MAD Academy
303 explanations covering equities, bonds, currencies, the Fed, fundamentals, technicals, charting and SEC filings, cross-linked so one idea leads to the next.
0of 315 lessons complete across 20 subjects
Complete all 20 subjects to finish MAD Academy. A lesson is done when you watch its training video through or read the article and mark it read at the foot of the page, and every subject earns bronze at a third, silver at two thirds and gold at all of it.
Progress, trophies and the training videos come with every paid plan. The written library stays free to read.
See the plansThe education line
The reading is free. Members get how our tools decide.
Try Premium Membership free for 5 days. Card required. After 5 days it is $149 per month or $1,099 per year until you cancel. First-time members only.
Start Here
In order, if you are new
The shapes we hunt
See all 24 set-ups →Each one is written up in full — the price points that define it, where it completes, how often it follows through and what its failure looks like. These six carry a training video anybody can watch.
MAD Academy Training Videos
Short animated lessons that go with the articles — charts that draw themselves, tables that build a row at a time, and the number that matters counted up on screen. Most run under a minute; the trading set-up lessons run to about ninety seconds because they carry a whole reference entry. None of them is a screen recording of somebody talking.
Set-ups
Reading a bull flag by its proportions
Reading a bull flag by its proportions
The pole, the drift, the single price that completes it, and the failure that looks exactly like the success for one bar.
Set-ups
The bounce that nobody buys
The bounce that nobody buys
Why a shallow, quiet recovery after a hard decline is the most common continuation shape there is, and why it squeezes so violently when it is wrong.
Set-ups
When the range squeezes to nothing
When the range squeezes to nothing
A pennant is a flag whose pause has no direction. Why the contraction matters more than the outline, and why the trigger level moves every bar.
Browse by Subject
Every subject is a set of lessons, and every one earns a trophy
Twenty-four named shapes, bullish and bearish, each with the price points that define it, where it completes, how often it follows through and what it looks like when it fails.
24 lessons · not being tracked18 videos locked
What is actually being bought and sold — shares, bonds, currencies, commodities and funds — and the machinery of the exchange that matches the two sides.
23 lessons · not being tracked23 videos locked
The three statements a company files, line by line, and how to read what they say about the business behind the ticker.
17 lessons · not being tracked17 videos locked
The arithmetic that turns a statement into a comparison: multiples, margins, returns on capital, and what each one hides.
14 lessons · not being tracked14 videos locked
Moving averages, oscillators, volatility bands and volume measures — how each is calculated, what it actually claims, and where it fails.
26 lessons · not being tracked26 videos locked
Reading price directly: the anatomy of a candle, where support and resistance come from, and the shapes traders have named.
24 lessons · not being tracked24 videos locked
The settings underneath every chart — timeframe, scale, price adjustment, session coverage — and why two charts of the same stock disagree.
16 lessons · not being tracked16 videos locked
Every form a public company has to file, what it is required to say, and how to find the paragraph that matters without reading 200 pages.
21 lessons · not being tracked21 videos locked
Rates, inflation, employment and growth: what the Federal Reserve actually controls, and which releases move markets.
20 lessons · not being tracked20 videos locked
The part that decides whether an edge survives contact with an account: position size, stops, expectancy and the cost of getting filled.
16 lessons · not being tracked16 videos locked
The documented biases that cost money, and the process habits that blunt them.
11 lessons · not being tracked11 videos locked
The plumbing between a decision and a position: account types, margin, how an order is routed, what protection exists and what a statement is actually telling you.
14 lessons · not being tracked14 videos locked
Beyond Treasuries: corporate and municipal bonds, ratings and spreads, the options embedded in them, and the difference between owning a bond and owning a bond fund.
10 lessons · not being tracked10 videos locked
Options and futures as instruments rather than lottery tickets: what the Greeks measure, how the common structures work, and where the risk actually is.
14 lessons · not being tracked14 videos locked
What a blockchain is, who is holding the asset when an exchange does, and how the regulated wrappers differ from the thing they wrap.
6 lessons · not being tracked6 videos locked
The decisions above any individual position: allocation, rebalancing, what to measure performance against, and the arithmetic of taking money back out.
12 lessons · not being tracked12 videos locked
The documented return factors, and the far longer list of ways a backtest can be wrong before anybody trades it.
10 lessons · not being tracked10 videos locked
How the rules work — holding periods, cost basis, wash sales, account types — described as mechanics. Nothing here is tax advice, and circumstances differ.
10 lessons · not being tracked10 videos locked
Who regulates what, how to check a firm or a person before sending money, the recognizable shapes fraud takes, and what recourse exists afterwards.
10 lessons · not being tracked10 videos locked
A guide to every surface on the platform — Deep Dive, Charting, the Scanner, the Heatmap, Sectors, Corporate Events, Institutional Flows — and the methodology behind what they show.
17 lessons · not being tracked17 videos locked
Recently Updated
See the libraryDeep Dive 2: Ranking the Market
The same data turned outward. Ten cards that rank, screen and search the whole market rather than describing one company.
How Setup Detection Decides
The methodology behind the nightly sweep: what it measures, why it runs on daily bars after the close, and what it deliberately does not attempt.
MAD Setups and the Playbook
The setups we focus on, what each one looks like, and where nightly detection surfaces them. The playbook is the reference; the detection is the sweep.
Market Sectors
Performance by sector and industry group, with the members of each. It is relative strength applied across the whole classification.
Paper Trading: Practicing with Simulated Money
Simulated brokerage portfolios, $100,000 to start: a stock always on screen with its chart, a ticket with market, limit, stop and trailing orders, the positions you hold and the record of every order. Practice at the platform's live quotes with nothing at risk.
Pro Charting: The Professional Workspace
The chart as the whole surface, with drawings, styles, timeframes and saved layouts, and the company's research cards beneath it. The one charting tab on every member plan.
Join the free MAD Market Lab
A free community for chart nerds: daily check-ins, a Term of the Day, a Friday quiz, and a level ladder from Penny Stock to Chart Whisperer. Educational only.