How Much Do Day Traders Make Per Year? (2024)

Are you curious to know how much money day traders make? A quick glance at Instagram and Twitter shows numerous claims of day traders making thousands of dollars daily. Heck, one just posted profits of $115,000 in one day.

Or what about the penny stock trader who turned $12k into $5.4 million? I could name names, but you probably know who they are. Let’s say these returns are outside the norm but not outside of reach. Day trading can be a lucrative careerifyou use the right strategies and techniques.

How Much Do Day Traders Make Per Year? (1)

Day Trading Course

In this course, you’ll learn how to read day trading charts, premarket preparation, gauge buy and sell zones, scan for penny stocks to trade, and prepare for live day trading action.

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Table of Contents

  • How Much Do Day Traders Make?
    • Salaries of Day Traders
    • Salaries of Day Traders at Firms
  • Can I Make a Living Day Trading?
    • How to Be the Casino
    • Mistakes That Hurt Traders
  • Is It Profitable to Be a Day Trader?
    • Picking the Right Stocks
    • Practice Makes Perfect
    • Final Thoughts: How Much Do Day Traders Make?
  • Frequently Asked Questions

How Much Do Day Traders Make?

Do you know how much day traders make? This can vary depending on whether the person in question does it professionally or as a supplemental income. The average day trader typically makes $80,000 a year. However, there’s no easy answer to how much day traders make. Read more to find out how to be a successful day trader.

Day trading is buying and selling stock within the same trading day. A day trader aimsto profit from the market’s daily moves.

Surprisingly, the moves don’t need to be big. You can make a substantial profit from a small stock price move. Unfortunately, many new traders are eager to win big, risking their hard-earned capital. According to the North American Securities Administrators Association, 9 out of 10-day traderslose money and eventually deplete their trading capital.

But, those who follow strict trading rules can easily make anincomeof over $100,000 per year or more.

Likewise, the national average salary for day traders who work for a company is $122,724 (source: Glassdoor). You can see below that this average varies based on where you work.

Salaries of Day Traders

  • City Equity – $154, 260
  • Bank Of America – $275, 000
  • Morgan Stanley – $276,000

Does this answer the question of how much do day traders make? Remember, these are individual trading salaries.

Another consideration is that you can earn substantially more as a fund or hedge fund manager.

If you want to be your day trader, ensure you have good technicals.Tradestation indicatorscan work for you quite well.

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Salaries of Day Traders at Firms

If you’re wondering how many days traders make at a public firm, your guess is as good as mine. But, you will often find that top traders venture out to hedge funds.

I could give a few different reasons, but the main one would be the freedom to make their own trading decisions and the potential for sky-high pay.

It’s nothing for a top trader to out-earn their boss; I’m thinking of millions. Don’t forget that they have the best laptop for stock trading.

With the lure of lucrative returns, many are quick to jump in. But before you jump off the cliff, you need to ask yourself a few questions first.

Can I Make a Living Day Trading?

If you want to make a living at day trading, you must be good at it. That sounds simple. It’s not. It requires time and practice. How much do day traders make? You have to decide how much you want to make. Then, work towards that goal before going live. You can also decide what style you will trade—for example, trading outside stock market hours.

Some experts consider day trading to be a form of compulsive gambling. And they’re right, to a point. The roller-coaster excitement and the chance to make a fast buck are luring people into the profession more and more.

The desire for quick cash may leave inexperienced traders with a depleted bank account if they don’t properly manage their risk.

Like any undertaking in life, you must protect yourself at all costs. It’s common knowledge in casinos that the house always wins.

Luckily, if done skillfully and artfully, trading can put you in the position of the house. Your goal is to trade like a casino, so you know how to make money day trading.

A casino is not in the business of making predictions; they manage their risk and let their edge play out. So, how much do day traders make?

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How to Be the Casino

Did you know that your position size is more important than your entry and exit points when day trading stocks?

