Training Videos
309 animated lessons across 20 subjects, 4h 08m in total. Each one accompanies an article and expands on it rather than repeating it, and every article has one. Every lesson is vector, themed and captioned; most run under a minute, and the trading set-up lessons run to about ninety seconds. 6 of them are free to watch on any plan.
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Upgrade to Premium MembershipTrading Set-ups
24 lessons · read the articlesSet-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.
Set-ups
The coil after the fall
The coil after the fall
A bear pennant measures how tightly a market has compressed. Where the direction actually comes from, and the base it is most often confused with.
Set-ups
The set-up with no shape
The set-up with no shape
The most common continuation there is has no outline and no name. Why the sequence of swings does all the work, and the reference is only there for consistency.
Set-ups
Why rallies in downtrends feel so convincing
Why rallies in downtrends feel so convincing
The exact mirror of the trend pullback, and the harder one to hold. What relief rallies are made of, and why heavy volume means the opposite here.
Set-ups
The gap that refuses to come back
The gap that refuses to come back
Most gaps fill. This is the shape of the ones that do not, why the opening range does all the work, and why the reason for the gap matters more than the chart.
Set-ups
The down gap that keeps going
The down gap that keeps going
The bearish mirror of the gap-and-go, with the widest failure in the catalogue. Why an unfilled gap above is the thing that makes it dangerous.
Set-ups
The staircase, and why one step proves nothing
The staircase, and why one step proves nothing
A repeating pause is a much stronger statement than a single one. What the repetition is evidence of, and the overlap that ends it.
Set-ups
Why a level gets weaker every time it holds
Why a level gets weaker every time it holds
The flat base, and the counter-intuitive mechanism underneath it: repeated tests consume the supply that made the level matter in the first place.
Set-ups
The seller with a price and the buyers losing patience
The seller with a price and the buyers losing patience
An ascending triangle is a flat base with one extra piece of information. What the rising lows actually say, and the two-touch drawing that invents them.
Set-ups
The floor that feels safe because it keeps holding
The floor that feels safe because it keeps holding
A descending triangle, and the mechanism that makes a repeatedly-defended level weaker rather than stronger. Plus the reclaim, which is the failure that hurts.
Set-ups
Why the handle is the interesting part
Why the handle is the interesting part
A cup and handle is a story about one price and the people waiting at it. What the rounding proves, what the handle is made of, and when a handle stops being one.
Set-ups
The mirror that is rarer than it looks
The mirror that is rarer than it looks
Tops do not round the way bottoms do. What an inverted cup and handle actually requires, and why the bar for calling one has to be higher than for its bullish twin.
Set-ups
The set-up that will not tell you which way
The set-up that will not tell you which way
Volatility reverts, so a multi-month low in range says a big move is close. It says nothing about direction — and the head-fake is what happens when that is forgotten.
Set-ups
Two lines, and nothing to argue about
Two lines, and nothing to argue about
The plainest structure on any chart. Why a rectangle measures better than most shapes, and why its failure travels further than anyone expects.
Set-ups
Two lows are not a double bottom
Two lows are not a double bottom
The pattern is the neckline, not the W. Why the second low's volume is the real evidence, and what the third leg looks like when the shape fails.
Set-ups
The M that has not happened yet
The M that has not happened yet
Every high is the second high of a double top until it is not. Where the confirmation actually sits, and why tops form messier than bottoms.
Set-ups
The shoulder that does not reach the head
The shoulder that does not reach the head
The most recognised reversal shape, and the one claim inside it that actually does the work. Plus why its published success rates are the least trustworthy in the field.
Set-ups
The most famous shape, and why that is a problem
The most famous shape, and why that is a problem
A head and shoulders top makes exactly one claim. What it is, where the confirmation sits, and why recognising the outline is the least useful part.
Set-ups
The base with no bottom
The base with no bottom
The slowest reversal in the catalogue and one of the most dependable. Why the absence of a dramatic low is the pattern, and what the volume has to do.
Set-ups
An advance that runs out rather than breaks
An advance that runs out rather than breaks
No spike, no single high, no dramatic day. What a dome is made of, why it is less symmetric than its bullish mirror, and where the evidence actually lives.
Set-ups
Wider, then narrower, at a high
Wider, then narrower, at a high
The rarest shape in this catalogue and the most over-diagnosed. What the two phases mean in sequence, and the honest test for whether one is there at all.
