There are specific times during the day where day traders can find themselves with an advantage. Day traders require volatile, active markets in order to skew the edge in their favor, and slow markets just do not provide that opportunity. The reason for this is that stock pickers have a 50% chance of being correct. In order to increase these odds, day traders need fast, inefficient markets to increase their chances of success. In slow markets one could assume that prices are efficient, thus making it harder on the day trader. There are however, 2 specific times of the day that provide higher odds, and reduced pricing efficiency.

Starting with the morning, day traders can find themselves with better odds right from the open. Finding and narrowing a list of stocks you wish to trade on the open is critical to a day traders success. Much of the focus comes due to a "gap", or a severe change between the closing price from the day before and the projected opening price of the current day. This type of movement causes a highly volatile stock which allows the day trader better odds. The increase in volatility tends to continue through the first half hour of the day.

Another time where we see increased volatility is in the last hour, ore specifically the last half hour. While this is a higher odds time for a day trader to operate, its not as advantageous as the open due to the time constraints. Still, the amount of orders entering the market to open or close positions before the close causes a more volatile markets. These can be great moments to trade momentum, or reversal trades going into the close.

The middle portion of the day is not usually very exciting for the day traders unless there is news. Scheduled news such as the Crude Oil inventories or Fed announcements can be the exception. This time is usually spent reviewing the morning trades, or just taking a break. This is one of the reasons you don't see much market movement during the middle portion of the session.