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Stock Market Basics
Start here. Shares, exchanges, order types, and why spreading money across holdings changes the shape of your risk.
- 01
What a share actually is
A share is a fractional ownership claim on a company's future profits and assets — not a lottery ticket with a ticker symbol.
8 min
- 02
Exchanges, brokers, and the order book
An exchange is a matching engine for buyers and sellers. Understanding the bid-ask spread explains most beginner surprises about fills.
9 min
- 03
Order types and what they promise
Market orders promise execution, limit orders promise price. You never get both promises at once.
10 min
- 04
Diversification and the risk you cannot remove
Spreading holdings removes company-specific risk almost for free. It never removes market-wide risk — and that is the point.
9 min
Fundamental Analysis
Learn to read the three statements, separate revenue from earnings, judge margins, sanity-check valuation multiples, and follow the cash.
- 01
The three financial statements
Income statement: performance over a period. Balance sheet: position at a moment. Cash flow statement: where cash actually moved.
11 min
- 02
Revenue, earnings, and what sits between
Revenue is the top line; earnings are what survives after costs, interest, and tax. The path between them is the story.
10 min
- 03
Margins: gross, operating, net
Margins turn absolute profit into a comparable percentage, exposing pricing power, cost discipline, and business model differences.
9 min
- 04
Valuation multiples and their traps
A multiple is shorthand for expectations. It is a question generator, never a verdict on cheap or expensive.
11 min
- 05
Cash flow and free cash flow
Operating cash flow shows what the business generates; free cash flow shows what is left after keeping the lights on and growing.
10 min
Technical Analysis
Candlesticks, support and resistance, trend structure, volume confirmation, moving averages, RSI, and position sizing.
- 01
Reading candlesticks
Each candle compresses four numbers — open, high, low, close — into a shape that shows who won the session.
9 min
- 02
Support, resistance, and zones
Support and resistance are zones where past participants made decisions — not precise lines with magic properties.
10 min
- 03
Trend structure and volume confirmation
Trend is a sequence of higher highs and higher lows. Volume tells you how much conviction is behind each leg.
10 min
- 04
Moving averages
A moving average smooths price into a trend line. It is always late by design, and that lag is the trade-off you are buying.
9 min
- 05
RSI and momentum
RSI scores recent gains against recent losses from 0 to 100. Extremes measure momentum, not mispricing.
10 min
- 06
Risk management and position sizing
Position size follows from the risk you accept per trade and the distance to invalidation. It is arithmetic, not intuition.
11 min
Risk Management & Trading Psychology
Risk per trade and position sizing, R-multiples and expectancy, drawdowns and risk of ruin, stops and slippage, journaling, cognitive biases and a rules-based process.
- 01
Risk per trade and position sizing
Decide how much you are willing to lose before deciding how much to buy. Size follows from risk, never the other way round.
10 min
- 02
R-multiples and expectancy
Measure every outcome in units of initial risk (R). Expectancy tells you what a method earns per unit of risk — if your sample is honest.
11 min
- 03
Drawdowns, losing streaks and risk of ruin
Losses compound against you asymmetrically, and long losing streaks are normal even for a positive-expectancy method.
11 min
- 04
Stop placement, gaps and slippage
A stop is a plan, not a guarantee. Place it where the idea is wrong, then budget for fills that are worse than planned.
10 min
- 05
Journaling and trade review
A journal turns trades into data. Review process quality separately from outcome quality.
9 min
- 06
Cognitive biases that cost traders
Loss aversion, confirmation bias, recency and overconfidence are predictable. Rules exist to outvote them.
10 min
- 07
Building a rules-based process
Combine sizing, limits, a checklist and a review loop into a written plan you can follow on a bad day.
10 min
Smart Money Concepts
A discretionary, interpretive vocabulary for price action: swing structure, BOS vs CHoCH, liquidity sweeps, fair value gaps, order blocks, premium/discount, multi-timeframe narrative and invalidation. Definitions vary among practitioners and nothing here proves institutional activity or a guaranteed edge.
