5.1](https://scalpeltrade.com/guides/how-stops-work), [guide 7.1](https://scalpeltrade.com/guides/daily-loss-limit)). ## Questions **Can I short stocks with Scalpel?** No. Scalpel is long only. Every sell is capped to the shares you hold, so it can never open or add to a short. **Does Scalpel trade futures, options or crypto?** No. Scalpel trades US stocks only, and there are no plans to change that. **What happens if I press sell twice?** You never sell more than you own. If the first sell has filled, the second is refused with No long position to sell. If it is still working, the second replaces it with one sell for what you hold. **Why is the sell row greyed out?** You hold no position on that desk, or the market is closed. With no shares there is nothing to sell.