Trading for a living is not just about trading strategies. Operating as an independent trader is akin to running a business. To succeed, you need an array of skills beyond knowing when to enter and exit the market.
These skills are wide-ranging, covering topics like statistics and psychology. Traditionally, picking up these skills is expensive and time-consuming. Fortunately, with the growing pool of online courses, you can learn these skills without spending a bomb and in the comfort of your home.
Here, I have rounded up ten highly rated Udemy courses to help you beef up your holistic trading performance while developing skills that are marketable beyond your trading career.
The courses below are organized into these groups:
- Statistics & Data Analysis
- Psychology & Cognitive Biases
- Personal Finance
- Computing
Statistics & Data Analysis For Traders
Having a grasp of basic statistics is crucial for traders as it caters to two essential objectives:
- Selecting compelling trading strategies
- Evaluating trading performance
The three courses in this section focus on teaching you statistics and basic data analysis through the most common spreadsheet software, Microsoft Excel.
Course #1: Data Analysis Excel for Beginners: Statistical Data Analysis
As a trader, you will want to have a basic grasp of statistics for analyzing your trading results. It also helps you to develop an appreciation for uncertainty and the value of large sample sizes.
Most likely, you will also want to learn Microsoft Excel as it is a common and versatile tool for performing simple analysis with your trading data.
For a complete beginner in both statistics and Excel, this course is perfect. It kills two birds with one stone by teaching basic statistics with Excel.
Click here for Data Analysis Excel for Beginners: Statistical Data Analysis
Course #2: Microsoft Excel – Excel from Beginner to Advanced
Most people, not just traders, underestimate what you can achieve with Excel. This best-selling course shows you practical techniques to manipulate data in Excel.
It covers macros and basic VBA to help you automate repetitive tasks.
For instance, you can use macros to turn your raw CSV exports from your broker into spiffy reports with a click. No more endless copying, pasting, inserting, and deleting.
Click here for Microsoft Excel – Excel from Beginner to Advanced
Course #3: Microsoft Excel – Advanced Excel Formulas & Functions
Another fantastic Excel course that’s easy to follow.
While this course has a smaller scope than the one above, it has a section on tapping into real-time data with Excel. If you need to monitor real-time quotes or other metrics from a website, this function is a fantastic time-saver.
With the advanced formulas you learn here, you can also embark on creating your trading journal with Excel.
Click here for Microsoft Excel – Advanced Excel Formulas & Functions
Psychology & Cognitive Biases For Traders
Psychology plays a heavy role in ensuring consistent trading performance.
If you are in this for the long haul, you must develop strategies not only for the market but also for dealing with your mind and emotions.
Course #4: Meditation for Beginners: How to Meditate Deeply & Quickly
If you’ve been trading with real money in amounts you care about, you must have experienced the emotional roaster coaster ride that comes along.
You would agree that to be a resilient trader, you must learn to control the impact of emotions like fear and greed on your trading activities.
And the first step is to become aware of these emotions and to be mindful of your mental state. Mediation offers a basic structure for doing so.
This basic meditation course will introduce you to techniques for developing such mindfulness.
Click here for Meditation for Beginners: How to Meditate Deeply & Quickly
Course #5: Master Cognitive Biases and Improve Your Critical Thinking
Cognitive biases like anchoring and recency are obstacles to a trader’s success. These biases cause traders to evaluate their performance incorrectly.
To develop a long-term trading approach that works, you need to avoid succumbing to cognitive biases. While we can never rid ourselves of such prejudices completely, it pays to stay vigilant.
This course explains four main cognitive biases and introduces debiasing tactics you can apply to overcome them.
Click here for Master Cognitive Biases and Improve Your Critical Thinking
Course #6: Focus And Flow State: A Comprehensive Brain Guide
The ability to focus is critical, especially for day traders who need to analyze quickly and continuously throughout the trading session.
However, it’s not easy to find resources that cover the topic of focus in a practical manner that is not overwhelming you with academic discussion.
This short course by Brain Academy fits the bill. It explains the limits to your focus, the types of distractions, and the tactics to improve your concentration.
Click here for Focus And Flow State: A Comprehensive Brain Guide
Personal Finance
It’s impossible to trade well under financial stress. This is why I always ask my students to get their personal finance organized before they even think about risking their hard-earned income.
In practice, there are two key areas to work out:
- How to fund your trading capital with your non-trading income
- How to improve your financial security with your trading income
But beyond that, you also need to adopt a more integrative approach. Recognize that your overall financial health is crucial to your mental state when you’re dealing with the markets on a daily basis as an independent trader.
These two courses will lay a solid foundation for managing your personal finances.
(If you prefer a book, The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn’t Have to Be Complicated is a good place to start for complete beginners.)
Course #7: The Core Four of Personal Finance
This course introduces you to the four core pillars of personal finance, giving you a comprehensive tutorial on how to manage your money.
While the high-level personal finance concepts apply to most people, specific considerations depend on your financial jurisdiction. Hence, United States residents will find this course more practical.
Click here for The Core Four of Personal Finance
Course #8: The Complete Personal Finance Course: Save, Protect, Make More
This course is a bestseller on Udemy, and it’s not hard to see why. It has an impressive scope of personal finance topics with practical walk-throughs.
As an introduction to personal finance, it might seem overwhelming at first. So it’s a good idea to zoom in on sections that are relevant to you.
But if you are serious about getting your personal finances in order, this course is definitely worth your time.
Click here for The Complete Personal Finance Course: Save, Protect, Make More
Computer For Traders
Many traders take the performance of their trading computer for granted. They don’t appreciate how much they rely on their trading terminal until something goes wrong.
Take a proactive approach by learning how to maintain your computer and keep it in a tip-top state.
Course #9: Computers: Progress to Professional. How to master computers
Moreover, as a retail trader, you are probably your own IT department. Hence, it is essential to learn the basics of maintaining your computer and optimizing its performance.
In this course, you can learn how to do so with an experienced professional computer technician.
Click here for Computers: Progress to Professional. How to master computers
Course #10: How To Build a Computer: A Beginner’s Guide
There are off-the-shelf computers you can use for trading. So building your trading rig might seem a little too much for some, but I’ve seen more than a minority of traders attempting to do so.
If you want to trade with a computer you can trust, while picking up skills that will allow you to troubleshoot computer hardware, this is the course for you.
Click here for How To Build a Computer: A Beginner’s Guide
Gain Rounded Skills To Run A Successful Trading Business
Being an independent trader involves more than just knowing how to trade. Many new traders fail to recognize this and encounter issues futher down the road.
Some traders might make enough to justify outsourcing some of these non-trading aspects, but most retail traders remain a one-man operation. In either case, it’s still helpful to get a rounded view of the skills that contribute to consistent performance.
Furthermore, these are practical skills that are definitely helpful even from a personal development viewpoint.
Disclosure
This list of courses contains affiliate links. This means that we will receive a part of the sales made if you enroll for Udemy courses through the links here.
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