Day trading as a career can be a tricky one. The pros are that you can work from anywhere you want. Cons are that there is not a steady source of revenue. It’s also a very stressful career path and requires a lot of work to learn.
Returns as a day trader, are basically unlimited. However, when calculating whether you can live off your day trading, it’s important to be realistic. I have a post about realistic day trading returns. You can read it here.
Is day trading a good career?
Is day trading a good and viable career? For most people day trading is probably not the best career path to go. I say most of the people, because there are successful day traders out there, who manage to make a living out of it.
If you dedicate enough time to learning day trading, and can handle the stress and uncertainty it brings you, it could be a career for you.
However, it takes a long time to actually learn day trading, and the learning phase costs money. You can not learn the full scale day trading with paper money. It doesn’t feel the same. More about how long it takes to learn to day trade in this post.
Day trader salary
As a day trader, your earning potential is basically unlimited. Your income is not tied to the time you spend working. The amount of money you make depends only on the trades you take.
According to Investopedia’s article, the average salary of a day trader was 74 000 dollars in the year of 2021.
However, that is the average. As a starting day trader, you shouldn’t assume to earn 74k in your first year of trading. It is very unlikely.
The amount of money you earn will also differ, based on your performance. Day trader’s salary is not a fixed 10 000 a month, like in some fields of business. Your salary as a day trader, if you learn to be profitable and earned the average salary of a day trader could look something like this:
| Month | Salary |
| January | – 5 000 |
| February | + 20 000 |
| March | – 7 500 |
| April | + 2 500 |
| May | + 15 000 |
| June | – 2 500 |
| July | + 20 000 |
| August | + 15 000 |
| September | – 2 500 |
| October | + 15 000 |
| November | – 5 000 |
| December | + 10 000 |
Losses are part of day trading. There is no guarantee at the end of the month that you will end up at a profit. Even the most skilled day traders have bad trades and bad seasons, where they face multiple losses in a row.
The chart above is purely made up for an example. The numbers are only based on a 74k profit per year; what was taken from the article from Investopedia.
More about the potential returns you can get as a day trader in this post.
Pros of becoming independent day trader
There are surely benefits on being a day trader. Othervise, it wouldn’t be as popular topic. Some of the benefits of being a day trader are:
- Freedom to work from anywhere in the world
- Being your own boss
- Income is not tied to your time
- Potential for high income
- Chance to develop your skills every day
Next, we will go through the downsides of day trading. It’s up to you to decide whether the pros outweight the cons.
Cons of becoming independent day trader
There are the pros of day trading. They come with a downside as well. Some of the downsides of day trading are:
- Highly stressful career path to go
- No certain income
- Hard to learn
- Working as a day trader alone can be lonely
- Financial risk involved
- Very small amount of day traders succeed in the long run
Day trading is definitely not a way to get rich quick, and very few people manage to make a living out of it. More about why day trading is not for everyone in this post.
Final words
All that being said, can day trading be a career? Yes it can. Is it hard to make a living from day trading? It sure is. Some estimates say that 95% of day traders lose money, so according to those statistics, chances of making a career out of it for a random person are very slim.
If you wish to become a day trader, I have a lot of content about day trading in general. I will link few of those below if you are interested.
Reasons why day traders lose money and fail
What it’s like to be a day trader
How much money you need to start day trading
Hopefully this was helpful to you, have a nice day.
This is not financial or investing advice. Some estimates say that 95% of day traders lose money. Always do your research before risking your hard-earned money.