Even if you have the best strategy on the planet, you will lose if you don’t manage your risk. You want a way to minimize losses, which is accomplished by following the 1% risk rule. The rule is simple: Don’t risk more than 1% of your account size. You take your account (whatever size it is) and multiply it by 1%.

Think of it like this: By risking only 1 percent, you must lose 100 trades in a row to wipe out your account. And if you happen to find yourself losing 100 trades in a row, it’s time to take a step back and reflect. How much day traders make depends on how they apply the 1% rule when buying stocks.

Mistakes That Hurt Traders

  1. A focus only on profit and losses and not on the process. If your strategy is sound, you only need to worry about the consistent execution of your trading plan, and your profits will take care of themselves. Summed up: follow your rules; more on that below.
  2. Constantly changing strategies. Learn one or two that work for you and master them. Bonus for reading this far: alist of strategies you can easily implement! You’re welcome.

If you want to be profitable and know how much ay traders make, ensure you have the best day trading system.

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Is It Profitable to Be a Day Trader?

How much do day traders make to be profitable? You have to decide for yourself how much you need to be profitable. Do you want to do this for a living? What are your expenses? Are you good enough at trading to cover those expenses? What happens if you have a bad week?

We can all learn to trade for a living if we want to, but we need the right rules and attitude. Traders who face the same opportunity must trade the same.

Personal feelings can’t interfere. Unfortunately, those proper rules and attitudes collide directly with fundamental human nature.

Sadly, many panics and sell when the market turns against them or hold on to losing trades for too long. Ensure you know the four tips new traders should follow to know how many days traders make.

“ You are not smarter than the market. You must follow your entry and exit rules based on your trading plan.”

Picking the Right Stocks

If you want to make a living day trading stocks, it is important to understand the qualities of a stock that make it a good candidate for day trading.

As a rule of thumb, these factors are liquidity and volatility. Liquidity in a stock allows you to buy and sell stock at a reasonable price easily.

Alternatively, volatility dictates the stock price range throughout the day. But remember, higher volatility brings a chance for greater profits but a higher risk of loss.

How much do day traders make? Does it depend on you knowing the intraday meaning? Intraday trading makes you a day trader.

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Day Trade Watch List

The Bullish Bears day trade watch list focuses on the top gappers hitting the premarket scanners. Our list is filtered down to 3-5 stocks with the highest gap percentage, volume, float size, and breaking news.

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Practice Makes Perfect

Let’s say we ask 100 random strangers to hit a fastball going 95 miles an hour. How many do you think would hit it? I would dare to say less than 0.5%.

Likewise, the same rule applies to trading stocks. What would happen if 80 out of 100 people never practiced trading and threw money into a brokerage account? I think you know the answer.

The real question is, how long does it take before a trader begins to make money? That depends on how much time and practice you put in. So before you up and quit your job, make sure you can turn a profit.

If you cannot make money trading a $5,000 account, you will not make money trading a $50,000 account. For these reasons, you need to practice in asimulator. You can’t expect to be raking in six figures a month immediately.

Final Thoughts: How Much Do Day Traders Make?

The lingering question remains: how much do day traders make? Some make enough to support their families. Some don’t make enough to cover their brokerage commissions.

Make no mistake; day trading is hard if you don’t have the proper rules and system. The moral of this story? Instead of focusing on how much money you can make day trading, focus on the process of making the right trades. Once you have your system in place, the money follows.

We understand that no two traders are alike. Luckily, Bullish Bears is in the business of tailoring systems for individual traders. Therefore, check out ourday trading course.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can Day Traders Make A lot of Money?

Can day traders make a lot of money? Yes, it's possible, but the reality is that most traders are not profitable. The best day traders can make six figures or more per year.

Can You Make 100k a Year Day Trading?

For a day trader to make 100k a year trading, they need to make $397 per day since there are 252 trading days. Most day traders are not profitable, though.

How Much Do Day Traders Make Per Year? (2024)

FAQs

How Much Do Day Traders Make Per Year? ›

The average income of a day trader varies widely, depending on factors like experience, strategy, and market conditions. While some traders can make over $100,000 per year, many others struggle to break even.

