Report Highlight
- About 40% of day traders stop within a month.
- Only 13% last beyond three years.
- A mere 13% earn consistent profits over six months.
- Just 1% stay profitable over a five-year span.
- In 2020, 72% faced financial losses.
- Average investors lag the market index by 1.5% annually.
- Active traders fall behind by 6.5% each year.
Average Day Trader Statistics
- 80% like trading because they can have control over their trades.
- Low capital needed thanks to broker features.
- 83% claim trading made them more disciplined.
- Short-term trades had 14.4% average yearly profit.
- 1% rule limits trade risk to 1% of account value.
- Traders use either tight or wide stop-losses for 1% risk.
- 88% utilize stop-loss orders for risk management.
- Average risk-to-reward ratio is 1.43:1.
- 62% employ position sizing for risk control.
- 70% have a trading plan.
- 45% trade for 1-2 hours daily.
- 89% rely on technical analysis.
- 66% use daily charts for analysis.
- 71% constantly aim to improve their skills.
- Stop-loss orders limit potential losses.
- 90% consistently lose money.
- Only 1% predicted to be profitable after costs.
- 72% netted a loss in 2019.
- Average trader quits after losing for six months.
- 97% of traders lose consistently.
- 87% quit within three years.
- Females earn 43%, males earn 41% on average.
- Penny stock trading success rate is 1%.
- Only 17% earn a minimum wage via trading.
- Average 2015 loss at a firm was €10,900.
- 50% loss is more likely than 50% gain.
- Only 3% make consistent profits.
- Margin users average a return of -4.53%.
- 85% fail in year one due to poor risk management.
Average Daily Trading Volumes
- Stocks most traded with $239.8 billion average daily volume in 2021.
Profitability and Success Rates
- In Brazil, only 1.1% earn more than the minimum wage; 0.5% earn more than a bank teller’s starting salary.
- Only about 4,000 out of over 450,000 day traders on the Taiwan Stock Exchange were consistently profitable.
- 64% of US day traders lost money, 36% profited according to one study.
- Only 19% of Taiwanese traders made positive returns.
- 97% of Taiwanese traders lost money net of fees on any given day.
- In Brazil, 1.1% earned above minimum wage, and 0.5% earned more than a bank teller’s initial salary.
Demographics
- 90% of day traders are male.
- Average age ranges around 31-40 years.
- 33% of global traders are Asian.
- Most day traders have advanced education.
- 56% of US traders were male in 2007; this shifted to 90% male in recent years.
- Average age of US day traders: Robinhood says 31 years, Zippia says at least 40.
- 66.3% of US day traders are white, followed by Hispanic (11.5%), Asian (12.4%), and Black (5.5%).
- Global online traders: 33% Asian, 16% each from North America and Europe, 14% from Africa.
- Decline in white US day traders, increase in Asian and Hispanic/Latino traders.
Instruments and Preferences
- Young traders prefer cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
- Stocks had a $239.8 billion average daily trading volume in 2021.
Additional Financial Data
- $5 billion was spent on short-term options, including trading costs, between November 2019 and June 2021.
- An extra $4.13 billion was paid for trading costs alone.
- In 2021, 23 million options contracts were leveraged weekly due to meme stocks like GameStop and AMC.
Age and Preferences
- 75% of traders aged 18 to 34 prefer to trade cryptocurrencies.
- Nearly 60% of all transactions occur on mobile trading platforms.
Behavioral Patterns
- Traders performing poorly are most likely to continue trading.
- 77% of retail investors lose money in Contracts for Differences (CFDs), according to eToro.
- An average of 1.6% of day traders are profitable in a given year.
Education and Preferred Instruments
- Over 95% of US day traders are college educated.
- Young traders prefer cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin.
- Top trading instruments: Bitcoin, Gold, EUR/USD.
Job Market and Career Stats
- Annual income can be as high as $116,895; U.S. industry jobs expected to increase to 18,500 by 2028.
- Male day traders earn around $118,810 a year, while women earn about 10% less ($109,405).
- 45% of companies hiring day traders have 1,000 to 10,000 employees.
More Day Trading Statistics
- Median profit for day trading was $13,000 in 2020.
- One trader made over $100M from Tesla in 2020.
- Nearly 6.3 billion daily shares traded on NYSE in 2020.
- Day trading surged in 2020 and 2021.
- US stock traders rose from 15% to 25% between 2019 and 2021.
- A Robinhood user bagged $30M in one day in 2021.
- Winning stocks are sold 50% more often than losers.
- 60% of sold stocks are winners; 40% are losers.
- Short-term holders succeed 47% of the time.
- Long-term holders have a 73% success rate.
- Breakout strategy success rate is 30%.
- Trend-following strategy succeeds 20% of the time.
- 90.5% of US day traders are men; 9.5% are women.
- UK online traders aged 18-34 make up 65%.
- Female active traders increased from 27% to 41%.
- 53% of day traders earn over $100,000 annually.
- Older traders are declining; younger ones are rising.
- Most day traders don’t earn a living.
