what is intraday 
intraday means within the day in the financial world the term is shorthand used to describe securities that trade on the markets during regular business hours these securities include stocks and exchange traded funds etfs intraday also signifies the highs and lows that the asset price crossed throughout the day intraday price movements are particularly significant to short term or day traders looking to make multiple trades over the course of a single trading session these busy traders will settle all their positions when the market closes the basics of intraday tradingintraday is often used to refer to the new highs and lows of any particular security for example a new intraday high means the security reached a new high relative to all other prices during a trading session in some cases an intraday high can be equal to the closing price traders pay close attention to intraday price movements by using real time charts in an attempt to benefit from short term price fluctuations short term traders typically use one five 15 30 and 60 minute intraday charts when trading within the market day typically intraday scalping uses one and five minute charts for high speed trading other intraday trading strategies may use 30 and 60 minute charts for trades that have hold times of several hours the intraday trader may hold their positions for a longer period but still operate under high risks scalping is a strategy of transacting many trades per day with the intent of profiting from small movements in a stock s price volume weighted average price vwap orders are often used on an intraday basis to increase trade execution efficiency by giving an order exposure to a variety of prices throughout the trading day vwap gives an averaged price that particular securities trade at throughout the trading day intraday trading strategiestraders use numerous intraday strategies these strategies include all these strategies depend on timing your trades based on price fluctuations that occur within a single day sometimes within minutes of each other advantages and disadvantages of intraday tradingthe most significant benefit of intraday trading is that positions are not affected by negative overnight news that materially impacts the price of securities such news includes vital economic and earnings reports as well as broker upgrades and downgrades that occur either before the market opens or after the market closes trading on an intraday basis offers several other key advantages one advantage is the ability to use tight stop loss orders which is the act of raising a stop price to minimize losses from a long position another includes the increased access to margin and hence greater leverage intraday trading also provides traders with more learning opportunities because so many trades are executed so quickly however there are also drawbacks to intraday trading strategies intraday trading may provide insufficient time for a position to see increases in profit or in some cases any profit at all if a trader experiences losses instead of profits these can mount quickly some assets are off limits for intraday trading including mutual funds finally intraday trading strategies also come with increased commission costs due to trading more frequently these costs can eat away at the profit margins a trader can expect positions are unaffected by risk from overnight news or off hours broker moves tight stop loss orders can protect positions regular traders have access to increased leverage numerous trades increase hands on learning experience frequent trades mean multiple commission costs some assets are off limits like mutual funds there may not be sufficient time for a position to realize a profit before it has to be closed out losses can mount quickly especially if margin is used to finance purchases intraday pricing and mutual fundsmutual funds are off limits for intraday trading the design of these funds is for the long term investor and they can only be bought and sold through a broker or the fund s investment company also a mutual fund s price posts only once at the close of the trading day this price is known as the net asset value nav and reflects all of the intraday movement of the fund s assets less its liabilities calculated on a per share basis so mutual funds do not offer intraday pricing as their assets fluctuate in market value and their managers make buy and sell decisions all day however etfs their passively managed cousins are priced according to their intraday market value within a trading session real world example of intradaythe price movements of any stock are posted throughout the trading day and summarized at the end of the trading day for example april 4 2022 shares of apple inc aapl opened at 174 57 and closed at 178 44 during the day as indicated in the day s range listed to the right of the closing price shares dropped as low as 174 44 the intraday low and hit a peak of 178 49 the intraday high day traders and technical analysts who follow apple would study the shares moves to see if they could discern any pattern or uncover any significant gap that is a sudden jump in the price with no trading in between 