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Trading Insight 002 · TRADING PROCESS

Find Your Trading Style. Don't Copy Someone Else's.

A practical way to test whether intraday, swing or another style actually fits how you make decisions.

Published August 2026 · 5 min read

Most traders choose a trading style by looking at the money.

Options look attractive because a small amount can become a large amount.

Intraday trading looks attractive because you can make money today.

Swing trading looks slow compared with both.

So when we see another trader making good money, we naturally want to copy the way they trade.

That may be the wrong place to start.

Which type of trading helps me make good decisions again and again?

Trading style
  • Intradayminutes to hours
  • Swingdays to weeks
  • Positionweeks to months
Trading instrument
  • Cash / shares
  • Futures
  • Options

You can swing trade with options.

You can intraday trade futures.

Not the right question

“Should I trade options or shares?”

Ask instead

“How much time does my setup need?”

“Which instrument fits that setup?”

I learnt this the expensive way

I started with options.

Then futures.

Then intraday trading.

Every time the results disappointed me, I thought I needed something else:

another setupbetter entriesmore knowledgemore screen time

Eventually I noticed something more useful:

“My mistakes changed when the way I traded changed.”

When decisions had to be made quickly, I made more mistakes.

When I had time to study the stock, wait for confirmation, decide my risk and then let the trade develop, my execution became cleaner.

That is what pushed me towards swing trading.

Not because swing trading is better.

It simply gave me more time to make the kind of decisions I was good at making.

0%

of individual equity-derivatives traders in SEBI's FY25 study made a net loss.

SEBI, 2025 study →
0 in 10

individual intraday traders in the equity cash segment made losses in SEBI's study.

SEBI, 2024 study →
Less than 1%

of the day traders studied in Taiwan were able to reliably earn positive abnormal returns after fees in the following year.

Barber, Lee, Liu & Odean study →

That last number matters.

It means short-term trading can work. A small group clearly showed skill.

But the bar is high.

Test your own style

Don't answer this with a personality quiz. Open your trading journal.

Start with your last 20–30 trades.

First label each trade:

Style: Intraday / Swing / Position

Instrument: Cash / Futures / Options

1
Result

Did you actually make money after all costs?

2
Rules

Did you trade the setup you originally planned?

3
Mistakes

What kept going wrong?

Early exitOversizingRevenge tradeMissed stopImpulsive entry
4
Pressure

Did the trade give you enough time to think clearly?

5
Real life

Does this style fit the amount of time you can actually give the market?

Now look for the repeat

You understand intraday setups... but keep making bad decisions when price moves quickly?

Speed may be the problem.

Your swing entries work... but you panic during normal pullbacks?

Holding may be the problem.

You get the direction right in options... but the move keeps coming too late?

The instrument may be the problem.

Is my edge failing — or am I failing to execute it in this environment?

Then run one clean test

  1. 1Pick the style where your decisions were the most consistent.
  2. 2Reduce the number of things you're changing.
  3. 3Trade that style for another defined sample of trades.
  4. 4Journal it.
  5. 5Then compare again.

Don't keep jumping between styles before giving yourself enough evidence to learn anything.

What it doesn't tell you

A style that feels comfortable is not automatically profitable.

You still need a setup that actually works, proper risk management, and enough trades to separate skill from luck.

Your best fit can also change. More experience, different capital, a new job or more available time can all change the answer.

These studies also don't prove that swing trading is better than intraday or derivatives.

They show something narrower: frequent and short-term trading is difficult, costs matter, and persistent skill exists only among a relatively small group.

Don't ask

“Which trading style makes the most money?”

Ask

“Where do I make my best decisions repeatedly?”

Find that environment.

Then get very good at it.

Sources

This note is part of an ongoing research series.

Market observations and one monthly letter.How the market is behaving, what it means for process, and where the reading breaks down. No tips. No noise.

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Published August 2026
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