Stock day trading is the most energetic stock trading practice that one can find on a stock market. It is the repeated buying and selling of stocks within a day for very small profit per share. At the end of the day, the day trader usually will not have any open positions and therefore are free of overnight risks. As margin interests are usually charged for overnight position holds day traders are also free of them. But there are also many day traders who, occasionally, keep their positions open in search of better profit on next day. Stock day trading is very risky and requires extensive attention, calculation and experience to find tradable stock and to execute the trades.

There are many stock trading strategies used by stock traders such as scalping, momentum trading, range trading, rebate trading, news playing, etc. The strategies scalping and momentum trading are prominent. Scalping is the trading of high quantity in very small time interval; usually trades are completed within seconds. Scalpers are usually well organized traders like institutional traders and mutual funds, who buy and sell stocks with very small (usually less than $0.00001) price difference. Their profit mainly depends from the number of trades completed each day. Momentum trading is practiced by individual traders, who trade stocks according to the market trends. Their profit/loss mainly depends on the stock price increase/decrease.

The major reason for the popularity of stock day trading is the development in communication fields like introduction of broadband internet service and high-speed computers. Most stock day traders today trade stock markets from their home using special trading platforms installed on their computer; remember there are also web-based platforms available for trading, but they do not suit day trading. For day trading a stock trader will need to maintain margin deposits in respective markets. A day trading broker is the intermediate between the trader and the market, who open and maintain the above deposit and the trading account for the trader. They also provide the trading platforms, but remember that most day trading brokers only provide access to limited markets.

Apart from money, account and platform, stock day trading requires one more thing, which the main factor governing their profit, the real-time market information or live stock quotes. As day trading is done for very small profit per share, even a slight delay in market data can cause huge loss. Market data are accessed through trading platforms as news flash, graphs, tickers and tables. Most day trading systems will also have alerts and triggers coupled with resistance and support levels determined by the traders to automate the trading procedure. These systems will also have many technical indicators to help the trading in picking right stocks to trade.