Can a day trader be a millionaire? ›

I won't keep you in suspense: I made $10 million by day trading. That profession is the lightning rod of the investment world. It seems to generate strong opinions from everyone, even if many people have never done it.

Can you make 100k a year day trading? ›

But, those who follow strict trading rules can easily make an income of over $100,000 per year or more. Likewise, the national average salary for day traders who work for a company is $122,724 (source: Glassdoor). You can see below that this average varies based on where you work.

Can I make a living as a day trader? ›

In summary, if you want to make a living from day trading, your odds are probably around 4% with adequate capital and investing multiple hours every day honing your method over six months or more (once you have a method to even work on).

How hard is day trading? ›

Day trading is challenging due to its fast-paced nature and the complexity of the financial markets. It requires traders to make quick decisions based on real-time information, which can be overwhelming, especially in volatile market conditions.

Can you day trade with 1000 dollars? ›

Believe it or not, you can start forex day trading with $1,000 or even less. It requires mastering position sizing and managing risks, but if you navigate your way to success, the rewards can be significant.

Who are the richest day traders? ›

The top billionaire day traders, like Jim Simmons, Ken Griffin, and George Soros, have different ways of trading, but they all use a mix of technical analysis, fundamental analysis, and risk management to make their choices.

Who is the most profitable day trader ever? ›

Who is the most successful day trader? There are a lot of successful traders but Jesse Livermore is often regarded as the most successful day trader. His success came from trading on the capital earned by himself and by trading on setups made by himself.

How many hours do day traders work? ›

Most independent day traders have short days, working two to five hours per day. Often they will practice making simulated trades for several months before beginning to make live trades. They track their successes and failures versus the market, aiming to learn by experience.

Why $25 000 for day trading? ›

Why Do I Have to Maintain Minimum Equity of $25,000? Day trading can be extremely risky—both for the day trader and for the brokerage firm that clears the day trader's transactions. Even if you end the day with no open positions, the trades you made while day trading most likely have not yet settled.

What do top day traders make? ›

Day Trader Salary
Annual SalaryMonthly Pay
Top Earners$185,000$15,416
75th Percentile$105,500$8,791
Average$96,774$8,064
25th Percentile$56,500$4,708

How much money do I need to make $1000 a day trading? ›

In order to make $1,000 in a day on a stock that increases 10% in a day, you would have to invest $10,000 in that stock. If you wanted to trade on margin, you could invest a little more than $5,000 and still make $1,000 on that trade.

Is trading really worth it? ›

While there is no guarantee that you will make money or be able to predict your average rate of return over any period, there are strategies that you can master to help you lock in gains while minimizing losses. It takes discipline, capital, patience, training, and risk management to be a successful day trader.

Is day trading gambling? ›

While day trading is not considered gambling, some people find it easy to get caught up in the ups and downs of the activity, whether winning or losing, as the thrill can bring a rush of adrenaline and lead to an addictive cycle.

What percentage of traders are successful? ›

Approximately 1–20% of day traders actually profit from their endeavors. Exceptionally few day traders ever generate returns that are even close to worthwhile. This means that between 80 and 99 percent of them fail.

How much does a day trader make a day? ›

How much does a Day Trader in India make? The average salary for a Day Trader is ₹40,000 per month in India.

Do day traders make good money? ›

Day trading is a strategy in which investors buy and sell stocks the same day. It is rarely successful, with an estimated 95% loss percentage. Even if you do see a gain, it must be enough to offset fees and taxes, as well.

How much money do day traders with $10 000 accounts make per day on average? ›

With a $10,000 account, a good day might bring in a five percent gain, which is $500. However, day traders also need to consider fixed costs such as commissions charged by brokers. These commissions can eat into profits, and day traders need to earn enough to overcome these fees [2].

How many trades do day traders make per day? ›

A day trader might make 100 to a few hundred trades in a day, depending on the strategy and how frequently attractive opportunities appear.

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