A few success stories and the promise of financial freedom may make full-time trading seem more tempting and exciting to some people than a day job, but most do not achieve the success they imagined.
The conditions for retail traders have also been changing. Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has raised minimum contract sizes for index derivatives, restricted weekly expiry contracts to a single benchmark index, and the government has increased the Securities Transaction Tax—a levy that applies to every trade, regardless of gain or loss.
Together, these changes have raised both the capital needed and the cost of staying active in the markets, making the calculus of full-time trading harder than it was even a few years ago. Mint spoke with traders who left salaried jobs to trade full-time, on what it takes to make it work in this changed environment.
Making the switch
At 58, Manish (name changed) left his job as a director at one of the Big Four firms in 2018 to start a renewables-focused start-up. With that not panning out as expected, he wanted to keep his income level sustained without disturbing the corpus he had.
He decided to take up trading full-time and started doing certificate courses for currency and derivatives trading, took the NSE exam, and attended various private classes. “That helped quite a lot, but you have to read some very important fundamental books, Options as a Strategic Investment by Lawrence G. McMillan is one which I followed very rigorously,” he said.
Multiple Sebi surveys have shown that trading is a losing game for . Its latest study, published in July 2025, showed that 91% of equity derivatives traders incurred losses in 2024-25. In the cash market, its 2024 study revealed that over 70% of individual intraday traders in the equity cash segment incurred losses during 2022-23 and frequent traders of over 500 trades per year had an even higher loss rate of 80%.
But Manish wanted to approach it the right way, and he finally started to make money after three years in 2021. “I could easily make 10% on the amount deployed per month, minimum,” he claimed, adding that the person who taught us advised us to take profit and invest in Nifty ETFs.
Increased cost of trading
With recent policy changes, Manish believes options are abnormally priced, which is what drove him out of markets; a small mistake could lead to a huge loss of capital. Right now, Manish is relying on his corpus for his post-retirement income.
Anish Jacob, a 34-year-old Bengaluru-based trader, who left his job in an IT company in November 2023, explained that one notable change in Sebi’s new framework to curb speculation was the increase in the minimum contract size for index derivatives, which effectively means traders now require higher capital to take similar exposure compared to earlier.
“There have also been structural changes in how weekly index derivatives contracts are offered, along with stricter margin frameworks,” he said and highlighted that this has made derivatives trading more capital-intensive and structurally demanding for retail participants.
Jacob pointed out the rise in the Securities Transaction Tax in the latest budget announcement, which is levied whether a trader makes a profit or incurs a loss. “After years of experience and discipline, it becomes consistently profitable,” he claims, “and at that stage, the income generated from trading is again taxed under the applicable , and STT is also applicable.”
Low success rate
Nilesh Shah, managing director of Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Co., said he has seen over the years that a few people succeed and many fail miserably in trading.
“The odds are stacked against retail speculators due to technical factors like connectivity, algorithms, and data analytics, as well as psychological factors like discipline. Trading is a difficult way of making money due to leverage, and one should remember how Bill Hwang of Archegos Capital lost around $20 billion in just two days of speculation,” he added.
Hwang used his New York-based family office, Archegos, to build massive, leveraged positions in a few stocks by using total return swaps with multiple prime brokers; these allowed him to hold large stakes without disclosing them publicly. In March 2021, when some of his heavily concentrated stocks began to drop, banks issued margin calls. Hwang could not meet these calls, leading to a forced fire sale of his portfolio. In 2024, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison for racketeering and fraud.
This is a global phenomenon. In Brazil, a study called Day trading for a living? published in June 2020, tracked every individual who began day trading Brazilian equity index futures between 2013 and 2015, found that 97% of those who persisted for more than 300 trading days lost money, and only 1.1% earned more than Brazil’s minimum wage.
A 2010 study using Taiwan Stock Exchange data from 1992 to 2006, titled Do Day Traders Rationally Learn About Their Ability?, found that nearly 40% of day traders trade for only one month. Within three years, only 13% continue, and after five years, just 7% remain active.
How do traders manage?
“The most important thing is to manage your emotions—greed and fear,” said Bharath B., 49, a Chennai-based trader. For that, he attends therapy sessions, he added.
He left his job at in 2012. “I didn’t enjoy the expectations the role placed on me,” he said, adding that the entry barriers were very high when he began trading. Noting that many small-cap companies from that time no longer exist, he said long-term investing is not for him.
Traders believe experience is a key ingredient for success, alongside patience and capital. “Initially, I did not even break-even and had to rely on family and friends,” Bharath said. “I was living by the day, but there was no reason not to do well because getting a job was not an option. I figured out the method to the madness and derived three rules which have been working for me.”
He described trading as a character-building exercise because it is very difficult to enter at the lowest and sell at the highest. “A lot of times, I have made profits and sulked that it could have been more,” he said.
Although the industry came under pressure from lower volumes after Sebi allowed only one benchmark index with weekly futures and options contracts, leading to the discontinuation of the Nifty Bank’s weekly contracts, the shift benefited Bharath, who said he had been able to sleep better since.
There is a high risk that a trading strategy may not always work in one’s favour. Manish said increased short covering on expiry days drove prices higher, causing his strategy to go haywire. “A few days before expiry, I would avoid being greedy and exit, because expiry day is the most dangerous,” he said.
Jacob believes studying market behaviour, reading, and analyzing his own mistakes is what has worked for him. “Trading is one of those fields where theory helps, but the real education comes from experience in live markets. Over time, you realize that strategies are widely available, but what separates profitable traders from the rest is discipline, patience, and emotional control,” he said.
Experts believe the ones who survive are rule-based, disciplined investors who follow a sound process and are always aware of geopolitical, news, and market trends. However, excessive free time can also lead to overtrading. One has to be ruthless in judging whether they are fit to be a trader and in validating their temperament and ability.
Mumbai-based Naman (name changed), 48, left his job at a life sciences company in 2024 and started with courses and workshops that made him understand the concept of ‘theta decay’, which means daily reduction in an option’s premium as its expiration date approaches, reflecting the diminishing probability of the underlying asset making a profitable move. Theta-decay-based strategies, as well as staying informed about the news, have helped him, but he spent at least a year learning the complexities before starting to trade.
“Trading is a risky way to live, given the abysmal success rate. One should have 3-5 years of capital to run their household before entering, and should track their own performance and success rate for a couple of years,” said D. Muthukrishnan, a certified financial planner.
Studies worldwide show that only a small fraction of traders are profitable. It is a highly risky profession, shaped not only by market uncertainty but also by cost dynamics.
One should only choose to get into it full-time if they have sufficient capital, which is separate from their day-to-day living expenses. Otherwise, retail investors should stick to investment vehicles such as mutual funds and follow the principles of asset allocation to build wealth over the long term.