Set-ups
Three lows, each one higher
Three lows, each one higher
Less famous than a double bottom and a stronger statement. Why three is the number, and why this is the rare reversal you can see coming.
Markets and Instruments
23 lessons · read the articlesMarkets
What You Actually Own
What You Actually Own
A share is a claim on what is left after everyone else is paid — which is why it can be worth a great deal or nothing at all.
Markets
Where Your Order Actually Goes
Where Your Order Actually Goes
Pressing buy does not send your order to an exchange floor. It enters a matching engine that pairs it against a resting order.
Markets
What Each Order Actually Guarantees
What Each Order Actually Guarantees
A market order guarantees a fill and not a price. A limit order guarantees a price and not a fill. Everything else follows from that.
Markets
The Cost You Pay Before You Are Right
The Cost You Pay Before You Are Right
The spread is the toll for immediacy, and it is charged on the way in and again on the way out.
Markets
The Same Stock, A Different Market
The Same Stock, A Different Market
Premarket and after-hours sessions run on a fraction of the liquidity, which changes what every price on the screen means.
Markets
Share Price Tells You Nothing About Size
Share Price Tells You Nothing About Size
A $12 stock can be far larger than a $400 one, because size is price times share count and nothing else.
Markets
The Number That Actually Trades
The Number That Actually Trades
Shares outstanding is everything issued. Float is what is genuinely available — and a small float changes how a stock moves.
Markets
Three Wrappers, One Basket
Three Wrappers, One Basket
ETFs, index funds and mutual funds can hold identical assets and still behave completely differently for the person holding them.
Markets
Price and Yield Move Opposite Ways
Price and Yield Move Opposite Ways
A bond's payments are fixed at issue, so the only way the market repriced it is through the price — which is why yield rises when price falls.
Markets
The Most Watched Line in Finance
The Most Watched Line in Finance
The yield curve plots what the government pays to borrow across time, and its shape is a picture of what the market expects.
Markets
Every Price Is a Ratio
Every Price Is a Ratio
A currency has no price of its own — only a rate against another one, which is why a 'strong dollar' is always relative.
Markets
You Are Trading a Delivery Date
You Are Trading a Delivery Date
Commodity exposure almost never means the physical good. It means a contract with an expiry, and the expiry is where the surprises live.
Markets
Below the Exchanges, Fewer Rules
Below the Exchanges, Fewer Rules
OTC tiers differ in exactly one thing that matters: how much a company is required to tell you before you can buy it.
Markets
Borrowed, Sold, and Owed Back
Borrowed, Sold, and Owed Back
A short seller owes shares rather than money, which is why the loss has no ceiling and why crowded shorts move so violently.
Markets
A Right, Not an Obligation
A Right, Not an Obligation
An option gives the buyer a choice and the seller a duty, and every strategy is built from that one asymmetry.
Markets
The Same Company, Cut Into More Slices
The Same Company, Cut Into More Slices
An offering raises cash and shrinks every existing holder's share of the business. Whether that is good depends entirely on what the cash buys.
Markets
A Receipt, Not the Share
A Receipt, Not the Share
An ADR is a claim on foreign shares held by a bank, which adds a currency effect, a custody fee and a tax layer between you and the company.
Markets
When the Market Stops on Purpose
When the Market Stops on Purpose
Halts are designed to interrupt a disorderly market, and knowing which kind you are looking at tells you what happens next.
Markets
The Trade Is Not the Transfer
The Trade Is Not the Transfer
Execution and ownership happen on different days, and the gap between them is what settlement rules govern.
Markets
Weighting Decides What You Own
Weighting Decides What You Own
Two indexes of the same 500 companies can behave completely differently, because the weighting rule is the real strategy.
Markets
Three Doors Into the Public Market
Three Doors Into the Public Market
IPO, direct listing and SPAC differ in who sets the price, who gets paid, and how much disclosure you get before you can buy.
Markets
Rules That Only Bind When It Falls
Rules That Only Bind When It Falls
Short selling carries restrictions that activate under stress — a price trigger, a locate requirement, and occasional outright bans.
Markets
Dozens of Venues, One Price
Dozens of Venues, One Price
Trading is spread across many venues, some of them displaying no quotes at all, and rules are what tie the fragments into one market.
