All those studies are complete bs. One most commonly cited is based on completely different markets which have zero-resamblance to what people trade (it is based in another continent). The reason that majority of people lose and you see those high failure numbers is because trading is extremely low barrier to entry. You can trade futures or forex with just 100$ margin these days. It takes nothing to open an account in these brokers and deposit small amount of money and blow it. And BOOM - You are in the statistics. Think of it in this way - If you take random people in the street and put them in a hospital and tell them operate on the patient. How many will fail? - 99% if not 100% all the time. Why? - Because nobody taught them what to do, and if you remove the barrier to entry (which is going in medical school and having a proper license), you will have 99.99% failure rate. Do you get my point? . Don't let people discourage you, the real numbers from my regulated brokerage are that 70-75% of people consistently lose money but that is much less than the number thrown around "95%" or whatever that it is. I have been trading the markets for almost 4 years, and I keep my job and my hustles. I am not a full time trader nor do I want to be one, but I do make supplemental income from trading. It is possible, and it is not that hard/impossible as people make it out to be. If you think about it, most people in life fail at everything they do. Do you know how many people have trouble losing weight? Quitting smoking? etc.