How To Become A Day Trader: What It Is and Career Path

What is a day trader and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

2 min read

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a day trader. For example, did you know that they make an average of $56.2 an hour? That's $116,895 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 10% and produce 47,700 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreDay TraderUS Average

Salary

8.0

Avg. Salary $116,895

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability Level

9.5

Growth Rate 10%

Growth Rate 0.3%

Diversity

6.1

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.21%

Asian 12.40%

Black or African American 5.52%

Hispanic or Latino 11.49%

Unknown 4.12%

White 66.26%

Gender

female 9.54%

male 90.46%

Age - 43

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 43

Stress Level

9.5

Stress level is very high

7.1 - high

Complexity Level

10.0

Complexity Level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work Life Balance

3.5

Work Life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a day trader

Explore day trader education requirements

Most common day trader degrees

Bachelor's

67.5 %

Associate

13.4 %

Master's

9.9 %

Start to develop specific day trader skills

Skills	Percentages
Technical Analysis	14.74%
Equities	9.82%
Market Trends	6.02%
Fundamental Analysis	5.79%
Global Financial Markets	5.67%

Research day trader duties and responsibilities

Day-Trade stocks on the NASDAQ and NYSE, and achieve positive returns through an analysis of trends base on moving averages.
Manage business, sales, marketing, international negotiation and communication for a commodities business.
Trade equities and derivatives for long term investment and short term trading purposes while utilizing proper risk management
Engage in market speculation of various commodities, rapid scalping of mini futures contracts & ETF's.

Prepare your day trader resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your day trader resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a day trader resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose From 10+ Customizable Day Trader Resume templates

Build a professional Day Trader resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your Day Trader resume.