Stock trading is an extremely popular side hustle, and it’s become easier and easier to do over the last few years. While trading used to be gated behind the ivory walls of stockbrokers and bankers, it’s become all too easy to do now—sign up with an online trading app, get verified, deposit some cash, and you’re good to go.

The problem is, as SAC Capital’s Steve Cohen famously put it, “trading is a tough game.” Cohen’s 2021 tweet was making fun of thousands of household investors who were losing their shirts thanks to a concerted decision by various brokers to halt buying on a particular stock, causing demand to fall artificially and its price to crater.

The message is clear: this is Wall Street’s game, and you’re meant to lose. How, then, do you beat those odds? As always, the answer lies in knowledge, information, and education, and in learning how the game really works in order to play it better. And the quickest, most effective way to get yourself up to speed is to sign up for an online stock trading course!  

What is an online stock trading course?

An online stock trading course is a course that teaches you many of the concepts, skills, strategies, trading styles, and even psychological elements required to become a better trader. These courses are conducted online, and generally incorporate a mix of various media—live instruction tends to be a common element to most of the top courses, but you might also expect media on demand, eBooks, one-on-one instruction sessions, and even training exercises.

Why take an online trading course?

In decades past, taking up a new skill would often be a matter of finding a library or other source of quality literature and spending the time needed to go through all of these materials. A lucky few would also be able to find a mentor willing to bestow them with the fruits of experience.

While you can still sit down with a few select tomes in the comfort of a local library, it’s not exactly easy to digest trading knowledge from a book. Wall Street wouldn’t keep winning if trading was a simple subject, after all! This intentional complexity sometimes needs to be distilled down to the essentials, and many courses do a good job of simplifying these concepts and giving them to you in a structured manner.

Books can do this too, but not everyone is a bookworm. Some people simply favor different styles of learning, and online courses cater to this by offering visual accompaniments to lectures and webinars to cover auditory and visual learners, with eBooks for the readers. It also helps when there’s a skilled instructor there to show you how things work, making things easier on the uptake as well as engaging your memory more effectively.

So, while you absolutely can try and do it the old-fashioned way, online trading courses cover all the bases and make sure that you’re learning as much as possible by engaging you in as many ways as possible while also providing you with an instructor who will play the role of mentor for the duration of the course and sometimes beyond.

🏆 Whop's top 10 best online trading courses

🥇 1. Team Bull Trading

team bull trading

Created by a professional trader known as “Jdun”, Team Bull Trading exists to educate. It’s a community more than just a course provider, but this works out well since you’ve got all the benefits offered by a course along with a whole bunch of extras. The Team runs daily live streams and voice chats allowing members to learn from the pros in real-time, and all of their past sessions are available in on-demand form. 

Team Bull Trading’s Mastermind course also covers everything from the basics to advanced indicators and trading strategies geared towards long-term profitability in the markets. You’ll learn everything there is to know about the markets, from the more commonly taught subjects such as order types, derivatives, and technical analysis to the secret sauce including how to read the tape and track dark pools and “smart money” moves.

Best for: Traders seeking intensive learning via daily lessons and interaction with instructors as well as other participants
Pricing: $3,000 for lifetime access or $125 per month (+1 option available) for membership

Get access to Team Bull Trading

📚 Read: Team Bull Trading Review

2. TradeProElite

TradeProElite is a specialist day trading community that’s worth a visit for anyone wanting to learn how to trade stocks, and a big reason to waste no time at all is the amount of free alpha on offer. Their day trading Starter Pack contains the Day Trading 101 ebook that’ll give you examples of winning strategies and charting tutorials to develop those technical skills, crucial components when moving forward with a good online stock trading course.

On top of everything you get for free, there’s even more value to be found in TradeProElite’s premium section. VIP Trader Access gives you full course access plus daily live trades, signals will full contract spec, trading challenges, and analyst alerts, helping you to put all your learnings into action once you’re ready.

Best for: Traders wanting to start with a free course before considering premium options
Pricing: Free with VIP Trader Access priced at $150

Get access to TradeProElite

3. Stock Dads

stock dads

Stock Dads is an excellent all-round community geared very much toward trading education. They offer just about everything you’ll see with other groups and course providers, but truly turn the dial up to 11 by giving every single member their own personal mentor for their journey in becoming a better trader.

This added level of value is a huge boon, and it’s made even sweeter by the fact that Stock Dads are legitimate professionals—the team has in-house CPAs (Certified Public Accountants), CFPs (Certified Financial Planners) and other qualified roles. While a great instructor or course provider doesn’t strictly require these certifications, it definitely helps to present Stock Dads and the Stock Dads Academy as the full package.

