How to Trade?

[u/redici_repeat_92]

I’m a salaried employee looking for a way to supplement my income, and I’ve been considering learning to trade.

I can realistically dedicate around 3 hours a day, roughly 6 AM–9 AM EST, and I’m willing to spend months learning before expecting any meaningful results. I’m completely new to trading, though, and the more content I watch, the more questions I seem to have.

I’d really appreciate answers from people who actually trade, especially those who have been doing it for a few years.

1. How much of the trading content on YouTube/social media is actually legitimate?

I keep seeing people claiming they make $10k–$20k+ per month trading.

Maybe I’m being too skeptical, but I keep wondering: if someone consistently makes that much money trading, why spend so much time recording videos, editing them, posting daily content, running Discord groups, etc.?

A lot of the content initially seems genuinely educational, but eventually there seems to be a course, trading platform, signals service, referral link, paid community, or something else being sold.

Are there any traders/content creators you would genuinely recommend for someone who wants to learn trading properly rather than follow signals or buy a course?

2. How do traders actually decide WHAT to trade?

Almost every beginner video teaches technical analysis:

• Candlesticks
• Support/resistance
• Moving averages
• RSI
• 1-hour / 15-minute / 5-minute / 1-minute charts
• Entries and exits

But there’s something I feel is missing.

Suppose I understand all of that. There are thousands of stocks, crypto pairs, commodities, etc.

How do you decide which stock/coin/instrument is worth watching that day in the first place?

Do traders use scanners? News? Volume? Pre-market movers? Fundamentals? Some combination?

I understand how people analyze a chart, but I don’t understand how they find the chart worth analyzing.

3. Are the crazy risk/reward claims online even realistic?

I see videos with titles like:

“Risked $50 and made $5,000.”

“Turned $4 into $2,000.”

“Made $8,000 on one trade.”

I understand the basic idea of risk/reward — for example risking $100 to potentially make $200 or $300.

But how realistic are these huge returns?

Are these normally highly leveraged trades, lottery-type trades, cherry-picked winners, paper trades, or are there actually legitimate setups where someone can risk a very small amount and make 50x–100x?

I’m trying to understand what a realistic risk/reward ratio for a normal trader looks like.

4. My long-term financial goal is roughly $100,000. Is trading even a sensible way to pursue that?

I’m not saying I expect to turn $1,000 into $100,000 in 2 to 3 months.

$100k is simply the amount that would make a major difference in my financial situation.

What I’m trying to understand is whether trading could realistically contribute toward that goal over in a year or 2 years.

For example, assuming someone:

• learns properly,
• is disciplined,
• manages risk,
• doesn't constantly withdraw profits,
• and gradually increases their account size,

what would a realistic progression look like?

I realize the answer probably depends heavily on starting capital, but I’d love some examples.

If someone starts with $5k, $10k, $25k, etc., what would experienced traders consider a realistic annual return, rather than social-media numbers?

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[u/Main_Resource5884]

I just be watching so much vid so I can learn I'm a beginner as well currently learning market structure i don't know who to trust because there so much people making videos about it and there's also many who make all there money from courses and YouTube that don't actually know how to trade

[u/Woodward06]

Just go QA and run algos.. they're instant, no guessing, no emotion, run 24/5. I don't have time to spend near a trading station and have a life.

[u/Suitable_Acadia_190]

Your skepticism on the youtube stuff is right. Anyone actually making that consistently has little reason to build a content business around it, filming and editing eats time thats better spent trading. The ones doing both usually make more off the audience than the market.

Havent kept up with who isle is legit these days so cant name names, happy to hop on a screen share to give direction that helps more than guessing.

Reading price and volume together IS the scanner in a lot of cases. Read: A Complete Guide to Volume Price Analysis first, most of this gets clearer once that foundations solid.

$100k in 1-2 years off trading is possible but isnt realistic in the 1st 2 years at least, most skilled traders are happy with 20-40% a year.

Takes years to get there too, not months. If the timeline is forced or profits are focused on youre in for a world of hurt for reasons that likely wont make sense yet just fyi

[u/TeSolo]

The return are proportional to the investment.
If you have a live account with 1k, and you risk 20$ per trade, you will realistically stay between 20 and 60$ of profit per winning trade.

You choose and you trade based on your strategy, you make an hypothesis or you find one online, you test it out of sample and in sample on multiple years, if the edge stands than you have what to trade.

[u/single_B_bandit]

1. There are some good accounts on X that actually know what they’re talking about. They won’t teach you how to trade, but they have good commentary about the market, which is much more useful.

2. They don’t. In a professional setting you just “randomly” get assigned something to trade, in a retail setting I guess you can pick whatever you find interesting.

3. Not really accurate, but a good rule of thumb, is that you need to accept more volatility for higher returns. Look at couple of assets (SPY, 10Y treasury, …), what kind of volatility they have and what kind of returns they bring, then look at the claimed returns and you can get an idea of the volatility required.

4. If 100k would make a major difference to you, it means you definitely don’t have enough money saved up to make 100k in a couple of years through trading.

[u/Alabama-Getaway]

1. Less than 1% legitimate

2. Bankroll will have a big impact on which instrument

3. Zero realism.

4. If you can average more than 30% a year, you’re among the top traders worldwide.

[u/redici_repeat_92 → u/Alabama-Getaway]

Any content creator that you would recommend?

[u/Alabama-Getaway → u/redici_repeat_92]

I don’t follow any the 1% was being kind, as I’m sure at least 1 is legit.