Fundamentals and Financial Statements
17 lessons · read the articlesFundamentals
One Long Subtraction
One Long Subtraction
The income statement is revenue with costs removed in a fixed order, and each subtotal along the way answers a different question.
Fundamentals
A Photograph, Not a Film
A Photograph, Not a Film
The balance sheet is a single instant, and it balances by definition — which means the interesting information is in the composition.
Fundamentals
The Statement Hardest to Flatter
The Statement Hardest to Flatter
Cash either moved or it did not, which is why this statement is the one to reconcile the other two against.
Fundamentals
Following One Dollar Down the Page
Following One Dollar Down the Page
Tracking a single dollar of revenue through every deduction shows exactly where a business makes or loses its money.
Fundamentals
Profit Before the Inconvenient Parts
Profit Before the Inconvenient Parts
EBITDA removes interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation — and whether that is useful depends entirely on the business.
Fundamentals
What Is Left for the Owners
What Is Left for the Owners
Free cash flow is the cash a business generates after keeping itself running — the number dividends and buybacks actually come from.
Fundamentals
The Company's Own Scoreboard
The Company's Own Scoreboard
Non-GAAP earnings are defined by the company reporting them, which makes the reconciliation the most important table in the release.
Fundamentals
The Denominator Does the Work
The Denominator Does the Work
EPS can rise while profit falls, because the share count is half the fraction — and buybacks move it deliberately.
Fundamentals
How Long Your Cash Is Stuck
How Long Your Cash Is Stuck
The cash conversion cycle counts the days between paying for inventory and collecting from a customer — and it can be negative.
Fundamentals
Debt Is Fine Until It Is Due
Debt Is Fine Until It Is Due
Leverage ratios say how much a company owes; coverage ratios say whether it can pay. The second question is the urgent one.
Fundamentals
One Company, Several Businesses
One Company, Several Businesses
Segment disclosure breaks a consolidated total into the businesses inside it, and the split usually reveals that one of them carries everything.
Fundamentals
Are the Profits Real?
Are the Profits Real?
Quality of earnings asks whether reported profit is backed by cash and likely to repeat — two questions the income statement never answers.
Fundamentals
When Does a Sale Become Revenue?
When Does a Sale Become Revenue?
The timing of revenue is a judgement, and the gap between signing a contract and recognising the money is where a lot of accounting risk lives.
Fundamentals
The Debt That Used to Be Invisible
The Debt That Used to Be Invisible
Lease obligations were once a footnote and are now on the balance sheet, which changed reported leverage without changing any business.
Fundamentals
A Promise With an Assumption Attached
A Promise With an Assumption Attached
A defined-benefit pension is a long-dated liability whose reported size depends on discount and return assumptions the company chooses.
Fundamentals
Same Warehouse, Different Profit
Same Warehouse, Different Profit
FIFO and LIFO describe an accounting assumption, not a physical order, and in an inflationary period they report different profits.
Fundamentals
The Patterns Worth Noticing
The Patterns Worth Noticing
No single line proves anything. What matters is a cluster of divergences appearing at the same time.
Valuation and Ratios
14 lessons · read the articlesValuation
Cheap Is Not a Number
Cheap Is Not a Number
A P/E is a ratio of price to one year of profit. It tells you what is being paid, never whether it is worth it.
Valuation
Dividing by a Guess
Dividing by a Guess
PEG divides the P/E by a growth rate, and the growth rate is a forecast — which means the whole ratio inherits its uncertainty.
Valuation
For When There Are No Earnings
For When There Are No Earnings
Price-to-sales and price-to-book work where P/E cannot, and each has a specific blind spot you have to hold in mind.
Valuation
What It Costs to Buy the Whole Thing
What It Costs to Buy the Whole Thing
Enterprise value adds the debt you would inherit and subtracts the cash you would get, which is why it compares firms market cap cannot.
Valuation
A High Yield Is Often a Warning
A High Yield Is Often a Warning
Yield is a fraction, and it usually spikes because the price collapsed — which is the market pricing a cut it expects.
Valuation
The Question That Ranks Businesses
The Question That Ranks Businesses
Returns on equity, assets and invested capital ask how well a company turns money into more money — and only one of them resists leverage.
Valuation
Three Margins, Three Diagnoses
Three Margins, Three Diagnoses
Gross, operating and net margins each isolate a different part of the business, and the one that is falling names the problem.
