Education is the key to successful day trading, and there are a wealth of education options online. Whether you want specific forex, futures or cryptocurrency training for advanced traders, or a free e-book for beginners, we explain how to find the best educational course for you and your needs.
Day trading is a huge topic that can seem overwhelming to potential traders. The truth is that trading is complicated; there are no shortcuts or get-rich-quick schemes – and don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise.
Trading experience
However, this does not mean that you cannot make money from day trading. It just means that you also need to take advantage of the experience and expertise of others to earn from the trade. Investing in the best day trading education can equip you with essential knowledge, a valuable support network and set you on the path to trading success.
Here we are going to offer some tips that will help you choose the right online day school for you. None of the available services can teach you to learn ‘on the track’ – to trade and build yourself, but they can work with your own trading to inspire and improve your skills.
Specific courses
If you are not already trading and are looking for the best day trading training, it is a good idea to think about what kind of trading you want to do. Interested in options or futures? Do you want simple stocks or complicated indices? There are many options available:
Shares / share trading
The most famous form of trading. It involves buying and selling shares of different companies through an exchange. Our stocks page can help explain which stocks are best suited for day trading – ultimately your volume and volatility.
Most stock trading training material deals with ‘buy and hold’, long-term strategy – based on the fundamentals and value of the company. Day shares rely more on price action. So it is more important to learn the technical analysis than the analysis of the company.
Forex Trading
Forex is an extremely popular form of trading, and billions are traded daily. Shortly before ‘foreign currency’, in forex it is speculated whether one currency will be more or less valuable than the other. We have a separate article dealing with forex training here.
Commodity trading
Commodity trading is where you trade precious metals or raw materials that make other goods. Commodities are divided into two groups: Hard commodities are things that are mined (gold, oil, etc.) Soft commodities tend to be agricultural goods or to grow (wheat, sugar, etc.)
Cryptocurrencies
Cryptocurrency requires a greater level of education than most at the moment, simply because the product is so immature. You’ve heard of Bitcoin, which is the most famous example of a cryptocurrency. Bitcoin and others such as Litecoin and Ripple are digital currencies that operate independently of banks. Cryptocurrency trading involves the use of digital wallets, blockchains and complex encryption methods.
However, it is possible to speculate on the price movement of cryptocurrencies without owning them. This simplifies the process and makes it much more accessible.
Futures Trading
Futures involve predicting whether the price of a commodity or a stock will increase or decrease within a given period.
Options trading
Options are one of the more complex forms of day trading and will definitely require some form of trading training: they basically involve an ‘option’ to buy or sell a stock during or after a period, depending on whether you think that the price of the share will fall or rise.
Binary Options Trading
Binary options is a simplified form of options trading, where you predict whether the price of a stock or commodity will rise or fall over a specified period of time. The investment interest is fixed, so the potential loss is limited. Since the payout is also known in advance, trades with a fixed risk are often referred to. A trader will know exactly how much they will win or lose, regardless of the size of the price movement on the underlying asset.
Binaries are high risk trades, and education options are limited. They are now banned in Europe due to a proliferation of fraudulent operators. Paying for education is equally high risk, and free websites or forums are an excellent option, next to demo accounts.
Indices traded
Trading indices involves the trading of a group of stocks related to one specific area. For example, the FTSE 100 is a collection of the top 100 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are similar groups of stocks traded in the US.
It is possible to trade these index prices, and learning how to trade them is about price action and economic analysis for the market as a whole.
Social / Copywriting
Social or copy trading involves setting up a trading account and linking it to another, more experienced trader. Whatever you do, your account also means that your profits and losses are ‘copied’ in proportion to how much money you have invested.
Swing Trading
Swing is not a form of day trading, but you see many day trading training websites offering courses. Swing trading is a form of stock trading where you hold your shares for 2 to 2 weeks, to take advantage of a ‘swing’ in their price.
