What is a Day Trading Course and How Do You Pick the Right One?
Day trading courses are far from scarce. There are a ton of them from various sources – qualified or not – covering numerous markets, strategies, and trading styles (stocks, options, futures, forex, crypto, scalping, swing trading, and more) all over the internet.
But the vast majority of day trading courses are short and lousy, and barely help individuals move any closer to durable trading success in live markets. This isn’t just a problem with free courses, but premium ones as well – many of which cost thousands of dollars.
The sad reality is that pretty much anybody can create a course these days. It’s not that hard to slap a PowerPoint presentation together, record a few videos, and sell it as a $500+ course. It doesn’t even matter if you’ve never traded a single day in your life.
This type of environment isn’t doing any favors for individuals who are serious about achieving long-term trading success. With all the nonsense out there, it’s hard to know exactly where to spend your time and money. You want a course that will deliver actual results.
After spending years using and reviewing numerous day trading courses and programs, these are my tips for finding the best ones.
3 Major Problems With Most Day Trading Courses Currently Available Online:
The same few issues seem to pop up for almost every day trading course available online. Here’s what I’ve discovered:
1. They Try to Act Like Simple Chart Patterns or Indicators Are Foolproof Systems
The classic advertisement for a day trading course goes something like this: “Follow My System and Make $10,000 Per Month Like Clockwork!” Not only are these bold profit claims almost always untrue, but their “system” is just some pattern or indicator.
I’m not discounting the importance of patterns and indicators in trading because they certainly play a role. But patterns and indicators alone are highly unreliable. Treating any one of them as some sort of “foolproof system” is a dangerous practice.
I understand why this surface-level approach is so common though. People like to think in certainties – so when they come across some shape on a price chart or see one moving average cross another, they want the market to always act in some specific way.
But that’s just not how markets work. Perfect patterns and indicators sound nice in theory, but don’t exist. There are no certainties – only probabilities. And on top of that, markets are constantly shifting and changing, so you have to be able to evolve with them.
Patterns and indicators that worked one day can stop working the next, so these components alone aren’t sufficient.
2. They Fail to Teach Much More Than Basic Terminology and Concepts
There’s no doubt that one of the biggest mistakes new traders make is thinking that beginner-level knowledge like terminology and concepts will translate directly to trading success. But there’s a drastic difference between theory and practical application.
Again, the basics are important, but they’re only a stepping stone – just like patterns and indicators aren’t foolproof, but still play a role. Thinking these surface-level topics alone will produce lasting success as a trader is nothing more than a pipe dream.
So when you go around looking for an effective day trading course, try to find one that prioritizes training. Most claim to offer education, but that “education” is nothing more than basic information. Legitimate training, however, goes much further.
These types of training programs might be a bit more expensive, but the benefit is that they’re actually effective. This is because they enrich your learning experience with demo/simulated trading, live market feedback, and high-quality mentorship.
It’s similar to how reading a book about football is easy, but training to become an NFL player is on an entirely different level.
3. They Ignore or Downplay the Critical Importance of Trading Mindset/Psychology
Another area that most day trading courses fail to even touch on is developing the proper trading mindset. They might quickly talk about how important controlling emotions or staying disciplined is, but other than that it’s almost entirely ignored.
Yet again, this relates to the surface-level theme that we’ve discussed in the previous sections. It’s easy to tell someone that they should control their emotions or stay disciplined while trading, but an entirely different story for them to actually do so in practice.
Words alone don’t mean much. Being able to control emotions and stay disciplined in live market situations with real money on the line requires belief and habit adjustments. Consistently profitable traders have an entirely different mental framework than the masses.
There’s a level of depth there that most market participants simply don’t have. The proper mindset is undoubtedly a missing link that many traders who would otherwise be successful just haven’t realized yet. That’s exactly what it was for me a couple years ago.
The inner work involved with becoming a consistently profitable trader isn’t as exciting as talk of foolproof systems. But it’s required.
Full-Blown Learning Programs With High-Quality Training Are Far Superior:
The bottom line is that achieving durable trading success is far more complex than reading some books or watching videos. These resources can be helpful, sure, but real learning takes place by actually implementing and testing concepts in real life.
This doesn’t mean that as a complete beginner you should dive straight into live markets with real money – no, that’s unnecessary and an absolutely terrible idea. If you choose to do this, markets will be more than happy to teach you some rather expensive lessons.
Instead, there are plenty of trading simulators available that utilize live market data to make them as realistic as possible, but imitation funds for financial safety. So you get nearly all the benefits of a real trading experience without any of the risk.
When you practice proper identification of key levels, usage of indicators, risk management, trading psychology, and many other critical trading concepts within a realistic environment, this is where the magic happens – real skills are developed and internalized.
Add proper tracking and analysis of your trades to that list and you’ll be well on your way to success. This allows you to figure out what’s working and not working – and refine your process over time. Training is a long, hard process that many people avoid.
#1 Rated Learning/Training Programs For New and Intermediate Traders:
Now that we’ve discussed what most day trading courses are missing and what to look for in a high-quality program, I feel comfortable sharing my top-rated learning/training programs – University Grade Trading Education & Profile Trading Development Pathway.
As much as I endorse these two programs, I don’t want you to think that they’re automatic tickets to durable trading success. The truth is that no course, program, or service out there is – no matter how many times fake gurus will try to convince you otherwise.
Because the most important factor in your trading success is your own willingness to put in the work – the hours of demo trading, looking at charts, getting a feel for the markets, and analyzing your trades. Watching video lessons can’t give you that experience.
Top Training Program For Developing Traders → TRADE WITH PROFILE – THE PROFILE TRADING DEVELOPMENT PATHWAY
In the end, there’s no single ingredient that creates consistently profitable traders. It requires a number of key components to be synthesized into an overall effective whole – proper expectations, risk/money management, mindset/psychology, and more.
Through months of homework assignments, tests, demo trading, and tracking/analyzing/refining your own playbook/personal trading algorithm, you can gain a deeper understanding of markets and cultivate the skills required for long-term success.
Learn More in the Trading Success Framework Course
Written by Matt Thomas (@MattThomasTP)
Related Pages:
- Best Trading Sites – Beginners Guide to Active Trading
- Training For Day Trading – What is a Day Trading Mentor?
- How to Day Trade For a Living Starting With $5,000 or Less
- How Much Money Do Day Traders and Swing Traders Make?
- Is Thomas Kralow a Scam? My Perspective as a Student
I actually have a friend that wants to start trading but does not know where to start. So this article will be a good place for them to start. Thank you for this article, I know for a fact that it will help him out a lot. Maybe I will start trading too as another source of income.