Retail Trader

What you'll do

You export your complete transaction history from your U.S. brokerage account and upload it to Mercor's platform. You then write a short summary of how you trade (about 100 to 250 words: strategy, typical holding period, instruments, platforms) and explain at least 5 of your biggest or most influential trades. The result is a dataset of real retail trading behavior, used to study and model how individual traders make decisions.

This is a single task, not an ongoing contract. Mercor puts the writing at up to about 1.5 hours, on top of the time to pull and clean your export.

Who fits

• Based in the United States; the ad says United States only
• At least 2 years of active trading on your own account, and at least 1,000 trades in that period (about 2 per trading day)
• Trades stocks, with options also counting
• An account at a U.S. retail broker, such as Robinhood, Schwab, Fidelity, E*TRADE, Webull or Interactive Brokers
• 18 or older
• Willing to share the complete history with no trades removed, after stripping your name, account numbers, address and other personal details

No minimum education and no particular field of study. Finance professionals, non-finance professionals, students and full-time traders all qualify. Current or former professional traders can take part using their own personal account only.

Not a fit: fewer than 2 years of history or fewer than 1,000 trades; trading only through an account you do not own (managed, employer or prop-firm); trading mostly crypto or futures.

What the task involves

• History: at least 24 months, using the broker's standard export, with every trade included.
• Style summary: about 100 to 250 words.
• Five trades: at least 5 significant trades (big gains, big losses or high-conviction calls), stocks preferred. Each explanation gives your reasoning at entry or exit and the information behind the decision, and each must name a real trade in your history with matching symbol, date, side and quantity. Any look back at how it turned out is kept separate from your original reasoning.

What it pays

Mercor's listing states a flat $400, paid once as a one-time task. Payment is made once you have uploaded your full history and fully annotated at least 5 trades. Partial submissions are not paid: the upload and all 5 annotations are required. The ad does not say how or when the money is sent, so the payment method and timing are not published on the listing.

Worth knowing

Good:

• $400 for roughly 1.5 hours of writing is a strong effective rate if your records are already in order
• No degree or finance background needed, only a real trading record
• A single task with a clear definition of done
• Work you can do on your own schedule

Less good:

• It pays only on a complete submission; there is no partial credit
• You hand over your full trade history, so the de-identification step is yours to do carefully before uploading
• The 2-year and 1,000-trade bars rule out many casual traders
• United States only, and crypto or futures-heavy traders are excluded
• Taking part means signing Mercor's Expert Content License Agreement, which covers how your history and annotations are licensed and used; read it before you agree
• It is one task, so it does not lead to ongoing work by itself

About this listing

Posted by Mercor on its opportunities board and read on 26 October 2026. The pay, eligibility bars and task steps above are the ad's own text; the ad does not state payment method or timing. If the listing has closed since, the apply button will land on Mercor rather than this role. See Mercor.