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Day trading stocks

Checked October 2026

Day trading stocks means buying and selling before the 4:00 p.m. close, so nothing is held overnight. Backtoast ran the two published stock day-trading rules in its 2026 set, and both failed. The opening range breakout on stocks in play lost 92.5% a year, and the SPY rule that trades the last half hour lost 9.4%.

Backtoast

You pay $99 for two full tests of your own strategy, and a pass is an offer of 30% of the profit Backtoast makes trading it with its own money.

Opening range breakout

The opening range breakout trades the 20 stocks with the most unusual volume in the first five minutes. It buys a break of that first bar's high or sells a break of its low, with a stop a tenth of the stock's daily range away. The paper behind it reported 41.6% a year from 2016 to 2023, and Backtoast's run from late 2021 lost 92.5% a year.

Last half hour

Stock intraday momentum measures SPY from yesterday's close to 10:00 a.m. and trades that direction from 3:30 p.m. to the close. Its authors reported 6.67% a year from 1993 to 2013 before costs, and the run lost 9.4% a year.

The $25,000 rule

A margin account that made four or more day trades in five business days used to need $25,000, the pattern day trader rule. FINRA replaced it with intraday margin rules on June 4, 2026, and brokers can take until October 20, 2027 to switch, so check yours.

Stock rules that hold for weeks or months, like dual momentum strategy and the 10 month moving average strategy, aren't day trades, and they're on stock trading strategies tested in 2026.

The runs are Backtoast's, from 29 October 2026, after costs. The day-trading rules on every market are on day trading for beginners. The full list is trading strategies tested in 2026.