New Delhi, March 17 -- A few success stories and the promise of financial freedom may make full-time trading seem more tempting and exciting to some people than a day job, but most do not achieve the success they imagined.

The conditions for retail traders have also been changing. Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has raised minimum contract sizes for index derivatives, restricted weekly expiry contracts to a single benchmark index, and the government has increased the Securities Transaction Tax-a levy that applies to every trade, regardless of gain or loss.

Together, these changes have raised both the capital needed and the cost of staying active in the markets, making the calculus of full-time trading harder than it was ev...