Best for: All levels of traders who prize mentorship and one-on-one assistance
Pricing: $50 per week although you can choose to pay monthly or annually

Get access to Stock Dads

📚 Read: The Story of Stock Dads

4. RakeTrades

rake trades

RakeTrades is run by a full-time day trader called Jake Ricci whose goal is to make every member a consistently profitable trader. Ricci focuses on trading education, taking members through all aspects of trading psychology and a successful mindset while also giving them insights into proven strategies and techniques and how to apply them.

The Mastermind course that Ricci runs has turned well over a thousand students into successful traders, giving them a successful system to follow and execute in order to reach their potential. There are live classes taking students from beginner topics right through to the advanced areas, Q&A sessions, personalized feedback and trading panels—and taking the course also grants lifetime access to Mastermind recordings and the private Mastermind Discord to stay in touch with other alumni!

Best for: Traders willing to put the time and effort into developing a consistently successful trading system
Pricing: $3,000 for lifetime access or $175 monthly for RakeTrades membership

Get access to RakeTrades

📚 Read: RakeTrades Review

5. The Traveling Trader

The Traveling Trader is a well-known trading group that provides members with education on a variety of fronts, amounting to one of the widest-ranging and comprehensive stock trading courses in the business. The amount of educational material on offer means that members need to put the hard work in, but there are plenty of rewards to reap.

The group also features a course on technical analysis, an in-depth options course, and detailed course content on trade copying and ICT. On top of all these courses, you can follow the group’s experts as they trade live, share your journey with other members, and take full advantage of due diligence on a number of individual stocks.

Best for: Traders looking to learn about trading stocks in a wide variety of styles
Pricing: Membership and course access costs just $99 per month

Get access to The Traveling Trader

6. PlayBit

PlayBit is a stock trading education platform and community that features an extremely comprehensive online trading course which is backed up by several additional educational formats such as ebooks and trade journals. You’ll also get plenty of live instruction and trading streams from the PlayBit traders, who even critique member trades and provide personalized feedback to create an avenue for individual development.

Taking the PlayBit trading course and getting the group’s weekly PDF releases is an option worth considering for anyone who wants to learn about stock trading since there’s training in a variety of styles and methods to be won. For anyone wanting to develop their fundamental skills in the markets, PlayBit is very much worth checking out.

Best for: Multiformat learning and traders wanting a full grounding in stock trading
Pricing: Access to the PlayBit course and all the extras is priced at $147 per month

Get access to PlayBit

7. American Dream Trading

American Dream Trading is a trading community founded by 30-year stock market veteran Chad Christian. It’s rare to find coaches with quite that level of experience, so if you value top-quality mentorship and an instructor who has genuinely seen and done it all, ADT is for you.

One of the biggest signs of a course provider’s quality is when they make resources available for free, and you can join ADT’s Discord to take advantage of an entire library’s worth of free trading literature. With that much on offer for free, you can rest assured that the value you get when you pay will be outstanding!

Best for: Traders of all levels who value an instructor’s credentials
Pricing: Multiple options starting from $200 per month but you may also be interested in the two Mastermind classes at $225 and $199

Get access to American Dream Trading

📚 Read: American Dream Trading Review

8. Stock Hours

Stock Hours have been around for over 5 years, and they’ve got an incredible track record of converting students into successful traders. Founded by day trader Nour “nourtrades” Atta, Stock Hours has daily lessons for members allowing them to progress their skills as quickly as possible.

The group has an entire multimedia library waiting for you when you join up, and there are traders you can follow to learn from and analyze their trades. This can help you understand exactly why the pros make the trades that they do!

Best for: Day traders looking for live, daily learning
Pricing: $199 per month or $499 per quarter for membership

Get access to Stock Hours

9. Chroma Trading

Chroma Trading is a very highly rated trading education platform that’s helped many a trader develop their skills and confidence in navigating the stock market. It’s home to a truly impressive amount of educational resources, with comprehensive online stock trading courses split into beginner, intermediate, and advanced sections. The group also offers daily streams, trading challenges, and setups to complement all of the trading knowledge that’s dropped via workshops, mentorships, as well as one on one education sessions designed to appeal to multiple learning styles.

Membership with Chroma Trading will also let you become part of the Chroma Trading community on Discord, letting you become part of the community and share your journey alongside other traders on a similar path.

Best for: Traders looking for a step-by-step progression as they develop their trading skills
Pricing: Everything mentioned can be yours for $150 per month

Get access to Chroma Trading

10. The Ones That Know

The Ones That Know is known as one of the top spots on the internet if you’re looking for an education in ICT. The Inner Circle Trader’s methods are well known and have plenty of disciples, and TOTK founder Zeussy is one of the most prominent. Focusing on the Nasdaq and S&P500 futures, members can expect significant gains in stock trading knowledge when they link up with The Ones That Know.

Joining the group is simple too, and all it takes is a single fee of $450 to unlock the course material in the ICT vault. If you’d like a more hands-on learning experience on top of the trading course and community, you can also elect for a spot in Zeussy’s mentorship program at $120 per month.

