Top 5 Best Day Trading Courses – Beginners:
Before I go through my top 5 day trading courses for beginners, I want to point out that they’re not listed in order of quality. If I were to actually rank them, Thomas Kralow’s Trading Program and Chris Capre’s Trading Masterclass would be at the top of the list.
The way I actually listed them here is in order of how I think a complete beginner should start – with a free beginners course just to get a better sense of what day trading is all about, a mindset course to build a rock-solid mental foundation, and then some full-blown learning programs with high-level training and mentorship for those serious about their trading success.
1. Beginners Day Trading Course – Investors Underground |Read Full Review|
Investors Underground is a popular day and swing trading community best known for their chat rooms, but they also offer a handful of other educational content, including: video lessons, trade recaps, webinars, game plans, and a few premium courses/DVDs (Textbook Trading, Tandem Trader, and Swing Trading). The specific beginners day trading course I’m talking about here is entirely free and provides a great opportunity for newbies to get a better idea of what active trading is all about. A free intermediate course is also currently in the works. In addition, IU offers a day trading encyclopedia to help with common terminology and concepts along the way.
2. Advanced Traders Mindset – 2ndSkies Trading |Read Full Review|
After dipping into the world of active trading and deciding that it’s something you seriously want to pursue, the next thing you should do is focus on your mindset. It might be a little bit confusing since the word “advanced” is in the name because it’s not just a course for advanced traders. It’s “advanced” because no other course covers the topic of trading mindset and psychology so well – and every single new trader should go through a course like this right at the beginning of their journey. Trust me when I say that going through this course properly can save you a lot of time, money, and mental anguish. Don’t be like the masses who ignore this critical aspect.
3. University Grade Trading Education – Thomas Kralow |Read Full Review|
Once you have a basic conceptual understanding of day trading and the mindset required for consistent success, it’s time to start building real technical trading skills. This is where a university grade trading education by Thomas Kralow comes in. Sadly, most online trading programs only talk about a couple indicators or setups, but they don’t actually help people acquire the appropriate trading skills necessary for long-term success. Thomas Kralow’s trading program, however, is a fully comprehensive curriculum with interactive tasks, homework, quizzes, and exams for deeper learning. There’s no other trading program operating at this high of a level right now.
4. The Trading Masterclass – 2ndSkies Trading |Read Full Review|
The Trading Masterclass offered by Chris Capre at 2ndSkies Trading is another strong learning program for beginners. What I like most about 2ndSkies Trading, as well as Thomas Kralow’s trading program, is the focus on trading mindset and legitimate training. Far too many other online trading services attract subscribers with their “hot stock picks” and promises of “explosive profits”, but these services never actually work for members. Get-rich-quick programs will just cost a lot of money without a desirable result. The only “shortcut” to trading success is legitimate training and mentorship from successful traders like Chris Capre or Thomas Kralow.
5. Trading Tickers & Trading Tickers 2 – Tim Grittani |Read Full Review|
As far as premium day trading courses go, Trading Tickers and Trading Tickers 2 are certainly ranked near the top. In my opinion, these two courses are easily the best ones offered on the Profit.ly platform, and probably a couple of the best on the internet in general. But I think it’s important to discuss the difference between a course/DVD and a full-blown learning program. Thomas Kralow’s trading program and Chris Capre’s trading masterclass, for example, are complete learning programs with interactive tasks, communities, and support. A recorded course/DVD like Trading Tickers, on the other hand, doesn’t offer the same level of interaction and support.
Top 5 Best Day Trading Sites – Beginners:
There are certainly some courses and learning programs listed above that could also double as some of the best day trading sites for beginners (For example: Thomas Kralow, 2ndSkies Trading, and Investors Underground), but I’m not going to overlap the following list with any sites I’ve already mentioned. These will all be new sites and services that I think beginners can greatly benefit from.
1. Investopedia – Free Encyclopedia For Anything Related to Finance |Direct Link to Investopedia|
Investopedia is an incredible tool that everybody should be using – not just dedicated traders and investors. The site offers all kinds of education related to economics, corporate finance, retirement accounts, stocks, bonds, ETFs, technical/fundamental analysis, risk management, portfolio management, and more. They do offer some premium trading, investing, and overall finance-related courses if interested, but most of the content within the site is absolutely free. I personally used Investopedia all the time at the beginning of my trading journey to look up various terms and concepts, and I still use it a ton to this day. It’s an invaluable resource.