Valuation
Precision Without Accuracy
Precision Without Accuracy
A DCF produces a number to the cent from assumptions that are guesses, and its real value is showing what has to be true.
Valuation
The Peer Set Decides the Answer
The Peer Set Decides the Answer
Relative valuation is only as honest as the comparison group, and choosing the group is where most of the judgement lives.
Valuation
Valuing the Pieces Separately
Valuing the Pieces Separately
Sum of the parts values each business on its own multiple, and the gap to the market price is usually a discount rather than a mistake.
Valuation
The Multiple for Companies With No Profit
The Multiple for Companies With No Profit
EV to sales prices the whole business against revenue, and it only means anything once you attach a margin assumption to it.
Valuation
What the Business Pays You to Own It
What the Business Pays You to Own It
Free cash flow yield inverts the multiple into a percentage you can compare against a bond, which is what makes it intuitive.
Valuation
Profit After Charging for Capital
Profit After Charging for Capital
Residual income subtracts a charge for the equity used, which is why a profitable company can still be destroying value.
Valuation
One Number Is Never the Answer
One Number Is Never the Answer
Sensitivity analysis shows which assumption actually drives the valuation, which is more useful than the valuation itself.
Technical Indicators
25 lessons · read the articlesIndicators
What a Chart Can and Cannot Tell You
What a Chart Can and Cannot Tell You
The honest version: an indicator is a restatement of price, not a source of new information about the company.
Indicators
The Average Is Always Late — On Purpose
The Average Is Always Late — On Purpose
Lag is not a defect in a moving average. It is the feature you are paying for, and knowing the price of it is the whole skill.
Indicators
The Cross Prints After the Move
The Cross Prints After the Move
Why the 50/200 cross is a confirmation event, what the lag actually measures, and the one use that survives it.
Indicators
Why 70 Is Not a Sell Signal
Why 70 Is Not a Sell Signal
RSI measures the balance of recent gains against recent losses — which is why it can sit above 70 through an entire advance.
Indicators
MACD Is Two Averages Wearing a Costume
MACD Is Two Averages Wearing a Costume
Strip the histogram away and MACD is the distance between two moving averages — which explains everything it does well and everything it does badly.
Indicators
Touching the Band Is Not a Signal
Touching the Band Is Not a Signal
The bands are a volatility envelope. In a trend price walks the upper band for weeks, and every touch is strength rather than excess.
Indicators
The Only Indicator That Sets Your Stop
The Only Indicator That Sets Your Stop
ATR has no opinion about direction, which is exactly why it is the right tool for sizing a stop and a position.
Indicators
Where the Close Sat in the Range
Where the Close Sat in the Range
The stochastic answers one narrow question, and reading it as an overbought gauge misses what it is for.
Indicators
The Line Institutions Are Measured Against
The Line Institutions Are Measured Against
VWAP is a benchmark before it is an indicator, and knowing who is being graded by it explains why price reacts there.
Indicators
The One Input That Is Not Price
The One Input That Is Not Price
Volume is the only independent series on a chart, which is why confirmation means something and why On-Balance Volume is built the way it is.
Indicators
The Indicator That Tells You Which Indicator to Use
The Indicator That Tells You Which Indicator to Use
ADX has no direction and that is the point: it answers whether a trend exists, which decides whether your other tools apply.
Indicators
Why the Levels Work When They Work
Why the Levels Work When They Work
The numbers have no special property. What they have is a very large number of people drawing the same lines.
Indicators
Levels Calculated Before the Bell
Levels Calculated Before the Bell
Pivots are the one set of levels that exist before the session opens, which is exactly what makes them useful and what limits them.
Indicators
Up Is Not the Same as Strong
Up Is Not the Same as Strong
A stock up four percent in a market up five is lagging. Relative strength is the measure that notices.
Indicators
Beta Is a Backward-Looking Average
Beta Is a Backward-Looking Average
Beta describes how a stock moved with the market over a past window, and it goes missing in exactly the conditions you would want it for.
Indicators
Three Channels, Three Different Questions
Three Channels, Three Different Questions
Bollinger, Keltner and Donchian look alike and are built from completely different measurements — which is why they disagree.
Indicators
Five Lines That Answer One Question Each
Five Lines That Answer One Question Each
Ichimoku looks impenetrable because it is five indicators drawn at once. Taken one line at a time it is straightforward.
