The brutal math of full-time trading—and why most fail

Most retail traders lose money—91% in derivatives and 70% in intraday equity cash trading

- Ananya Grover

While success stories and the promise of financial freedom make full-time trading seem more appealing than a day job, most do not achieve the success they imagine.

The conditions for retail traders have also been changing. The 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 (STT)—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 markets, making the calculus of full-time trading harder than it was even a few years ago. Mint spoke with traders who left their 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 a Big Four firm in 2018 to start a renewables-focused startup. When that did not pan out as expected, he looked to sustain his income without dipping into his corpus. He decided to take up trading full-time and started doing certificate courses for currency and derivatives trading, attended various private classes, and took the NSE exam. “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 found trading is a losing game for retail traders. Its latest study, 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%.