"Seems very difficult to constantly scalp all the random noise every day and be profitable"
if it truly was "random noise", then that would be true.
your choice of terminology shows your bias and misunderstanding of market structure.
i scalp for a living. anywhere from 2 seconds to 1 or 2 hours usually maximum in YM.
so, it clearly is NOT random noise.
i have nothing against swings, but i prefer to do that with stocks, and B&Hold as well (hold some stocks for many years)
but if you come into index futures trading with a bias that smaller timeframe moves are 'random noise' then you are starting off with a prejudice/opinion, and we all know what happens when one trades one's prejudice/opinions vs. seeing what the market is ACTUALLY doing.
to put it briefly, yes you can profitably trade YM for scalps
what i like about scalping is it is custom made for INCOME. since i make many trades a day, and the trades have high percentage wins, this results in little to no drawdown on a daily (and even less so on a weekly basis).
swing trading does not provide as smooth an equity curve, ceteris paribus