Daytrading vs swing trading + longer term positions The distinction here is trading and investment. If you are mainly parking your own money but want to actively manage the return on it, it is longer term and not trading per se. If you are trading to accumulate money as a fast track priority then you will daytrade and the winner here is not the longer term player but the player trading to take as much as he can from what the market offers each day (eg. index futures). Assuming index futures (eg YM) then intraday gyrations offer a daily cornucopia. It is simply that the sum of the major gyrations cannot be smaller than a trend difference between any points A to B on a timeline for trend while the sum of the gyrations almost invariably become greater than or are usually a multiple of the trend the longer the timeline (eg week, month,etc) Longer term trading might also invite escapism. For daytrading the rubber meets the road each day and because you're focussing on the near term you can marshal and apply the most accurate and comprehensive means to take money from the market.