What is Intraday Trading and How Does It Work on NSE

When I placed my first intraday trade, I bought 50 shares of Reliance at 10:05 in the morning, watched it go up ₹6, panicked, and sold at 10:20. I made about ₹300 before charges. I thought I had found an ATM. A week later I had given all of it back, plus some. That is intraday trading in one paragraph — easy to start, hard to do well.

What intraday trading actually means

Intraday trading simply means you open and close a position on the same trading day. You buy and sell (or sell first and buy back) before the market closes. You never take delivery of the shares, so nothing lands in your demat account.

Compare that with delivery trading, where you buy TCS today and hold it for weeks or years. In intraday you don't care about TCS's next quarter. You care about the next 30 minutes.

NSE market timings every day trader should know

NSE market timings decide your whole day, so get these into muscle memory:

• 9:00 – 9:08 AM: pre-open session. Orders are collected and the opening price is discovered.
• 9:15 AM – 3:30 PM: normal trading session. This is where intraday trading happens.
• Around 3:15 – 3:25 PM: most brokers automatically square off open intraday positions (the exact time depends on your broker).

The first 15–30 minutes are the most volatile. I personally avoid trading the first five minutes — spreads are wide and moves are often fake.

How an intraday order works: MIS and margin

When you place an order, your broker asks for a product type. For intraday you choose MIS (Margin Intraday Square-off) instead of CNC (delivery). An MIS order tells the broker two things: you will close it today, and you want intraday margin.

Since SEBI's peak-margin rules, the leverage you get on equity intraday is capped — typically you need at least 20% of the trade value as margin, which means up to about 5x exposure. So with ₹20,000 you could take a ₹1,00,000 position in HDFC Bank. That sounds great until you realise a 1% move against you is ₹1,000 — 5% of your capital gone in one trade.

If you forget to exit, the broker squares off for you near the close and usually charges a small fee for it. Don't make that a habit.

Long and short: making money both ways

In intraday you can also short sell. If you think Infosys will fall after weak US tech cues, you can sell first at ₹1,500 and buy back at ₹1,485 to book the difference. You can't carry an equity short overnight in the cash market, which is exactly why shorting is common in intraday trading.

A simple example

Say HDFC Bank opens flat, holds above VWAP for the first hour and breaks the morning high on strong volume. I might buy 40 shares at ₹1,650 with a stop loss at ₹1,641 and a target of ₹1,668. Risk ₹360, potential reward ₹720. If the stop hits, I'm out — no arguing with the chart. I explain VWAP properly in How to Use VWAP for Intraday Trading on NSE.

Costs that eat beginners alive

Intraday trading for beginners usually goes wrong because of costs nobody counts. On every trade you pay brokerage, STT on the sell side, exchange transaction charges, SEBI fees, stamp duty and GST. Individually tiny, together they add up when you do ten trades a day. Always check the "net P&L" in your contract note, not the gross.

Rules I wish someone told me in my first year

• Fix your maximum loss per trade (I use 1% of capital) and per day (3%). Stop trading when you hit it.
• Trade only liquid stocks — see my list of NIFTY 500 stocks for intraday trading.
• Have an entry reason, a stop loss and a target before you click buy.
• Don't average a losing intraday trade. That's how small losses become big ones.
• Keep a journal. Mine is a simple Google Sheet — date, stock, setup, result, mistake.

Is day trading in India worth it?

Honestly, most retail intraday traders lose money; SEBI's own studies have shown that again and again. That doesn't mean you can't do it — it means you need a process, small size while learning, and the discipline to follow your stop loss. Learn to read buy and sell signals properly before risking real money, and treat your first few months as tuition fees, not income.