Intraday monitoring has an obvious failure mode: the more you watch, the more you find, and the more you find, the more you trade.
Most of what a screen can show you is noise. This lesson is mostly about what to leave off it.
The four things worth watching
1. Your own levels. The prices you identified before the open. Has anything reached them? This is the only monitoring that connects directly to a decision you already made.
2. Change in open interest at key strikes. Fresh positions building near a level tells you the market is committing there. More informative intraday than the raw OI figure, which barely moves within a session.
3. India VIX direction. Not the level — you set that before the open. Whether it is rising or falling through the day tells you if conditions are getting more or less favourable for the structure you are holding.
4. Your own P&L against your daily limit. Not to celebrate or despair, but because your circuit breaker is a number and you need to know where you are relative to it.
That is the list. Four things.
What to leave off the screen
Tick-by-tick price. Watching every print produces the sensation of information and none of the substance. It is the single most reliable way to talk yourself out of a good position.
Financial television. Produced to fill airtime. Its incentives are attention, not your P&L.
Social media and tips. Someone else's conviction with none of their context — no entry, no size, no exit, no accountability.
Additional indicators added mid-session. If it was not on your chart before the open, adding it now is looking for permission.
Other people's positions. Screenshots of profits are marketing. Screenshots of losses are rare for the same reason.
The intraday sequence
Sessions have a shape, and what is worth watching changes with it.
Open to 09:45. Watch whether the opening move holds or reverses. Do not act on the first fifteen minutes unless it was pre-planned. Spreads are wide and IV is elevated.
09:45 to 11:30. The most readable stretch. If your levels are going to be tested cleanly, this is often when.
11:30 to 14:00. Reduce attention deliberately. This is when boredom trades happen. If you have no position and no level in play, close the screen.
14:00 to close. Real flow returns. Watch for position squaring and late directional moves. Know your intraday exit time in advance.
The check that actually pays
Once an hour, three questions:
- Has anything changed my thesis, or only my P&L?
- Am I still within my risk limits?
- Is there a level in play, or am I just watching?
If the answer to the third is "just watching", that is a signal to stop watching. There is no reward for attention in a market that is doing nothing.
If you hold overnight
Two additional checks before the close:
Is there an event before the next open? Results, policy, major global data. From the earnings lesson: a position held through an event is not the position you sized.
Does the position still make sense at tomorrow's risk? Overnight gaps cannot be stopped out of. If a gap against you would exceed your risk limit, the position is too large to hold overnight regardless of how it looks now.
Check yourself
0 of 4 answered1.Which of these belongs on your intraday monitoring list?
2.You have no position and no level in play, and it is 12:30. What is the correct action?
3.Why is 'has anything changed my thesis, or only my P&L?' the most useful hourly question?
4.What should determine whether a position can be held overnight?
What to take away
- Watch four things: your levels, change in OI at key strikes, VIX direction, P&L against your limit.
- Monitoring should reduce decisions, not create them.
- Leave off: tick-by-tick price, television, tips, new indicators, other people's positions.
- Reduce attention deliberately during the midday lull.
- Hourly: has my thesis changed, or only my P&L?
- Screen time is not an edge — beyond a point it degrades judgement.
- Overnight: check for events, and size for a gap you cannot stop out of.