Best for: Traders wanting to start with a free course before considering premium options
Pricing: One-time course fee of $450, mentorship with Zeussy is priced at $120 per month

Get access to The Ones That Know


How to choose an online stock trading course

Now that you’ve seen our picks for the best online trading courses and trading course providers in 2023, you might be wondering how to pick the one that’s right for you. Here are a few things to think about when picking an online trading course:

  • Your style
    Given the number of distinct trading styles out there, the first thing you should do is eliminate the courses that focus primarily on trading styles that aren’t compatible with your own. If you want to invest for the long term, say, or can’t see yourself logging onto your trading app more than a few times a week, you’ll want to focus on investing or swing trading courses respectively, and avoid day trading or scalping courses.
  • Big claims
    Have you come across courses promising to make you an instant millionaire? Unfortunately, that just isn’t realistic. Trading success tends to be a matter of consistent application of sound strategy, along with the utilization of a significant amount of trading capital. Even the most famous household trader, Keith Gill (aka RoaringKitty), managed the success he did because of thorough, painstaking research and consistent application of his strategy over several years.
  • Quality content
    Instead of being caught up by the marketing, look at what the course really offers. The best courses are delivered by experienced instructors, and they offer a wealth of different materials and resources. Check the course curriculum, look for mentorship, personalized instruction, and downloadable or on-demand audio/video and Ebooks.
  • Mentorship
    We’ve already mentioned it, but it bears another mention all the same. One of the biggest distinctions between picking up a textbook and signing up for a course is the instruction you get from someone who’s been in the business and has real experience. Some people have a gift for it and are brilliant teachers, and their courses tend to be the best.
  • Community
    This one might not be quite as important for you, but a community element and group learning can be a significant advantage for trading courses versus standard solo learning. Discussing learned concepts with others can help to reinforce knowledge, so don’t underestimate this one.

What you need to take an online course

If you want to sign up for an online course, don’t worry—you probably won’t need much more hardware than you do to read this article. That being said, if you’re scanning this on your mobile, you might consider switching to a device with a little bit more screen real estate just to make the most of what the course has to offer.

Generally, a device like a tablet, PC or laptop computer will do the job just fine. A headset is also a good idea, especially if you’re going to be taking the course in a public place or with family or colleagues hovering around. You don’t want to miss too much of the instruction because of background noise and activity, so a little privacy or just room to focus would probably be a good idea.

Beyond that, most courses don’t require any special hardware beyond a modern device and a working internet connection. The latter is something to consider, especially if the course operates at set times over livestream rather than being fully on-demand—if you’ve not got the best connection in the world, the family might appreciate a little forewarning about the fact that they need to stay off Netflix or YouTube just for that time!

Are online trading courses effective?

As long as they’re high-quality courses, yes. As a rule, online trading courses are one of the best ways to learn about trading concepts and strategies, and how to apply them. You’ll be given all of the theory in as simple a way as possible, and then shown how to put that theory into practice.

When it comes to trading, both theory and practice can be very intimidating. There’s an incredible amount of jargon that flies around any trading conversation, and you might find yourself stumped when confronted with breakouts, golden crosses, resistances, RSI, or MACD. There are innumerable charts and patterns to look at, and asset prices sometimes move dramatically in the blink of an eye.

And then there’s the fact that actually placing an order on an app can be tricky too. There are all sorts of menus to navigate, options to accept and decline, and the fact that confirming an order can cost you money. Not just a little bit either—a single call option can run into the hundreds or even thousands of dollars that you will simply lose if your hypothesis doesn’t play out.

Add this to the amount of misinformation out there about trading, and the odds really aren’t in your favor. Lots of the information you’ll find about investing is sponsored by various stockbrokers who don’t care if you win or lose—they’ll take their fee either way.

So, online trading courses really are one of the best ways to level up your trading knowledge and learn how to do it. As long as you pick a course that matches your style of investing and is delivered by an experienced mentor or team, it’s definitely the number one choice.

Find the perfect stock trading course on Whop!

Online courses are one of the most powerful and effective ways to learn if you want to take up a new skill or trade, but there can sometimes be far too many to pick from. That’s why it’s important to identify what’s really important for you, and pick a course that fits your trading style first and foremost—and if you’re not sure what your style is, go for a course that can help you find it!

On top of that, you should also be wary of courses that make extravagant claims, or market themselves to you based on how fast you’re going to become a millionaire. The best course providers show you exactly what you’re going to get rather than make empty promises, so look them over and check for things like mentorship, live instruction, a community, and lots of on-demand content and resources.

👉 That’s why you should check out Whop’s trading page! It’s the best place to find online trading courses that fulfill all of the above, giving you the absolute best-in-class courses and communities that’ll fit you no matter what your style and needs.