Free education versus paid education
Compare costs
When researching trade training, one of the most important things to consider is cost. The first thing to note is that there is no such thing as a free lunch; almost every platform or course that promises free trading training or tips will at some point want you to pay for more in-depth services.
The aim is to find a reliable, high quality course that offers value for money. What constitutes value for money depends on your own ambitions and circumstances. Here are some things to consider:
- Know what you want: there is a huge amount of trade education opportunities out there. Before you enter your card details on the first website that helps you achieve financial freedom, make sure you know what you’re looking for. Do you want to trade futures or forex? Do you want to invest a little, or can you afford more? Do you learn best by reading or watching? Do you want someone to walk you through the basics, or are you happy to invest in some indicators and get cracking? Knowing these things will save you a lot of wasted costs that could be better invested in successful trading.
- Do your homework: on some sites it is very important to ask how much they charge for a course or an educational package, while others require more investigation. If a course offers ‘free’ training, it is likely that you will have to start paying after so many lessons. These costs are not always advertised or made clear, so you should read the fine print or ask ahead of time what costs may be charged.
- Budget: Course and indicator prices can vary greatly from $20 to $9000. There are also subscriptions ranging from $10 per month to almost $200. Spending top money is a big commitment; so if you feel that a premium course is for you, you should afford it and that your money is worth it.
Find your level
Online trading courses often have different levels, usually Beginner, Intermediate, Pro or similar. As you would expect, the prices are on a sliding scale, with beginner courses being cheap and advanced.
When looking for the best trading training, determine what level of trader you are realistically. If you don’t know your FTSE from the back of your elbow, then you can sign up for a premium right away, then gold member traders won’t make you a premium trader right away.
On the other hand, if you have invested a little in stocks and want to take your trading to the next level, or perhaps get involved in a different type of trading, an intermediate course will be for you.
Advanced trading training should only be considered by those who have been full-time traders for a while and feel they would like mentorship to work with their trading and keep their strategies fresh.
Regardless of what level you are, remember that education works best as a tool for your trading. All the tips, books and demo accounts that money can buy are not the substitute for real, real-time and real-money trading.
Pay for quality
Education for day trading varies greatly in the quality and type of resources offered. Also, beware of trading school founders who say they started offering courses because they were tired of spending money on systems and indicators that don’t work; an expensive course is not necessarily a reliable course.
The types of services or resources you can expect to be offered as part of a trade education package may include:
- Indicators: programs that use different calculations to analyze and indicate the direction of stock prices
- Demo accounts: allow you to practice trading using a simulation platform and simulation money
- Webinars / Tutorials / Live Lessons: live online classes or tutorials with experienced traders
- Mentoring: One-on-one support from an expert trader
- Downloadable materials: this can be like PDF booklets or interactive quizzes that explain trading in greater depth
- Weekly / Daily Email: This can provide you with some insight into the traders or market advice for the day
- eBooks: eBooks are sometimes available for free to generate interest in a more detailed, paid course
The most important indicator of the quality of any course or package is how credible the merchant behind it is. Only consider investing your money if:
The trader behind the training has at least ten years of experience and demonstrable success. You can only become an expert trader through direct experience; someone without a significant amount of it won’t be worth your money.The course teaches you how to trade on your own. Any real trading teacher or mentor will empower their students to trade for themselves. Any course or platform where you have to constantly pay to keep you on the site is likely to put you in less of a position to become a successful independent trader.
Education Website Reviews
Now we know what we are looking for and what is possibly offered; let’s take a look at some of the best trade education websites out there and give an overview of what they offer:
Day Trading Academy
Day Trading Academy is the brainchild of Marcello Arrambide, a trader with over 17 years of experience. After losing large amounts of money on bad software and indicators, he built up his own hands-on experience and then created Day Trading Academy as an ‘organic approach’ to trading education.
His theory is that those who learn through Day Trading Academy teach others what they have learned. It is not a company; it is a ‘community of merchants‘.