2. TradingSim – Market Simulator and Replay Tool |Read Full Review|
TradingSim is a premium market simulator and replay tool for traders who want to practice their skills in a completely risk-free environment – which should be the case for every single beginner. Newbies have a tendency to jump straight into the market uneducated and unprepared, and the result is always the same – huge losses. It might feel like you’re missing out on the real market action by practicing in a simulator, but all you’re missing out on is financial and mental pain. The market has a funny way of wiping out inexperienced, ill-prepared individuals who lack the proper technical and mental skills for durable trading success.
3. Finviz – Financial Visualizations and Screening |Read Full Review|
Finviz Elite is a strong trading tool that allows you to assess the market by viewing top gainers/losers, heat maps, futures, backtests, and more. But the best aspect of the platform, in my opinion, is the ability to run custom screens based on your own criteria. You can create multiple screener presets based on your personal trading style and the setups you like. For example, you can create scans for potential breakouts, short squeezes, or anything else you might be looking for. Finviz Elite is a premium service with a ton of great features, but Finviz still offers two levels of free access for those who don’t necessarily need the premium features.
4. Trading Composure – Mindfulness-Based Trading Psychology Solutions |Read Full Review|
Trading Composure is a helpful blog created by Yvan Byeajee that covers trading mindset and psychology in detail. Yvan currently offers two premium courses: The Trading Psychology Mastery Course and Trading For a Living. He also offers one free course that is definitely worth checking out: The Psychology of Risk. This site introduced me to trading psychology and provided me with the power to change from an ineffective trading mindset to an effective one. What people don’t realize when they choose to enter the market is that they’re operating within a new environment – a unique one that they’re simply not used to. This requires flexibility and adaptation.
5. Mind Muscles For Traders – Train Your Brain For Market Gain |Read Full Review|
Mind Muscles For Traders is another platform focused on trading mindset and psychology. But again, the mental component of trading should not be underestimated. You won’t hear a lot of self-proclaimed gurus or so-called trading educators talk about trading mindset very much because it doesn’t sound all that exciting. In general, people are far more attracted to fancy cars, mansions, and money – and end up going down the ill-fated path of “hot stock picks” to capture “explosive profits”. It’s sad that the industry as a whole tends to bury this critical component just to entice more subscribers and customers with misguided expectations and false promises.
Please review and use these top trading courses and sites responsibly. Your end goal should always be to acquire the core skills and mindset to become entirely self-sufficient. No consistently successful trader relies on hot tips, picks, or alerts from anyone else.
Don’t forget to check out the FAQ and Free Resources pages for additional courses, trials, and tools as well.
Written by Matt Thomas (@MattThomasTP)
Related Pages:
I myself recently got into trading during the covid epidemic and have been absolutely HOOKED ever since. I am constantly looking for new resources to learn from and to help me draw out potential trade patterns. This article really helped me and gave me a good layout of what resources I should utilize. Currently, I am big into crypto and some of the resources you listed, like FinViz, look like they can be very beneficial to me.
This is a detailed list. I found your insights about day trading courses and learning programs really interesting. This article made me wonder if it would be possible for me to earn a full-time living day trading, and if so, how long it would take? This will help me decide on a pertinent source of income going forward.
Hi Omer – thanks for the feedback. Some people earn a full-time living day trading, but it’s very difficult. It requires specific technical skills and a strong mindset. In general, people are used to receiving a consistent paycheck every week, 2 weeks, month, or whatever the case may be. But trading isn’t like that. Sometimes there will be weeks or months when you “put in the work”, but still lose money – and this can be an extremely difficult thing to deal with psychologically. Day trading for a living is possible, but I just want you to understand the realities of it. The truth is that it’s far from easy – even though every advertisement you see online will try to tell you otherwise.
There’s no set time frame on how long it might take someone to be able to trade for a living, but it’s certainly not something that can be achieved within a few days or weeks. This is a months to years long type of endeavor. Your progress and how much you can make depends on multiple factors. There are some people who try to learn on their own using Google and YouTube, but this is usually a long and frustrating process – especially trying to filter through the good/bad material, and most of what you’ll find is basic or lousy. Solid courses and learning programs can help speed up the learning curve, but it comes at a larger upfront cost. And there are no guaranteed results – a lot depends on how much time and effort you put into learning and practicing the material.
Overall, there’s no easy answer to the question of how long it will take – it varies from person-to-person depending on capital, experience, trading style, risk management, market conditions, and your personal lifestyle. Not everyone’s situation is the same – and what one person deems a full-time income might not be for someone else. I certainly wouldn’t recommend hastily quitting a full-time job or anything like that in order to immediately start live trading. There’s a process of learning and training that should happen before anything like that should seriously be considered (going through a learning program, practicing on a simulator, proving your skills, generating consistent results over time, etc.). In my opinion, the market provides a ton of opportunity, but it requires legitimate education and training to be able to capitalize on it.