How do I become a stock trader?

For starters, educate yourself on what stock trading means, how it works, what are the risks(very important). Then, start with a demo account in one of the online brokerages to get the feel. If you make 20%, 30%, 50%, etc inside your first month – close the account and never attempt to trade with real money. Spend 2–3 months trading demo account, try it with leverage, without leverage, trading penny stocks, ETF’s, indexes, funds, REIT’s, etc. Choose the best time for your trades during market hours(traders usually trade some part of the day, not the whole day, for example: overlap between European and US sessions) and make a set of rules for yourself regarding take-profit, take-loss levels(for example 10% on a downside to take-loss, 10% on the upside to take-profit). Work with limits to automate trades once you figure out your targets. Be fluent in politics, economics, global trends, news, gossip (you will need all of this to try to make sense of seemingly illogical fluctuations of your best picks). Decide on initial amount to put into trade (rule of thumb – shouldn’t be more than 5–10% of your investable assets). Open a real account and fund it. Place a trade. Watch it fail. Follow your rules to take a loss at decided level (no, it will not bounce back, no, you shouldn’t double up). Rethink your choosing tactics. Try again. Just like in baseball with experience your betting ratio will increase making you into a successful trader. From a personal experience – trading is frustrating regardless of your winning ratio. When trade goes your way you will be frustrated that you didn’t stick with it to make more, when it fails you will be frustrated that you didn’t close the trade earlier. It does require tremendous self-discipline, which most people simply do not possess. About 2% of all traders actually make profit more or less continuously, 95% of all traders fail. The remaining 3% are happy to break even. Most importantly, remember the mantra of financial industry – Past performance is not a guarantee of future results.