Stock trading involves buying and selling of shares in a certain company. If you own certain stocks and shares of a company, it translates to you owning a piece of the firm. A professional or an individual who trades on behalf of a financial firm will be known as a stock trader. Stock traders are broadly classified into three categories - informed, uninformed, and intuitive traders.

A few of the most common traders include swing traders, day traders, momentum traders, and buy and hold traders.

An individual trader will buy and sell via brokerage or an agent. On the other hand, institutional traders are mostly employed by investment companies. Stock traders provide liquidity to the markets, and employ several methods and styles for defining their strategies. Stock trading has two main types - individual stock trading and institutional stock trading.

Stock traders are different from stock investors. Stock traders trade equity securities, whereas stock investors utilize their own funds to purchase securities. The stock investor's primary goal is to produce interest income or to profit from the increase in value, also termed as capital gains.