- 01
Market structure and swing points
Before any SMC label makes sense you need an objective rule for what counts as a swing high, a swing low, and a trend.
10 min
- 02
Break of structure vs change of character
BOS describes a trend continuing; CHoCH describes the first sign that the trend's description may be changing.
11 min
- 03
Liquidity pools, equal highs/lows and sweeps
Obvious highs and lows attract resting stop and breakout orders. A sweep is a brief run through them that fails to hold.
12 min
- 04
Displacement and fair value gaps
A fair value gap is a three-candle price imbalance left behind by a fast, one-sided move called displacement.
12 min
- 05
Order blocks and mitigation
An order block is the last opposing candle before displacement. It is a candidate zone, and its credibility depends on what came with it.
12 min
- 06
Premium, discount and the dealing range
Split a defined swing range at 50%: above is 'premium', below is 'discount'. It is a location filter, not a valuation.
9 min
- 07
Multi-timeframe narrative
Higher timeframes set context; lower timeframes refine timing. Conflicts between them are information, not noise.
10 min
- 08
Risk management and invalidation in SMC
Every SMC idea needs a price that proves it wrong. Size from that price, and expect many ideas to fail.
11 min
- 09
Case study: putting the pieces together
Walk a full synthetic sequence — sweep, displacement, CHoCH, FVG, order block, dealing range, invalidation — and grade it honestly.
14 min
Options Foundations
Calls and puts, breakeven and max loss, intrinsic vs time value, delta/theta/vega and IV, expiration and assignment, covered calls and protective puts, and option liquidity. Options can lose 100% of premium; short options can lose far more.
- 01
Calls and puts: rights and obligations
A call is the right to buy at the strike; a put is the right to sell. Buyers pay premium for rights; sellers take on obligations.
10 min
- 02
Payoff diagrams, breakeven and maximum loss
Compute breakeven, maximum gain and maximum loss for each basic position before you ever trade one.
11 min
- 03
Premium: intrinsic value and time value
Premium = intrinsic value + extrinsic (time) value. Only the intrinsic part survives to expiration.
9 min
- 04
Delta, theta, vega and implied volatility
The Greeks are local approximations of how premium changes with price, time and volatility.
12 min
- 05
Expiration, exercise and assignment
Short options can be assigned, sometimes early. Know what position and cash requirement assignment would create.
10 min
- 06
Covered calls and protective puts
Two stock-plus-option combinations: one trades upside for income, the other pays for a floor.
11 min
- 07
Option liquidity and bid-ask spreads
Wide option spreads are a hidden cost that can exceed commissions many times over.
8 min
Futures & Market Mechanics
Tick values and notional, margin vs risk, leverage and liquidation, ES/MES sizing with illustrative specs, order types, sessions and event volatility, and provider-specific funded-account rules. Leveraged losses can exceed your deposit.
- 01
Contract specs, ticks and notional value
Every futures P/L calculation starts from the multiplier and tick size. Know them before placing an order.
10 min
- 02
Margin is not risk
Initial and maintenance margin are performance bonds set by exchanges and brokers. Your risk is defined by position size and your stop.
10 min
- 03
Leverage and liquidation
Leverage scales both gains and losses. Brokers can close your positions automatically when equity falls below requirements.
10 min
- 04
Position sizing with ES and MES
Contracts = risk budget ÷ (stop distance in points × dollars per point). If the answer is below 1, the trade is too big.
11 min
- 05
Order types and execution
Market, limit, stop-market, stop-limit and bracket orders each trade certainty of fill against certainty of price.
9 min
- 06
Sessions and economic-event volatility
Liquidity and volatility vary across the trading day and spike around scheduled economic releases.
10 min
- 07
Funded-account (prop firm) rules: examples, not standards
Evaluation programmes impose provider-specific rules like trailing drawdowns and daily limits. Rules differ and change; read the current terms.
11 min