Indicators
A Stop That Only Moves One Way
A Stop That Only Moves One Way
Parabolic SAR is a trailing stop with an accelerator built in, and it is designed to eventually be hit.
Indicators
Two Oscillators With Awkward Scales
Two Oscillators With Awkward Scales
CCI is unbounded and Williams %R runs backwards. Both are readable once you know what the numbers mean.
Indicators
RSI With the Volume Put Back In
RSI With the Volume Put Back In
MFI weights each move by the money behind it, which makes its divergences mean more than a price-only oscillator's.
Indicators
Volume by Price, Not by Time
Volume by Price, Not by Time
Turning the volume bars on their side answers a question the usual chart cannot: where did the shares actually change hands?
Indicators
Where the Session Found Agreement
Where the Session Found Agreement
Market Profile organises a session by the prices that were accepted rather than by the order the minutes arrived in.
Indicators
The Theory That Always Fits Afterwards
The Theory That Always Fits Afterwards
Elliott Wave describes markets in five-wave impulses and three-wave corrections, and its flexibility is exactly the problem.
Indicators
A Framework Older Than the Charts
A Framework Older Than the Charts
Wyckoff describes accumulation and distribution phases driven by large operators, and its value is the questions it asks rather than the labels.
Indicators
When Price and Momentum Disagree
When Price and Momentum Disagree
Divergence is the one oscillator read that survives a trend — and it warns of a change in pace, never of a reversal.
Chart Patterns and Candlesticks
24 lessons · read the articlesPatterns
Four Numbers, One Shape
Four Numbers, One Shape
A candle encodes open, high, low and close in a shape you can read at a glance — and hides the order they happened in.
Patterns
Levels Are Zones, Not Lines
Levels Are Zones, Not Lines
Support is where enough buyers waited last time. Treating it as an exact price is the mistake that produces most stop-outs.
Patterns
The Line You Draw Is a Hypothesis
The Line You Draw Is a Hypothesis
A trendline is not found on the chart, it is proposed by you — which is why the honest version is drawn before the move, not after.
Patterns
The Pause That Has to Be Boring
The Pause That Has to Be Boring
What separates a bull flag from a reversal is not the shape of the pullback — it is how little conviction the pullback shows.
Patterns
Tight, Boring and Exactly the Point
Tight, Boring and Exactly the Point
A flat base is a shallow sideways range after an advance, and its virtue is how little happens in it.
Patterns
The Shape Is the Story of the Holders
The Shape Is the Story of the Holders
A cup and handle is a picture of sellers being exhausted and then tested one last time.
Patterns
A Ceiling Being Tested Ever Faster
A Ceiling Being Tested Ever Faster
Flat resistance with rising lows means buyers are willing to pay up sooner each time — until the ceiling gives.
Patterns
Each Pullback Smaller Than the Last
Each Pullback Smaller Than the Last
Volatility contraction is not a shape to recognise — it is a measurement of swings getting shorter as supply runs out.
Patterns
The Second Low Is the Whole Test
The Second Low Is the Whole Test
Two lows at roughly the same price mean nothing until the level between them gives way — and the second low usually should not be exact.
Patterns
The Most Over-Identified Pattern There Is
The Most Over-Identified Pattern There Is
Head and shoulders is real and it is also seen everywhere it is not. The neckline and the volume are what separate the two.
Patterns
Not All Gaps Are the Same Event
Not All Gaps Are the Same Event
A gap is a price range where nothing traded, and where it appears in a move tells you far more than the gap itself.
Patterns
One Candle Is Not a Reversal
One Candle Is Not a Reversal
Hammers, engulfings, dojis and shooting stars describe a single session's balance. Where they appear is what gives them weight.
Patterns
The Question Every Breakout Has to Answer
The Question Every Breakout Has to Answer
Volume is the only independent evidence a chart offers, which is why a move without it is a move nobody joined.
Patterns
A Failure Is Information, Not Bad Luck
A Failure Is Information, Not Bad Luck
When a pattern fails, a large group of traders is instantly wrong — and that is often a better trade than the pattern was.
Patterns
Both Rails Sloping the Same Way
Both Rails Sloping the Same Way
A wedge is the pattern most often confused with a flag, and the difference is that both boundaries tilt together.