So far so inspiring, but what does this mean in practice? Day Trading Academy focuses on futures contracts; in particular, it uses the E-Mini S&P, a US futures index derived from the S&P 500. In teaching you to use a system called the Congressive Trading Strategy, Day Trading Academy uses some indicators, but focuses on teaching you to trade yourself.
Day Trading Academy is open to traders of all experience levels (divided into Beginners, Intermediate, Advanced and Pro). They offer a free PDF page and a free 41-page web class if you sign up for the newsletter.
If you want the full four-part course, it currently costs $2997. For this, you get videos, exercises, and the chance to get feedback and advice on your growing knowledge.
Warrior Trade
Warrior Trading offers trading instructions in various areas including Options, Swing and Cryptocurrencies. Like Day Trading Academy, Warrior also prides itself on being a trading community.
The difference is that Day Trading Academy focused on the personal journey of its founder, but Warrior focuses on testimonials from successful Warrior students. This compensates for the fact that only one of Warrior’s five mentors has a significant number of years of experience in the trade.
In practical terms, one of Warrior Trading’s main selling points is its members-only live chat room with comments, Q&As and watch lists from other traders. The core of their trading philosophy is to teach their trading system over a 15 chapter course.
When it comes to trading education, Warrior offers three packages: Starter, Pro and the only app inner circle. Among the content of these courses is access to the chat room and a trading simulator. The in-depth courses and group mentoring start with the Pro package. Exclusive access to the most important dealers and one-on-one mentorship is only available with the ‘Inner Circle’ package.
The Warrior Starter package is $997 for one month. The Pro Bundle packages range from $4299 to $5299 for between 90 days and 1 year of access. Both packages then sign you up for Warrior for $197 per month. The Inner Circles package amounts to a flat amount of $9997 per year.
Quantum trading
Quantum Trading is the brainchild of Anna Coulling, an extremely experienced trader who has written many best-selling trading books. Education in Quantum Trading covers a large amount of trading types, including stocks, forex, cryptocurrencies and binary options.
Quantum’s approach to trading education is selling indicators and platforms. Unlike Day Trading Academy and Warrior, there are no courses or strategies offered here, but there are free video tutorials and articles on how to use the products offered.
The indicator packages available at Quantum – which are mostly based on forex, but do extend into other areas – range from $20 to $900.
IG Academy
IG Academy is an award-winning trading education website that claims more than 40 years of experience in the trading sector. With a focus on trading through leverage, spread betting and CFDs, IG helps you trade in a number of styles such as indices, forex, stocks and commodities.
IG Academy offers a number of free courses that include video tutorials, interactive exercises and quizzes. They also offer live trading webinars and a free demo account for those who sign up on their website.
They also have a free chat room (although you must be a member to post) with over 30,000 members.
What IG Academy encourages is long-term sign up to use their trading platform, which continues to provide you with support and training while you trade yourself. Unlike the companies discussed so far, IG makes its money by charging commission on your trades. If your trading volume falls below a set amount, they also charge a subscription of $30 per month.
Investopedia
Investopedia is an American company founded in 1999 with the goal of empowering people with accurate and unbiased financial education. They offer a wide variety of financial courses at their Investopedia Academy, covering everything from day trading to personal finance.
The types of trading Investopedia offers courses in: options, forex, cryptocurrencies, penny stocks, binary options and more.
Investopedia courses all cost $199, with different bundles available at different prices. The payment is a one-time thing, there is no subscription and once you buy the course you have to keep it. The course content usually tends to involve videos, exercises and downloadable materials. The site also offers access to free webinars from the past.
Investopedia differs from many of the other training sites we look at here as it takes a more scientific approach: you buy the course, learn from it and use it to advance your own trading; you are not being sold a platform or a set of indicators.
Online Trading Academy
The USP, Online Trading Academy, is not to be confused with Day Trading Academy, but is the “patented core strategy” that can be traded on stocks, forex, futures and options.
