Each person has to decide for themselves what style is the best fit for them. Again, I don’t want to tell anyone what to do - but I would feel guilty if I didn’t at least explain why I think price action/swing trading is the way to go as opposed to scalping/day trading.
First of all, the art of reading price action applies to all charts (currencies, commodities, indices) so doing it well is in my opinion what makes a trader good.
A true master of price action can look at a bare chart and read it like they are reading a book. It’s their language and they understand what the charts are telling them. So, naturally it gives the trader an advantage in trading.
There will always be an element of unpredictability to trading because humans can be unpredictable. But there are also many patterns that repeat over and over again, so we can harness that by learning them and learning what they mean.
It gives us a statistical edge over the person who is just relying on delayed indicators to tell them when to get in and out / go up or down, etc.
The way that I have been taught to trade discourages using the lower time frames because the candles and patterns do not mean as much. A lot of it is just “noise”. The back and forth tug and pull of price - not very meaningful in the big picture.
When trading in a scalping style, you are in and out quickly with many trades per day…it encourages a type of recklessness because you are not giving each trade much thought and analysis, plus the risk/reward ratio is low. This is bad for money management over time.
My understanding of scalping is you’re trying to skim some pips off of volume moves, and I know that some people must be successful at it - but I have sure seen a lot crash and burn as well. Most traders (including myself) go through different methods of trading when trying to find their “fit” - there’s no harm in trying out your various options on demo. Scalping can be fun, thrilling even, the high’s and low’s offer a constant adrenaline surge, and it’s almost addicting if you’re one who enjoys being in front of the screen all day.
But if you’re a person with limited time on your hands, it’s my opinion that analyzing your end of day data and setting up some trades and letting them play out, is the way to go. You can learn from your mistakes and change the plan accordingly.