Best Time for Intraday Trading in India (and the Best Time Frame), Tested on NSE

The NSE equity market trades continuously from 09:15 to 15:30 IST. Source: NSE live equity market page, as recorded in LeadFinn's charges file (api_gateway/config/india_charges.json, read 28 Sep 2026). Since 3 Aug 2026 the last 15 minutes (15:15 to 15:30) are a closing auction for stocks that have derivatives; see NSE circular NSE/CMTR/75479.

This part is a market-data analysis, not a backtest. We looked at 3,705 stock-days of 5-minute candles for the 15 stocks (2025-10-07 to 2026-10-07) and cut each day into 30-minute slots.

The day is not flat. The first half hour (09:15 to 09:45) carried 12.3% of the day's volume and set the day's high on 45% of days and the low on 39%. The slot from 14:45 to 15:15 carried 15.6% of the volume. The mid-day slots were the quietest, with an average slot range of about 0.37% against 1.12% at the open. (The last slot, 15:15 to 15:30, is only 15 minutes long, so it is not comparable with the others.)

A move only helps if it is bigger than what the trade costs. A round trip on a ₹1,00,000 position costs ₹83 in charges (brokerage, STT, exchange fee, SEBI fee, stamp duty and GST, from the same charges module the backtest uses). An average slot range of 1.12% is about ₹1,123 on that position, 13.6 times the charges; at mid-day it is about 4.8 times. That is the room a trade has to work with before slippage, and it is not profit.

We ran four common intraday setups, each on 5-minute and 15-minute candles, and let them enter only inside one window at a time. Everything else stayed the same, including the square-off. Each cell below is the result after all charges and slippage, as a % of the ₹1,00,000 account.

The first 15 minutes are the busiest and the fastest part of the day: the opening half hour carries 12.3% of the day's volume. In our test the 09:15 to 09:30 entry window lost less than the 09:30 to 10:30 window in 8 of 8 setup and candle-size pairs, and 0 of 8 ended above zero after charges. On 15-minute candles this window is a single candle, so each run has fewer chances to trade and one bad day matters more.

Being the least bad is not the same as making money. The charges on each trade are the same at 09:20 as at any other time, so a window pays off only if its moves are big enough to cover them; the first half hour's average range is the largest of the day (see the first section).

We call 12:00 to 13:30 the lunch window. Entering only then, 0 of 8 setup and candle-size pairs ended above zero after charges, and the average result was -26.8%. The window with the best average result was 09:15-09:30 at -16.7%.

Quiet hours do not cost less. The charges per trade are the same at 12:30 as at 09:20, so a slower market has less room to cover them.

Next we kept all-day entries and changed only the candle size. The rules, the stop and the target are the same on every candle size; a 9/15 EMA on 1-minute candles is simply a faster signal than on 1-hour candles.

Setups that ended above zero after charges, by candle size: 1m: 0 of 4, 5m: 0 of 4, 15m: 0 of 4, 1h: 0 of 4. Total result of the four setups: 1m: -₹3,24,703, 5m: -₹2,72,027, 15m: -₹1,96,139, 1h: -₹1,23,439.

Smaller candles give more signals, and every signal pays charges. Across the four setups together: 1m: 54,299 trades, charges ₹2,58,533, price moves -₹17,519; 5m: 23,821 trades, charges ₹2,34,214, price moves +₹6,264; 15m: 13,068 trades, charges ₹1,79,428, price moves +₹17,056; 1h: 7,048 trades, charges ₹1,15,857, price moves +₹14,224. Charges rise with the number of trades; the price moves are what is left to pay for them.

Check against the published strategy pages (same stocks, same year): our re-run here and the figure already on the site.

Charges for different numbers of trades a day, on a ₹1,00,000 position per trade, from LeadFinn's own charges module:

See how charges add up when you trade more often: use the brokerage calculator.

LeadFinn's backtests close every open intraday trade at the first candle at or after 15:25 IST (for stocks that have derivatives, 15:12 from 3 Aug 2026, because NSE's closing auction replaced the last 15 minutes of continuous trading for them; all 15 stocks tested here are on NSE's F&O list (https://nsearchives.nseindia.com/content/fo/fo_mktlots.csv, contract month SEP-26)). Brokers use their own auto square-off times and they change, so check your broker's current notice rather than a figure on a web page.

We also tested closing earlier, at 15:00, for the two setups with the best average result across the entry windows. Everything else is the same as the all-day run.

The same previous-day high/low breakout on 15-minute candles, split by stock. The window that works for one stock does not work for the next one.

Only 0 of 15 stocks ended above zero in three or more of the five windows.