Building a track record, or trading history, is a crucial asset for becoming a  professional trader . To be recognized in the professional world, a track record of at least two years, ideally three, is required. This demonstrates your performance and consistency in trading.

Once a trader has a solid trading history to show, they can become a proprietary trader and manage their own capital to make a living from trading. Note, however, that this solution requires a significant starting capital (minimum 100,000 euros). It will then be possible to choose to trade alone at home, or to join a trading room in order to take advantage of the equipment provided, access to News (Reuters, Bloomberg, CNBC), trading tools and also sometimes support (coach, trainer), without forgetting the benefit of group dynamics with other traders.

A trader who does not have such capital can turn to solutions such as Fundseeder, Wikifolio, eToro (for copytrading), prop firms, or even trading tournaments which sometimes allow you to win capital under management.

Employee trader and independent trader: two different statuses

Is trading a profession? Yes, of course! But you should know that there are two types of traders: the salaried trader and the independent trader.

The salaried trader is a market operator whose salary is fixed, and who in some cases can receive a bonus, but depends on the goodwill of his hierarchy. While the myth leads us to imagine a trader working in a trading room within a bank or a hedge fund, many traders work in groups like  Danone  or  TotalEnergie . The salaried trader therefore generally does not have the mission of speculating on the markets, but more often of managing and trying to neutralize the market risks (for example, the  exchange risk  ) to which the company that employs him is exposed. Bank traders are in most cases operators whose role is to enter the purchase and sale operations of the bank’s clients, and this is more a role of a large-scale stock broker.

By 2025, salaried traders who take purely speculative positions have become rare in banks. Algorithmic trading has become so important that the majority of job offers are “Quant Trader” and require excellent programming skills.

An independent trader, who trades for his own account (often called a proprietary trader), works for himself and his income corresponds to his earnings. He does not receive a salary since he is self-employed.

There are therefore several trader statuses which cover very different realities.

In this article, we will focus on introducing you to the activity of self-employed trading and detailing the best practices to implement when you want to become an independent trader.

You may be wondering who can trade for themselves?  You’ll still need to learn how to trade and dedicate a significant amount of time to it. However, it’s possible to be a self-taught trader and earn an income from it.

You don’t want to go that far and want to maintain another professional activity but you’re wondering how to trade while keeping your job? It’s more complicated but also entirely possible. It will only require more organization and will partly determine your trading style and the assets traded. It will be easier to trade currencies or cryptocurrencies in the evening than to scalp stocks in the middle of the morning if you have a very demanding job.