Learn Intraday Trading

If you are looking to learn intraday trading, first you need to unlearn a lot of misconceptions you might have heard or seen from any potentially unreliable sources.

The reason is simple, if you believe that you already know how intraday trading works, then there is a very dim chance that you will actually end up learning something new, and sometimes it can lead to Intraday Trading Mistakes as well.

Intraday trading refers to the act of buying and selling securities within the same trading day.

The trades are not held overnight but are squared off before the end of the trading day. It is a unique domain and a challenging one to that.

Many individuals enter intraday trading with a misconception that it is the arena to make quick money, without much knowledge or information required.

However, this is not the real scenario. Intraday trading is not a walk in the woods.

It is one of the most demanding and challenging professions, which needs a tremendous amount of dedication, hard work, focus, and discipline, and therefore before stepping your foot in the day trade it becomes vital to understand what is intraday trading. 

An intraday trader has to be very attentive and focused on each minute of each trade, to ensure that he does not miss any market movements which may result in him losing a huge amount of money instead of making profits.

Along with the potential for high profits, intraday trading, if not managed well, can lead to wiping off the entire capital in a single trade.

Therefore, it is extremely critical that the traders who wish to enter the intraday markets have the dedication and mindset to learn intraday trading.

Knowing the Intraday Trading Time of your stockbroker is also one of the wisest decisions to make before investing.

It is not a profession that comes with a manual or a guidebook but has to be learned by self-practice and self-discipline.

How to do Intraday Trading?

There are many softwares, tools, technologies and intraday trading strategies available, but the only efficient and effective way to learn intraday trading is by oneself.

The best way to learn intraday trading is by continuous practice, making losses and learning from them, making profits and learning from them, using strategies and see how they succeed or fail, using technical indicators and finding out which ones work best in which circumstances and so on.

In order to be able to become good intraday traders and learn intraday trading, a trader must follow the below-mentioned suggestions:

1. Paper Trading:

The exercise to learn intraday trading must begin with paper trading. It is the practical form of trading with simulators and real market indicators to make sure that by the time the trader starts actual trading, he has practiced his moves and knows how and when can he make profits and what causes losses.

Real money is not involved but it has the potential to give real experiences. This helps to prevent actual losses and the loss of capital and gives the trader a real picture of what he is getting into.

Paper trading can be done on traditional paper or on spreadsheets and either way it gives the trader insight and helps to improve skills and devise strategies that can be employed in real scenarios in the future.

Paper trading involves no risks and helps in building confidence in the trader who is new to learn intraday trading.

2. Thorough Research:

Research is the backbone of success in intraday trading. Learn, learn and learn more! This is the tip that separates the successful intraday traders from the unsuccessful ones.

The traders who just jump into the market without any background research are bound to end up in losses sooner or later.

Therefore, an important step in the process of how to learn intraday trading is to do thorough and continuous research. Research is not only needed by new traders but also by seasoned ones.

Extensive research helps intraday traders in identifying the sectors they want to trade in and the specific stocks in that sector.

Alongside, the stocks have to be researched on a daily basis to predict and capture price movements, volumes and volatility. The proper research also includes researching the news and daily happenings to understand their effect on the market.

3. Understanding the Sectors and Indices:

In order to learn intraday trading, the traders must understand the indices and the sectors that they intend to trade-in. This helps the trader in choosing the specific sectors and indices that interest him the most, along with the ones that are most profitable.

Logically, the traders must trade in the sectors that are most active providing ample opportunities to enter and exit the trades. Similarly, the index to be chosen, whether BSE Sensex or NSE Nifty, must be the one that fits the trading style of the aspiring trader.

This selection also depends on the capital available, risk-taking potential and the long-term objectives of the trader.

You can read this review in Hindi as well.

4. Trading in stocks with Strong Correlation to Sectors, Indices and Trading in Liquid Stocks:

The most important tip to learn intraday trading is to learn which stocks to trade in.

The holy grail of intraday trading is to trade in stocks with high liquidity. Such stocks can be bought and sold in high quantities without affecting the price much, and they also have the volumes to let the traders make easy entry and exit.

It is also advisable to learn to trade in the securities that have a strong correlation with the major indices and sectors so that when the sector or index goes up, the stocks are also expected to go up.

5. Being Creative and Adaptable:

Another important step in order to learn intraday trading is to learn to be creative, flexible and adaptable. Intraday markets are ever-changing and extremely volatile.

A strategy that works today may not work tomorrow and the one that works for one trader may not work for another. Therefore, it is very important for an intraday trader to have creative skills and strategies to manoeuvre through the ups and downs of the market and be adaptable to be able to change them as and when needed.

The process to learn intraday trading comes with its don’ts along with the dos. Along with following the above-mentioned guidelines to succeed at intraday trading, there are certain pitfalls that must be avoided at all costs for a trader to learn intraday trading.

