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What is Intraday Trading?
Intraday Trade is buying and selling shares on the same day. It is also referred to as day trading. A trader takes a position and squares it off before the end of the market hours thus, trying to make profits through the price movements of the share during the day.
Intraday traders usually operate with something known as leverage that allows them to invest more than their available capital and in return increase the potential of making more returns from a trade. This leverage is provided by their stockbrokers as per the margin guidelines provided by SEBI.
Here’s How Intraday Trading Looks Like:
- You choose a stock and analyse whether the stock prices are going to rise or fall.
- You analyse the past price performances and apply indicators to judge whether the price will rise or decline.
- You decide to take a long (the stock prices will rise) or a short (the stock prices will fall) position on the stock and place an intraday order
- Once the order is placed you look at the price movements depicted through charts and analyse the patterns of these movements.
- Once the price has moved to your target price you can now square off the position, which essentially means, settling the trade.
- If the market is nearing closure and even then, your target price is not achieved, you will still have to square off the trade as per SEBI regulations. If you don’t, the broker will square it off.
Advantages of Intraday Trading
- Intraday trades require low capital as they have an advantage of margin that boosts the position size. It is also known as leverage.
- An intraday trader has an opportunity to get more returns even by investing low capital, attributed to the leverage involved with it.
- Intraday trades involve short selling. This simply means taking a position when the trader expects that the share prices will fall. So, a trader can also make profits even when the markets are falling.
- The capital invested by a trader is not blocked for a long time. The duration of intraday trades is for a day and the investment the trader has made can be withdrawn after the settlement of the trade.
- Traders can ride both the uptrend & downtrend and make the best of the analysed opportunities.
- Intraday traders do not have to deal with gap-up and gap-down scenarios as the trade is settled at the end of the day. If there is a piece of specific news related to the stock after market hours that directly impacts the opening prices of the share the next day. Intraday traders do not have to deal with the subsequent gap up or gap downs.
Disadvantages of Intraday Trading
- Intraday trades are settled in one day and thus it does not provide a trader ample opportunity to ride the complete wave. Sometimes, the prices may not move at all, and the trader may not be able to make a profit from that trade.
- In continuation to the above point, as there is less time duration, if the prices start moving opposite to the favoured direction, a trader may not be able to wait till it rebounds and they must close the position at the end of the day even if they are losing money on that trade.
- Intraday Trading involves leverage and if it is not handled carefully, it may result in significant losses.
- An intraday trader must dedicate a considerable amount of their time to the position taken in trade and continuously monitor the share price, news, etc.
- Intraday traders do not get benefits, such as dividends, bonuses, and voting rights.
What is Delivery Trading?
Delivery trades correspond to long-term investing. A delivery trade does not have a deadline associated with it. Here, you are buying the share and holding it in your Demat a/c. Delivery traders are long-term investors and may hold on to their investments even for months, years or even decades at times.
Advantages of Delivery Trading
There are several advantages associated with delivery trading, let us understand them.
- You can hold on to your investments for long periods and are not obligated to sell them at a defined time.
- You get all the additional benefits of owning a share such as dividends, bonuses, and voting rights.
- Market volatility has very little impact on your investments and in most scenarios’ delivery traders ride out such phases.
- You do not have to dedicate your entire time to analyzing and monitoring your investments.
Disadvantages of Delivery Trading
Along with several advantages, there are a few disadvantages associated with delivery trading as well. Let’s have a look.
- You will have to pay the full price of the share to take the position. However, some brokers provide the facility of Margin Trade Financing, where you can take the position by just paying a fraction of the share price. The broker funds the rest & charges interest on it. Bajaj Broking Offers Margin Trade Financing at low-interest rates with up to 3.5x leverage.
- Your invested capital is locked in, for long periods.
- You do not get the advantage of short selling in delivery trading.
How do Intraday Trades differ from Delivery Trades?
Intraday Trades differ in multiple aspects when compared to delivery trades.
- There is a deadline involved with settling intraday trades while there is none with delivery trades. You can hold on to your position for as long as you want. The objective of both forms of trading is the same, that is to earn profits, however, the approach is completely different. In intraday trades you are taking multiple trades to achieve this but, with delivery trading, you are holding on to your investment for a longer period to achieve the same goal.
- When you take a delivery trade you get the shares delivered to your Demat account, which indicates that you own the share. However, in intraday trading, you only take a position on that share, and you do not own the actual shares.
- The price movement during the day matters in the case of intraday trading, whereas the returns are dependent on long-term price movement in the case of delivery trading.
The Importance of Trading Margins
Margin is a key aspect of trading. The concept simply means that you can invest more than your available capital. Above your invested capital, your stockbroker will finance the additional margin and you will have access to more than your invested capital. This is like a loan and once the trade is settled the margin amount is settled by the stockbroker as well.
Trading with the power of margin allows you to maximise your potential for returns. As this allows you to invest more than your available capital, it is the main attraction for any trader. However, with leverage comes more responsibility. You need to manage leverage carefully and ensure that you use it wisely after researching well. Especially for beginners, it is important to be careful with leverage. You should use stop-loss orders to manage your losses just in case the trade is not moving in your preferred direction.
How Your Approach Should Differ for Intraday and Delivery Trades
Intraday trading and delivery trading are two different ball games altogether. While intraday trades require you to be active during a specific market day and thorough with your analysis of the price movements, delivery trades require you to be patient and look out for the long-term potential of a stock.
Strategies differ from investor to investor. Each has its own way of doing things. An investor and a trader will have their own approach towards the markets.
Trading Volumes: This refers to the number of times, the share of a company was purchased and sold throughout the day. Stocks of reputed and larger companies obviously have higher values as many people frequently buy and sell them. It’s advisable to stick to stocks of such companies for intraday trades. That is because you’ll be betting on price changing within a short span of time and that’s why you need enough liquidity and volume which will help you square off the position when needed. For example, if a stock has a low volume, it may become difficult to sell it at an attractive price as there may not be sufficient sellers on the other side. On the contrary, long-term trades can bear the weight of low liquidity and volume as you can defer the sale of a stock till it reaches your target price in the longer term.
Price levels: The best thing to do is to set price targets and stop losses for every trade. However, it is critical in the case of intraday trades. As volatility often surrounds an intraday position. With long-term investing, there’s the opportunity to extend the investment period in case you miss the target price. However, this can’t be done in intraday trade. Once the price level is missed, you may not get another chance. Likewise, in delivery trading when you start to lose money, there’s the option to wait till there’s a rebound in price. This however is tough in the case of intraday trade.
Conclusion
Now that you are aware of the difference between Intraday and delivery trading, open a Demat and trading account with Bajaj Broking and take advantage of both types of trading. Bajaj Broking charges one of the lowest brokerage fees in the industry. So, without further delay, start trading today! Install the Bajaj Broking app today to begin your trading journey.
