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

What is the average profit of a day trader? ›

Most day traders give up after less than a month. It is therefore all the more important to start day trading on a Demo depot to learn. A typical day trading profit per day is between 0.033 and 0.13 percent. This corresponds to a monthly profit of between 1 and 10 percent for successful day traders.

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

On average, day traders with $10,000 accounts can make $200-$600 per day, with skilled traders aiming for 2%-5% returns daily.

How many day traders actually make money? ›

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 to make $500k per year? ›

13 jobs that can pay over $500k a year
  1. Actor.
  2. Author.
  3. Accountant.
  4. Insurance agent.
  5. Investment banker.
  6. Professional athlete.
  7. Entrepreneur.
  8. Hedge fund manager.
Apr 18, 2024

Can I make a living as a day trader? ›

In theory, day trading offers the opportunity to earn a lot of money in a short period of time. However, the chances are extremely poor: only around 3 % make profits in the long term. The vast majority of traders lose large sums of money through day trading.

What is the success rate of day traders? ›

Estimates vary, but it's commonly accepted that only around 10% to 15% of day traders are successful over time.67 This low success rate is attributed to the high risks, the need for substantial skill and experience, and the intense competition in the financial markets.

How much do rich day traders make? ›

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.

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.

What is the 11am rule in trading? ›

It is not a hard and fast rule, but rather a guideline that has been observed by many traders over the years. The logic behind this rule is that if the market has not reversed by 11 am EST, it is less likely to experience a significant trend reversal during the remainder of the trading day.

Can you make 200 a day with day trading? ›

A common approach for new day traders is to start with a goal of $200 per day and work up to $800-$1000 over time. Small winners are better than home runs because it forces you to stay on your plan and use discipline. Sure, you'll hit a big winner every now and then, but consistency is the real key to day trading.

Why $25 000 for day trading? ›

Why Do You Need 25k To Day Trade? The $25k requirement for day trading is a rule set by FINRA. It's designed to protect investors from the risks of day trading. By requiring a minimum equity of $25k, FINRA ensures that investors have enough capital to absorb potential losses.

Why is day trading so hard? ›

Day trading requires that you make trading decisions based on sound judgment and analysis void of emotion. New traders that day trade have a tendency to become seduced by the excitement of the open markets and therefore often become emotional traders acting on impulse rather than sound analysis and judgment.

Is it possible to make $100 a day day trading? ›

You're really probably going to need closer to 4,000 or $5,000 in order to make that $100 a day consistently. And ultimately it's going to be a couple of trades a week where you total $500 a week, so it's going to take a little bit more work. Want to learn more about trading?

What is the average return for a day trader? ›

Drawbacks to Day Trading

A frequently quoted day trader average return rate is 10 percent, but recall that the failure rate is about 95 percent. Moreover, as NYU's 93 years of stock market return data illustrates, the average rate of return for the stock market historically has been 9.8 percent.

Is 100K enough for day trading? ›

Starting with 100K, you can make a decent profit if you play your cards right. You will have to put in more money if you want to make day trading a full-time profession, but 100k is a good starting point. If you're an averagely decent trader, you may be able to earn up to 20% of that base investment in a given year.

Can a day trader become a millionaire? ›

While it's possible to become a millionaire through day trading, it's not likely. Most traders end up losing money in the long run. A small number of traders, however, are able to consistently make money and achieve success.

How much can an independent day trader make? ›

Independent Trader Salary. $56,500 is the 25th percentile. Salaries below this are outliers. $105,500 is the 75th percentile.

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