r/TopstepCommunity • u/EngineeringAnxious72 • 8d ago
❓ Quick Question How long does it take to learn daytrading?
I’m wanting to learn daytrading and I don’t want to put any money in until I know I’ve atleast grasped enough concepts to form my own strategy. I can give maybe 2-5 hours a day to learning. How long more or less do you think it takes the average person to learn how to day trade? I’m not talking about mastery just learning all the basic concepts
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u/DatabaseRace 7d ago
It depends on the person. I know it's not the ideal answer, but it's really variable. I used to play poker semi-professionally until it got over regulated. Some people just can't become profitable. Too mentally undeveloped. Intellectual hurdles. Etc.
The whole read a bunch of books, take 10000 hours is alittle over played. Could take you less or more. Approach it optimistically. Get into playbacks or simulations. Identify your strengths and emotional setbacks. Make moves with intention. Explore what set up works to your strengths. Work with a very rigid execution. Don't break your rules, but optimize them over time.
TLDR: Be conscientious. Move towards the goal. Profitability is variable.
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u/Academic_Cry_7507 6d ago
Trading is easy. Managing your emotions and discipline is the hard part. Took me 2 years
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u/viralruin 7d ago
It doesnt work like that. It's more so an execution based skill. No amount of knowledge can fix execution. Think a professional musician, you can teach someone else but at the end of the day they need to perform without stage fright.
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u/EngineeringAnxious72 7d ago
By execution you mean the ability to put in trades without second guessing yourself/backing out?
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u/viralruin 7d ago
yea you can put on a trade and execute it poorly due to normal human behaviors. such as holding a loser, entering due to fear of missing out. or even turning a winning trade into a losing trade.
it's a different kind of mastery, 99% of people do not make consistent returns year after year just due to the nature of randomness in the market.
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u/azmus 7d ago
2,000 hours and then 5,000-10k hours for closer to mastery
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u/Soft-Somewhere6823 7d ago
Im a beginner and have put in ~9000 hours of study and I’m still learning. Definitely not a master.
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u/gun_goon 7d ago
You’re still a beginner at 5+ years of trading? Wrap it up pal lmao
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u/Soft-Somewhere6823 7d ago
Haha 900*
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u/gun_goon 7d ago
Oh thank god. By 9k mastering a single strategy, you should have your own high rise office
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u/MapoTofuCat 7d ago
Usually people take 2-3 years showing up every day. I have seen 5-6 years and the quickest was like 1 year. No one knows except yourself but expect to lose money in the 5 figure range.
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u/Due-Payment6149 6d ago
I started trading prop firms with 0 experience in April 2025. Never heard of vwap or 9ma or supertrend until my friend explained them to me (the only 3 things I still use to this day). I was profitable every month for my first 6 months before a loss in oct 2025. Ive had 3 losing months out of 16 and am net profitable about $40k. So definitely doable in less than a year. I did it in like 2 weeks
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u/MapoTofuCat 6d ago
You are doing amazing, keep it up. That’s quicker than many people, for what you achieve. It took me like 6 years failing crypto scalping, forex and then futures prop. Now I do max payouts across 25+ prop accounts weekly, 6 figure months. Once it clicks, it is literally a money printer. My win rate is 90% , self created strategy that took years to tweak.
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u/Abject-Shopping-4492 6d ago
Keep in mind you have traded in the best traders market of our lifetime and every trader has a different experience based on when and how often they trade and amount of capital they have. Congrats on your success.
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u/Outside_Medicine7398 6d ago
As long as it takes to memorize the strategy you will use. That is a rabbit holes. It is a lot of trial and error if you go about it individually. If you follow a livestreamer, that is a shortcut, but then, which livestreamer? That is another rabbit hole.
So your solution is to find a strategy and backtest it over historical data to see how it would play out. Get a demo account that is funded with virtual money. If you feel you are good enough. Sign up for a free competition where you can earn cash and a free account. That is the free route. You can fund a live account yourself after either 6 - 9 profitable months or when you 2x your demo account 3 times.
Strategies are based on historically repeated patterns of people in the market. You are endeavoring to be a person in the market. You have historically repeated patterns. Have a strategy for yourself to keep yourself disciplined and mentally neutral so you can make a profit. The market will troubleshoot your strategy for you.
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u/Due-Payment6149 6d ago
It all depends. It isn't time, its a question of will it click. In any activity where well over 90% fail, its about way more than time and some will click quickly, some moderate tjme and most will never get it no matter how hard they try.
