Why a Trader Chose to Teach the Stock Market: Siddharth Shirodkar’s Approach to Financial Education

For Siddharth Shirodkar, teaching the stock market was never part of the original plan.

He had already built a career as an entrepreneur, running a creative agency, and had been actively involved in the markets since 2011. Trading was a solitary profession, and there was little reason for him to teach others. His own trading was his primary focus.

That changed during the COVID lockdown.

With his agency operating remotely, Siddharth found himself with considerable time on his hands. His wife, Priyanka, suggested that he conduct webinars as a way to stay occupied. He agreed. The response from attendees surprised him. Their encouragement eventually led him to start teaching professionally.

What began as a way to pass the time became The School of Dalal Street.

Learning the Market the Hard Way

Siddharth's approach to teaching is strongly influenced by how he learned the market himself.

When he first started trading, he made many of the mistakes common among beginners. He experimented, lost money and spent years trying to understand what actually worked. Unlike someone who had followed a predefined educational path, he had to develop his approach largely through trial and error.

That experience shaped one of his central beliefs about financial education: theory and practice are very different things.

A setup can look perfect in a textbook and behave very differently when applied to an actual market. The small nuances that influence decisions are difficult to learn entirely from theory.

This is why Siddharth encourages his students to observe the market even when they are not trading. Repeated observation, he believes, helps develop what he calls “traders’ conviction”, an understanding of market behaviour that develops through experience.

Teaching Beyond Financial Jargon

As an educator, Siddharth considers beginners his specialty.

His approach is to break complicated financial concepts into smaller pieces and explain them through stories and everyday examples. One example he uses when explaining theta decay in options is termite-infested furniture: as time passes, the termites continue eating away at the wood, while also multiplying in number, illustrating how the value of an option can erode with time.

For him, understanding how something works matters more than memorising financial terminology.

This philosophy extends to practical learning. Students are encouraged to practise through paper trading before taking on the risks associated with real capital.

Risk management is another central part of his teaching. Rather than treating it simply as a trading tool, Siddharth views it as a mindset that should influence decisions both in the market and in everyday life.

Why Teaching Became the Mission

The School of Dalal Street has now grown into a stock market education platform, with Siddharth having taught more than 1,200 students.

But his motivation for continuing to teach is not simply the growth of the institution.

He describes his role as that of a guide. The market, in his view, remains the real teacher.

That distinction is important to his philosophy. Rather than presenting education as a shortcut around the learning process, his focus is on helping students understand the market, practise what they learn and develop their own ability to make decisions.

For Siddharth, the transition from trader to teacher was therefore not a change in direction as much as an extension of his own journey.

He spent years learning from the market himself. Today, he is focused on helping others learn from it too.