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.
🏆 10 Best Online Trading Courses in 2023
🥇 #1. 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: $2497 for the Mastermind course, $200 per month (quarterly, biannual, and annual options available) for Membership
Get access to Team Bull Trading
📚 Read: Team Bull Trading Review
#2. Wealth Group
Wealth Group is an exclusive community with a strong focus on cryptocurrency trading, so if you’re interested in crypto trading courses, this is your best bet. The group caters to all comers, so you don’t need to know anything about blockchain, proofs, whitelists, minting, or any of that.
You’ll get daily livestreams from Wealth Group’s professional traders when you sign up, and interactivity is prized—you can have back and forths within these daily streams but also take advantage of their concierge service, meaning one-on-one support and advice to complement your training.
Best for: Traders seeking to learn the ins and outs of the cryptocurrency markets
Pricing: $225 per month
#3. 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: $150 per month with weekly, quarterly and annual options available
📚 Read: The Story of Stock Dads
#4. RakeTrades
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: $1997 for the Mastermind course, $175 monthly for RakeTrades membership
📚 Read: RakeTrades Review
#5. TJR Trades
TJRTrades is a trading community that gives you something different, breaking the serious mold that a lot of course providers fall into by delivering a full education while retaining a youthful, modern vibe.
TJRTrades’ “TJR University” comprises a detailed bootcamp focused on every aspect of day trading, covering all the essentials without neglecting the areas of psychology, trading mentality, and risk management. The community’s focus is very much on education and support, so if you haven’t quite found your crowd yet, check out TJRTrades.
Best for: Day traders seeking a hands-on learning experience via detailed bootcamp
Pricing: $150 per month with quarterly, biannual, and annual plans available
📚 Read: TJRTrades Review
#6. The Haven
The Haven is one of the top platforms out there for crypto trading education. Led by six of the best crypto analysts in the business, the group is a crypto community that aims to empower members with both the trading skills and the strategic insights needed to make confident decisions in the volatile waters of crypto.
As a member of The Haven you’ll be served up with plenty of trading ideas and market updates, but the real value comes in the form of live sessions and easy-to-understand videos, giving you both live and on-demand materials in multiple media to devour. There are thousands of hours of educational content waiting for you, with the bonus of being able to follow the analysts live.
Best for: Traders wanting a solid grounding in all things cryptocurrency trading
Pricing: $250 per month for membership, which gives access to all live sessions and on-demand media
#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: $500 a month or $2500 per year for membership which includes educational resources
Get access to American Dream Trading
📚 Read: American Dream Trading Review
#8. Cash Capital Investment Group
Cash Capital Investment Group is a trading group focusing on education, providing members with expert teaching and plenty of video lessons. The main focus of the group is stocks and options, but there’s also a corner for forex if that’s your thing.
You’ll see a lot of extras when you join Cash Capital Investment Group such as options trading picks, but the group tries to keep it as learning-centric as possible—it’s a bona fide e-learning platform, with daily voice chat access, weekly webinars, and instruction covering various successful trading strategies.
Best for: Traders needing an e-learning experience and want to see real-world application
Pricing: Depends on the plan you select, with a 7-day money back guarantee
Get access to Cash Capital Investment Group
#9. 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
#10. FLI Capital
FLI Capital educates traders on building wealth and retaining it through sound investment strategies and financial literacy. The group makes a mission of training members in responsible investing above all else, so if your trading style is geared more towards longer time frames then this might be the course provider for you.
Novices and experts are equally welcome, and you can expect learning materials and resources across every form of media you need—there’s plenty of on-demand content to take on, but mentorship is also offered. As an added bonus, they’ll even help with transitioning this knowledge into the real world by providing alerts and indicators that you can set up if you want to.
Best for: Investors or traders who want to build wealth and hold assets over a longer term
Pricing: $50 per month with a 7-day free trial
How to Choose an Online 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 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.
