Strategies are often labelled by how long they hold. The labels matter less for what they say about the strategy than for what they imply about costs, execution and broker choice, which differ sharply from one class to the next.
The four classes
Scalping holds for seconds to minutes, aiming for a few pips per trade, many times a day. It needs a raw-spread account, low latency, fast execution and a broker that permits it, and its edge is smaller than the spread at most brokers. Day trading holds for minutes to hours and closes before the rollover, so it pays no swap and avoids overnight gaps, but it still trades often enough for spread and slippage to matter. Swing trading holds for days to a few weeks, pays swap, accepts gaps, and is largely indifferent to a few tenths of a pip in cost. Position trading holds for weeks to months, is driven by larger trends or macro conditions, and pays a great deal of swap in exchange for very few trades.
The cost gradient
Cost sensitivity falls as holding period rises, because the average profit per trade grows. A scalper averaging 3 pips loses a third of its edge to a 1-pip cost. A swing strategy averaging 80 pips loses about one per cent. The same broker, the same spread, opposite consequences.
Two EAs each show 25 per cent a year on demo. The first holds for four minutes on average and takes 900 trades. The second holds for six days and takes 60. At a broker with 0.4 pips more spread and 0.3 pips more slippage than the demo modelled, the first EA's edge disappears entirely and it loses 8 per cent. The second EA returns 23 per cent. The classes decided the outcome before the broker was chosen.
Identify an EA's class from its record, not its marketing: the average holding time and the trade count tell you which it is. Then choose the account to match. A scalping EA needs a raw account, a VPS near the broker, and a measured slippage figure before it is trusted with money. A swing or position EA needs a broker with fair swaps and the instruments it trades, and little else. Most EAs that survive live trading are in the slower classes, for the reasons on this page.