They have over 130 tutors, many of whom have real trading experience. To participate in one of OTA’s paid courses, potential traders must first take a free half-day class.
The Core Strategy course has two levels: Core Strategy and XLT Core Strategy (XLT stands for an extended learning track). The Core Strategy class is a two-part course that costs $7000 and takes 7 days to complete in classes of no more than 22 students. As well as teaching OTA’s core strategy, it provides access to a real-time trading platform and involves an exam at the end.
The XLT course is $8500 for three months, followed by an enrollment of $625 per month, or you can pay $12500 for three months and have lifetime access. The XLT course is more of a mentoring situation for your actual trading. You can trade live while using OTA’s trading tools and chatting with their investors.
The Stock Whisperer
As the name suggests, The Stock Whisperer is a trading oriented website, although there are a few packages available for trainings and options.
The stock Whisperer is Stefanie Kammerman, a well-known name in trading circles who has been trading since 1994. Kammerman is known as the stock Whisperer because of her apparent sixth sense when it comes to stock market movements.
The website Whisperer is a treasure trove of stock education resources. Her subscription-only trading space, The Java Pit, allows traders to view her screen during pre- and live trading.
The focus of many course packages is to train you to trade yourself. One-on-one coaching with Stefanie herself can be purchased for between $299 and $1249.
The Stock Whisperer also offers ‘Boot Camp’ packages of various lengths. These are intensive online courses that help you trade and allow you to participate in simulation trading.
The bootcamps cost anywhere up to $3499. There are also downloadable workshops available that look at different aspects of trading. It is probably better for traders with some trading experience and retail from $99 to $999.
TRADEPRO Academy
TRADEPRO Academy was founded in 2012 by George Papazov, a Canadian who, despite his youthful appearance, has almost 20 years of trading experience. TRADEPRO offers to ‘certify’ potential traders in stocks, options and forex (it’s worth noting here that you don’t need to be certified just to trade stocks from a brokerage account).There are three levels of trading course at TRADEPRO: Swing, Pro and Elite. All include the same courses in Trading Foundations, Options and Forex and access to webinars and daily tips. The Pro and Elite packages offer further courses, more support, mentoring and access to more trading software.
An attractive aspect of the TRADEPRO courses is that they are only on a monthly subscription – as opposed to an upfront payment and subscription. The Swing package is $99, Pro $129 and Elite $169.
Tradenet
“Tradenet is the world’s best day trading academy” announces their home page. Tradenet focuses on education in forex, commodities and EU stock trading. The brain behind the business belongs to Meir Barak, a professional trader and market expert who established the site in 2004.
There are a wide variety of day trading courses and resources available from Tradenet: There are self-study courses, hosted courses, weekly mentorships and educational packages, ranging from a few hundred dollars to around $5000. You can download resources yourself, or Get 1-to-1 sessions with one of Tradenet’s professional educators. All these sources are based on Meir Barak’s personal trading strategy.
Tradenet sells four different trading education programs: Intro, Student, Expert and Pro. It ranges in price from $500 to $9000 and includes access to some of the above sessions and resources, as well as a demo trading account.
Online Educational Trading Videos
One thing we haven’t discussed in this piece is the role of YouTube educational videos. The first thing to say about this is that it is a potential minefield, although there is a place for them. If you’re looking for free trading lessons on YouTube, you should apply the same standards of research as you would for any trading education course.
Before you trust a video because it has impressive graphics or a funny title; Remember to consider whether the presenter of the video has significant experience as a trader. Are they really teaching you something for free, or are they just luring you into buying something you don’t need?
Can a profession as complicated as day trading be distilled into a five or ten minute YouTube tutorial?
As a beginner’s guide to the absolute basics of day trading, YouTube is hard to beat. However, it is also worth questioning how many traders worth their salt would give away the valuable trading education completely for free.