Buy and sell stocks, options or futures within the same day, with your own money. Most people who try lose it.
Click through it
Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Good for a wall or a guidance counsellor.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Typical
$0
Most people
$0
Top 1 in 100
$50,000
There is no wage. Your income is what your account makes after fees and taxes, and for most people that is a loss. The typical result is shown as $0 because a loss cannot be pay. The top figure is a rough guide to what the rare steady earner makes; nobody publishes the full spread.
97 out of 100
Brazilian futures day traders who kept going for more than 300 days
A 2020 study followed every person who started day trading Brazil's main futures contract from 2013 to 2015. Of those who stuck with it, 97% lost money. Only 1.1% earned more than the minimum wage.
Fewer than 1 in 100
Taiwan day traders who were reliably profitable after fees
Researchers studied every trade on the Taiwan stock market from 1992 to 2006. Fewer than 1% of day traders could predictably beat the market after costs, and more than 75% quit within two years.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a free broker account, free practice trading with fake money and free education from regulators. The high end is a paid course, a year of charting software and market data, and a trading group subscription. Neither figure includes the money you trade with. That is not a cost of learning, but most beginners lose a large share of it, and that loss is usually far bigger than anything on this list.
Only trade money you can afford to lose completely. Never borrow, use a credit card or touch rent money to trade.
Trading for yourself is self-employment with no employer behind you.
No health insurance
You buy your own, often through the Health Insurance Marketplace.
No retirement match
No 401(k) (workplace retirement plan) with an employer adding money.
No paid time off
A week off is a week with no income, and a bad week can cost more than a month of savings.
No steady paycheck
Losing months are normal even for good traders, so you need savings to cover them.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
There is no degree or license. The people who last treat it like a slow apprenticeship, with a job paying the bills.
Learn how markets work
2 to 3 months
Orders, spreads, margin, options and taxes, from free broker and regulator material before any paid course.
Practice with fake money
3 to 6 months
Use a broker's practice account and write down every trade and why you made it.
Trade very small with real money
6 to 12 months
Tiny positions in a cash account, so mistakes cost little. Real money feels different from practice.
Keep a full record
1 to 2 years
A journal of every trade, fee and result. If it does not show a profit after costs for a year or more, you do not have an edge yet.
Only then think about scaling up
Years
Most traders who succeed kept a job until their record covered several years and their savings could cover a year of losses.
Statistics and probability
Trading is about odds over hundreds of trades, not being right once.
Mathematics
Percentages, compounding and risk sizing are daily tools.
Economics
Interest rates, inflation and earnings reports move prices.
Computer science
Coding lets you test an idea on past data before you risk money on it.
Psychology
Fear, greed and overconfidence cause more losses than bad charts.
From 2001, the PDT (pattern day trader) rule meant anyone making 4 or more day trades in 5 business days in a margin account needed $25,000 in it. FINRA (the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) replaced it with new intraday margin rules, approved by the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) in April 2026 and in effect from June 4, 2026. You now need $2,000 to trade with borrowed money, and your broker checks your risk during the day instead of counting trades. Brokers have until October 20, 2027 to switch, so yours may still use the old rule.
You need no license to trade your own money. Profits on trades held a year or less are taxed as ordinary income. The IRS (Internal Revenue Service) can give you trader tax status if you trade often, regularly and as a real business, which lets you deduct expenses and choose mark-to-market accounting under section 475(f). Most people do not qualify. Trading other people's money or selling advice does need registration with the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) or your state.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Risk a tiny slice per trade
Often 1% of the account or less, so no single loss can wipe them out.
Stick to one market and one method
They know one setup deeply instead of chasing every tip.
Measure everything
Win rate, average win and loss, and fees, tracked in a spreadsheet.
Stop trading on bad days
A daily loss limit, and they walk away when it hits.
Keep other income
Many successful traders also teach, write, code or work part time.
Python or another coding language
To test a strategy on years of past prices before risking real money.
Spreadsheets
To keep a trade journal you can actually learn from.
Six to twelve months of savings
Living costs covered, separate from your trading money.
A finance or math background
Helpful, though it guarantees nothing. Professionals lose money too.
Much of what you see on TikTok and YouTube is selling something: a course, a monthly signals group on Discord, or a broker sign-up link that pays the creator. Screenshots of big wins are easy to cherry-pick. In 2022 the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) ordered Warrior Trading to pay $3 million, saying most of its customers lost money while it advertised its founder's gains. Ask any seller for audited results across all their customers. Few can show them.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
You are at the screens before 9:30 a.m. Eastern, reading the news and marking the levels you care about. The first hour after the market opens is the busiest, with fast decisions and real money moving. Late morning goes quiet, so you review trades and update your journal. Some traders stop by noon. Others trade again near the 4 p.m. close. Many days the best decision is to do nothing at all.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
In the Brazilian study of almost 20,000 day traders, only 0.5% of those who kept going for over 300 days earned more than a bank teller's starting salary.
In Taiwan, 74% of all day trading volume came from traders with a history of losses. People kept trading despite the evidence in their own accounts.
The $25,000 pattern day trader minimum began in 2001, after the dot-com crash. FINRA (the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) scrapped it from June 4, 2026.
In 2023 the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) sent more than $2.9 million in refunds to about 20,400 people who had paid for Warrior Trading's day trading programs.
Trading and investing first, then the rest of the field. See all online and self-made careers.
Last checked October 2026. This is self-employment, so there is no government wage data for it. The income figures come from the studies and platform data listed above.