Day Trading Fundamentals

Day trading means all positions are closed before your session ends — no overnight gap risk. Trades may last minutes to hours but share the same calendar day. Manual day traders anchor to cash session hours for stocks or London/NY for forex.

Edge sources include: opening drive and reversal patterns, trend legs between session levels, breakouts from overnight range, and reactions to prior day high/low/close. The prior day leaves a map; today's auction tests it.

Day trading allows larger intraday targets than scalping — 0.5–2% on stocks, 20–80 pips on forex majors in volatile conditions — but requires patience to wait for A+ setups instead of overtrading boredom.

Pre-market preparation is standard: mark prior day levels, overnight high/low, economic calendar, and HTF bias. When the bell rings, you execute a plan — you do not discover levels live.

Manual day trading succeeds with boring consistency: same routine, same max trades (e.g., 3 per day), same review process. Excitement is not a performance metric.