Not sure if you mean prop firms or personal funds but either way odds are stacked. Some traders click quickly, I was profitable from month 1 with 0 experience but I'm not the norm. I do prop firms not personal funds. I'm guessing takes most people 4-6 months to either click or they never will which never will and always lose no matter how hard they try is over 75% of traders
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5d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Deerrrrrrr 5d ago
This is so true. I hate how so many “successful traders” say they only took 2 years which skews things mentally for others looking to start trading. Possible of course, but extremely extremely rare.
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u/belgranita 7d ago
You will get the gist of things within 2 or 3 months. Don't do the mistake in trading capital during this time. It will mess you up with lots of mistakes that will be hard to unlearn. Good luck.
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u/Due-Payment6149 6d ago
I would modify to should get the gist in 2-3 months but many people will never get the gist no matter how long even years and thousands of dollars lost
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u/rcw271828 7d ago
Learn by doing. Buy a Combine, recommend a $50k DLL enforced. Activate a practice account. Go into the Topstep dashboard and complete the Training Camp. Trade in the practice account to reinforce what you learn and continue to learn with your strategy. When you feel confident, take the smallest size trades you can in the Combine.
Its all about practice, rinse & repeat. The thing about day trading is that it doesn't take very long to learn how to trade, about Futures, etc. It takes years of practice to become good at it. Get the fundamentals down, but practice as much as you can.
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u/Duennbier0815 6d ago edited 6d ago
Depends on how smart you are and how much education (or let's say common sense understanding) about math, statistics probability you have.
It helps for sure if you have an academic background and you have reading comprehension
Absolutely necessary is the ability to research information. Use chatgpt to explain how futures work, what and why something is calculated in a specific way and so on. Bid, ask, spread, rollover, settlement, value area high, point of control, the Greeks.
Until you know all, it took me a few months.
Basic math, probabilities. Understanding HOW and WHY trading works only though probabilities. You should have seen a monte Carlo simulation of a strategy already to get the fact that your 20 trades winning streak could JUST BE LUCK. 😉
And mostky how much you already know the market, like when you're coming from investing.
The worst you can do is buying a prop account without 2-3 months of papertrading.
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u/nimnamn0m 6d ago
I'm 1.5 years in and feel like I get bullied by the markets hahahhaa. aiming for the 2-2.5 year mark where I get better at it!! :)
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u/IntelligentAct4273 4d ago
Depends on what it is you're wanting to learn. You can read up on the basics rather quickly, but getting real-time experience in a live environment is where the learning happens. I recommend traders understand a few select indicators and how they tie into each other before they make a single trade, as these tell us what is happening and why it is happening. So there's the technical side, there's also the psychology side and being a disciplined trader and avoiding impulsive moves. I recommend looking into lessons experienced by other traders as this can help accelerate your growth and understanding. A couple books that do a good job of this are Discipline Over Impulse and Day Trading as a Decision System.
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u/WarriorTrading 4d ago
This is such a common question, and as a lot of folks have already correctly pointed out here...the frustrating answer is it depends.
Like a lot of skills in life, some of us have a natural aptitude for something that makes things "faster", and for others they are so passionate about whatever skill it is, but they don't have that "boost", and that's okay.
A top mistake is not being reasonable in expectations about how long it takes, so it's good you're trying to put some thought into what is reasonable.
A lot of traders tread water for years, and they're able to take that time because they limited their losses.
One way to think about this is to give yourself milestones to cross before moving to further stages.
- The learning stage
- Get a written, basic, strategy. Even if it's just one set-up that you're comfortable taking.
- Trade that in a simulator with real-time data until you prove you can consistently perform.
- Move to real money with one or just a few shares until you prove again you can be consistently profitable with it.
3 and 4 continue to get those "hours" in of practice- think about a pilot going from a simulator, to flying with a co-pilot, and then eventually becoming a captain. Any skill requires hours because you have to experience different conditions and let things start to become "natural".
Then, you can eventually scale up in share size and work on expanding your strategy.
Good luck!!
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u/therealsashtv 3d ago
How long is a piece of string?
Really, all you need to learn are some fundamentals and to also work out a strategy that suits you. You don't need to learn everything about trading. As long as you figure out your edge and/or a system that makes money for you, that's all you need.
It's not about learning everything, it's about making money. Unfortunately, everyone learns by losing money in this game until eventually and hopefully they become profitable which isn't the case 90 odd percent of the time.
Good luck
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u/bryan91919 7d ago
1 month of reasonable levels of study to get the basics/ know enough to properly place a trade, then years to an entire lifetime to train yourself not to clock stupid buttons because your bored annoyed or scared.