Day Trading for Beginners: Intraday Trading Done Properly

Day trading for beginners is usually sold as freedom. This course teaches it as a job with a cost structure: you open and close positions within the day, you pay the spread and commission on each, and you need an edge large enough to cover them. Some people can do it. Most who try lose money, and the course starts there.

What does a day trader actually do all day?

Prepares before the open, trades a small number of setups in the most liquid hours, and stops at a limit set in advance. The course builds that routine with you and has you run it in a simulated account for four weeks, recording every trade and every cost.

How many day traders make money?

Large studies of retail day traders in Taiwan and Brazil, covering every trader in the market over several years, found that the great majority lost money and only a small fraction earned more than a modest wage. The course reads those studies with you and draws out what the profitable few did differently.

When is the best time of day for intraday trading?

Intraday trading means opening and closing positions within the same session. The edge in most intraday methods is small, and execution can take all of it. A trader who pays the spread twice, chases fills and trades in the thinnest minutes of the day can turn a sound idea into a losing record. This course treats execution as a skill you can measure and improve.

It depends on the market, and you can measure it. In most stock markets spreads are widest in the first minutes after the open, narrow through the morning, and volume dries up around midday before rising into the close. The course has you study one market across the session so that your timing comes from data, not from a rule of thumb.

Who is this course for?

Anyone who wants to day trade and would rather learn the costs on paper than with savings. No programming is needed.

What you will be able to do

• Describe the structure of a trading day: pre-market, open, midday, close and after-hours.
• Choose an instrument whose liquidity and costs suit a day-trading style.
• Apply the account rules and risk limits that govern a day-trading account.
• Run a simulated day-trading routine for four weeks and report its results after costs.
• Describe how spread, volume and volatility change through the trading session in your market.

Syllabus, module by module

1. The trading day

   Sessions, auctions at the open and close, volume through the day and when spreads are widest.

2. What to day trade

   Liquid stocks, index futures, forex and their differences in cost, hours and leverage.

3. Rules and accounts

   The pattern day trader rule, margin, leverage limits and broker risk controls.

4. The trading day

   The open, the midday lull and the close: volume, volatility and spread through the session.

5. Orders by hand

   Market, limit, stop and stop-limit orders, and when each one costs you money.

What every course contains

Every paid course comes with the first seven and the certificate, whichever level it sits at. The proctored exam and the credential come when the course is taken as part of a Certificate, Diploma or Fellowship. Everything is self-paced: the material is yours to study in any order, at any hour, for the whole of the license.

1. Workbooks. Written to train the thinking patterns and the important concepts of the course, with worked problems and the reasoning behind each answer, so that you learn to think the way the subject is thought.
2. Audio edition. Focused, well-presented recordings with explainers and examples of the material, made to be interesting, relevant and entertaining, so that the general subject can be learned away from the desk.
3. Notes. Pre-produced notes with every fact the course relies on, written out in full, so that nothing has to be transcribed from the films or the audio.
4. Cheat sheet. One sheet with every important learning concept of the course on it, to keep beside you during the work and to revise from before the exam.
5. Named sources. Every fact in the notes names its source, the paper, the book or the dataset, for anyone who wants to dig in further.
6. Explainer films. Focused films, in the style of the sample films on the catalog page, that walk through the most difficult concepts of the course with visual explanations of a high standard.
7. Transcript. A full transcript of every film and every audio recording, searchable and quotable.
8. Proctored exam. Taken as part of a Certificate, Diploma or Fellowship, the course ends in a proctored multiple-choice questionnaire, with a pass mark of 60% and three retakes included. A course taken on its own is assessed by its coursework and has no exam.
9. Verifiable certificate. A certificate of completion that a third party can verify: an employer sends the code on it to the credentials office and receives written confirmation of the course, the date and the result.
10. Credential of the program. The Certificate, Diploma or Fellowship of the program, track or path the course belongs to, awarded when every course in it is passed. Which one depends on the program you choose.

How the certificate is earned

Unit quizzes and two graded problem sets: a written day-trading routine, and a four-week simulated record with a cost-adjusted report. On a pass you receive the Course certificate in Day Trading for Beginners, issued by the Institute with a verification code. A course taken as part of a Certificate, Diploma or Fellowship ends in a proctored online exam with a pass mark of 60%. The fee includes three retakes; each attempt after that carries a reduced proctored exam fee. A course taken on its own is assessed by its coursework and has no exam. Read how certification works.

Before you start

This course assumes the material of the courses below, or the same knowledge gained elsewhere.

• How to Trade Stocks: Orders, Costs and the Spread