Marko Greguric, a 27-year-old from Croatia, says he was transfixed when he first came across someone claiming to be a full-time day trader on his social media feed. They’re a trope that’s become fairly common online, a type of influencer who often lives a nomadic lifestyle, has a sports car, and claims to be able to make money anywhere there’s an internet connection.
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Greguric began to immerse himself in markets, and after finishing graduate school, decided to put a more traditional career on hold to take a stab at living that life.
Years later, his career in markets has turned out somewhat differently than expected. For the first nine months he traded full-time, Greguric said he posted only losses, a dark period he refers to as paying his “tuition.”
So far this year, his portfolios have fetched modest returns of 3% to 10%, according to documentation he shared with Business Insider. Those gains actually beat most traders, but aren’t enough on their own to cover his expenses.
“The more I trade, the more I can see that it’s not realistic,” Greguric said of the goal of using markets to achieve financial freedom. He added that most of his income came from his other side hustles.
The dream of a relatively quick path to wealth and independence has increased for many traders since the pandemic boom lured more people to the market—and as images of flashy lifestyles and eye-popping trading gains have proliferated across the internet.
But the reality is different for many who have tried. Traders who spoke with Business Insider say they were challenged by capital constraints and the intense psychological toll trading can take. Many said they ended up returning to their old jobs or finding alternative sources of income, and have come away with regrets that range from pursuing trading too early to not taking the emotional challenges of the job more seriously.
The allure of full-time trading has risen along with the stock market in recent years. Global search interest in “trading full-time” has soared 684% in the last 12 months, according to data from the analytics tool Glimpse. Interest hit a peak in March of this year, right as the Iran war began to unfold and volatility rose sharply.
Greguric, who says he was drawn to trading partly because he liked the idea of being his own boss, said he thinks quitting the 9-5 is a “very dangerous” dream for young people.
“People have this picture in their head that when they start to trade that it’s going to be heaven on earth and that their whole lives will change and all of the bad emotions will go away,” he said. “It’s not going to be like that.
“I kind of slacked off”
Greguric said he had some assistance from his family when he first decided to go full-time, and, if he needed to, knew he would easily be able to get a 9-5 job. That lifted a lot of the pressure that comes from full-time trading, though he was taken aback by some of the realities of the lifestyle, he told BI.
For one, trading full-time can be lonely — particularly in Croatia, where the community of traders is relatively small.
“You’re pretty much alone by yourself for at least 8 to 10 hours per day,” he said, adding that he saw his friends and his girlfriend regularly, but had no one to share his wins or losses with. “If you’re social, you’re going to find it pretty hard to be at your PC every single day.”
He also learned quickly how emotionally taxing markets can be, particularly during drawdowns. The hardest moment of his career was when he missed out on a winning trade that all his trading buddies were in on, leading to intense FOMO once he realized how much money he could have made.
Marko Greguric said he believed he was “undereducated” when he first started trading full-time
Courtesy of Marko Greguric
His monthslong losing streak was especially challenging.
“There are days where I just don’t want to trade. I just don’t want to wake up,” Greguric said.
Greguric said he eventually got the hang of the markets and began to gain 1%-3% a month, which translated to around €100 to €300 in monthly income over his first several years.
Looking back, he believes he came into the market “undereducated,” and wishes he spent more time early on learning fundamentals, like how the market reacts to interest rate changes.
He also regrets not being more disciplined in his trading. As he was getting started, he was more “enchanted” by trading gurus online and only studied the markets for around three to four hours a day, which he now believes was too little.
“I kind of slacked off at the start,” Greguric said. “It took me a really long time to find my edge, let’s put it that way.”
Jumping in too early
Jeremy Lim, a 31-year-old trader based in Australia, was working as a senior consultant at KPMG when he decided to go full-time in his trading. It was hard to walk away from the money — he made six-figures at his last role, according to partial employment receipts he showed Business Insider — but at that point, had been heavily involved in the markets for four years and felt sick of his job.
Lim said he felt “mixed” about his first year of trading. For one, he was stressed watching the wild swings in his monthly income. Lim made an average profit of around $3,300 a month between 2024 and 2025, according to brokerage statements he showed BI, though he lost $6,000 in his worst month.
Jeremy Lim says he believes he took the leap to full-time trading earlier than he was personally ready for.
Courtesy of Jeremy Lim
Lim ended up making more than $200,000 in the last accounting year, his brokerage documents show, but he said he felt that he became a full-time trader “a bit sooner” than he should have, pointing to issues like handling performance pressure.
“I would just say that you can trade pretty well as a side thing while you still have a full-time job. It doesn’t require you to just quit, and you can still do well, make a bunch of money trading,” he said when asked of his regrets.
He added that he recommended traders have a positive track record for at least six months to a year before quitting their jobs.
“I definitely had the wrong expectations that I could probably make a bunch of money and travel and do this. But then a couple months into it, I think a lot of that honeymoon period faded away,” he said.
Not having enough capital
James Shemwell, a 27-year-old trader based in the UK, decided to go full-time shortly after completing his A-levels, exams that are typically taken before university. During his studies, he came across trading content on social media and was intrigued by the idea of financial independence.
He had already decided not to go to university and was determined to carve out an alternative path. Later, he quit his job at Tesco to trade full time, figuring that even making a small gain in the market could be enough to sustain a better lifestyle.
“I like the thought of, ‘This could potentially be something where I have a little bit more opportunity to go somewhere, move to a place that suits me better,'” he said of his mentality at the time. “I’d rather try and not regret it.”
Shemwell quickly floundered. After quitting his day job, he said his returns tanked from several hundred pounds a month to near-zero, or even slightly negative.
He believes much of the decline was due to the pressure to perform, particularly since his income was no longer steady. He recalled negative feelings when he hadn’t spotted a good trading opportunity, or anxiety when placing a trade overnight.
His savings, meanwhile, were quickly dwindling. After several months of trading full-time, Shemwell decided to return to part-time work in the hospitality business. He now works three days a week and trades on his days off.
Shemwell also says he regrets trying to go full-time as early as he did. His path might have been easier had he known more about what trading full-time was actually like, and if he had a larger pool of cash to trade with, which puts less pressure on a trader to notch bigger returns.
“It’s a performance-based business. You could do everything correct,” Shemwell said. “The pressure, it caught on me.”