6. Overtrading:

An intraday trader must learn to make an optimum number of trades and not overtrade. It is one of the most common mistakes made by inexperienced intraday traders.

Multiple trading sessions can be very harmful, even seasoned traders do not do more than 2-3 trades a day.

This is because intraday trading requires 100% concentration, hence to make sure that proper attention can be given to each trade, the number of trades must be kept less.

A disciplined intraday trader goes slow when the market is choppy and may even not trader when the market is horizontal and does not trade till the market is stabilised.

Make sure that the range of movements of prices is high enough so that the rewards exceed the potential risk. Also, the volumes of trade must be kept constant.

Till the time a trader is satisfied that he has learnt a lot, the number of lots must be kept constant and not increased and decreased drastically.

7. Emotions:

It cannot be emphasised enough that the most important tip to learn intraday trading is to learn to control one’s emotions. Emotions are the biggest enemies of intraday traders.

A successful intraday trader is one who learns to keep his emotions at bay while trading. He must learn to stay away from fear and greed, which may lead to fewer profits or huge losses.

At the same time, the positive feelings of making profits or the negative feelings of making losses must not be carried to the next trade.

Profits on one day must not make the trader overconfident to indulge in risky trades and losses on the previous day must not make the trader fearful and apprehensive of making trades that could otherwise have given him good profits.

Intraday traders must learn mental balance and good work-life balance to lead a healthy life and career.

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Intraday Trading Books

When it comes to learning, books come first in mind, isn’t it? So, if you are one who loves reading then choosing the right book can help you with understanding the basic and advanced concepts on intraday.

But here comes another challenge, which books to choose. Since there are multiple books in the market written by some of great authors it becomes difficult for one to pick the right one.

To help you with this, here we have enlisted some of the top stock market books on intraday trading.

1. Beginners’ Guide to Day Trading Online

The book covers the following things for a beginner intraday trader:

• Strategies and techniques to manage risk
• Technical analysis of a stock
• Do’s and Don’ts to trade in the market.
• Trading tips.

Along with this the author also provides quizzes that help traders in analyzing their learning performance.

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2. Mastering the Trade

It is the book by John F. Carter that gain popularity among traders because of the following topics discussed in detail:

• How to trade in a volatile market?
• How to manage risk in intraday trading?
• How to place the first trade?

All these concepts are explained in the simplest language thus guiding a beginner trader to understand the complexities of the market.

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3. The Truth About Day Trading Stocks

For every trader, who wants to become a pro intraday trader, this book is the one that can help you in accomplishing your dream. Here are a few things that a book teaches to a reader:

• Importance of calmness in intraday trade.
• Role of money and psychology in trading.
• How to face losses and minimize them.

The book provides the real picture of trading to the world.

6. How to Day Trade for Living

Now, this is the book that you can choose to read or listen to. It is one of the free audiobooks on the stock market that makes it easier for one to understand the concepts without giving hours to reading. Some of the highlights of the book are:

• The author discusses his own trading journey thus showing the real and true picture of intraday trading.
• Explains the basic concepts with the help of examples thus making it easier for a beginner to understand.
• Provides proven strategies that actually help you in making money in intraday trading.

In all, listening or reading this book contributes a lot to making intraday trading simpler for you.

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7. Advanced Techniques in Day Trading

Another audiobook on day trading for a trader having a little experience of the market trend and volatility. The book covers

• Advanced concepts on day trading
• Explains how the use of software and scanners can help in finding the right stock for trading.
• Provides detail on the benefit of intraday trading.

In all, this is the right pick for traders who are already into trading and want to learn more.

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4. A Game I Play Everyday

If you want to learn intraday trading in the context of the Indian share market, then is one of the best stock market books by Indian authors. Here is what the book covers:

• Basic concepts on intraday trading.
• Managing ups and downs in the market
• Strategies to trade at the right price.

In all, the best read for beginner trader who wants to get a better outlook of the share market.

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5. Mind Markets and Money

Another famous book by an Indian author on intraday trading. Why it is different from the rest is explained in the section below:

• Guides you in how to apply the theoretical concepts in the practical market.
• Covers the in-depth concepts of the stock market
• Explained the difficult concepts with the help of charts.

In all, if you are serious about stock market trading, then you must consider reading this book.

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Conclusion

As mentioned, intraday trading is a combination of art and science. It involves learning the science of skills, including the chart reading skills, numbers, markets, technical indicators and so on, along with learning the art of being creative, flexible and adaptable.

It does not come with a rulebook.

It is only with sheer dedication, discipline, hard work and attentiveness that a trader can learn to be a skilled and successful intraday trader.

The targets and objectives have to be clear and well defined and the path to achieving them also needs to be charted.

In case, you are looking to perform trading but do not know which stockbroker suits the best for you, just fill in your details below.

 

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