Patterns
Two Ways to Take a Breath
Two Ways to Take a Breath
A pennant coils and a rectangle holds level. Both are pauses; the difference is whether the range is shrinking.
Patterns
The Mirror and the Coin Flip
The Mirror and the Coin Flip
A descending triangle is the ascending one inverted. A symmetrical triangle genuinely does not lean either way.
Patterns
The Pattern That Takes Months
The Pattern That Takes Months
A rounding base is slow by nature, and the slowness is the evidence: sentiment changing gradually rather than in a panic.
Patterns
A Cluster Stranded by Two Gaps
A Cluster Stranded by Two Gaps
An island is a group of bars isolated by a gap on each side, and its rarity is exactly why it is worth recognising.
Patterns
Three Sessions That Change the Balance
Three Sessions That Change the Balance
Morning and evening stars are three-candle sequences, and the middle candle — the indecision — is the hinge.
Patterns
Inside and Outside, and Why They Differ
Inside and Outside, and Why They Differ
A harami sits inside the prior candle and an engulfing swallows it. One means hesitation; the other means a decision.
Patterns
How Far Into the Last Candle?
How Far Into the Last Candle?
These two patterns are defined by depth of penetration, and the halfway mark is what separates a signal from an ordinary session.
Patterns
Three Sessions Pointing the Same Way
Three Sessions Pointing the Same Way
Three consecutive strong candles in one direction describe persistent one-sided pressure, and by the third one much of the move is spent.
Patterns
Where the Target Number Comes From
Where the Target Number Comes From
Measured moves are a planning convention, not a prediction — and their real job is telling you when not to take the trade.
Charting Concepts
14 lessons · read the articlesCharting
Three Charts, Three Verdicts
Three Charts, Three Verdicts
The same security can be in an uptrend, a downtrend and a range at once, depending only on which timeframe you opened.
Charting
The Setting That Redraws Your Trendline
The Setting That Redraws Your Trendline
Linear scale spaces equal dollars, log scale spaces equal percentages, and over a long move they disagree completely.
Charting
Five Ways to Draw the Same Session
Five Ways to Draw the Same Session
Candles, bars, line, area and Heikin-Ashi encode different amounts of the same data, and one of them is not raw price at all.
Charting
Why Your Chart Disagrees With History
Why Your Chart Disagrees With History
Adjusted prices restate the past for splits and dividends, which makes returns correct and historical price levels wrong.
Charting
The Setting That Invents Gaps
The Setting That Invents Gaps
Hiding extended-hours trading creates gaps where trading actually happened, and turning it on moves every level on the chart.
Charting
Fewer Lines, Drawn Earlier
Fewer Lines, Drawn Earlier
Drawing tools are for recording a decision before the move, and a chart covered in lines is a chart nobody can read.
Charting
Same Questions, Same Order, Every Time
Same Questions, Same Order, Every Time
A saved template is a process written down, and it stops your analysis changing shape depending on your mood.
Charting
Fifteen Minutes Is a Long Time
Fifteen Minutes Is a Long Time
Delayed data is accurate and old, which is fine for analysis and quietly dangerous for execution.
Charting
Charts With No Time Axis at All
Charts With No Time Axis at All
Renko and point-and-figure only print when price moves a set amount, which filters noise and discards when everything happened.
Charting
The Only Honest Way to Practise
The Only Honest Way to Practise
Bar replay hides the right-hand side of the chart, which is the one condition that makes practice resemble the real decision.
Charting
Let the Chart Watch Itself
Let the Chart Watch Itself
An alert converts a plan you made calmly into a notification, which removes the need to watch and the temptation to act early.
Charting
Compare Percentages, Never Prices
Compare Percentages, Never Prices
Overlaying two securities on one price axis is meaningless. Rebasing both to a common start is what makes the comparison real.
Charting
Watching Several Things Without Watching Nothing
Watching Several Things Without Watching Nothing
A multi-chart layout is useful up to the point where no single chart is being read, and that point arrives quickly.
Charting
Check the Axes Before the Shape
Check the Axes Before the Shape
Someone else's chart carries their choices — timeframe, scale, date range, adjustment — and every one of them shapes the conclusion.
SEC Filings and Disclosure
20 lessons · read the articlesFilings
Everything, Free, The Moment It Lands
Everything, Free, The Moment It Lands
EDGAR holds every filing a public company makes, published the instant it is accepted — the same feed the professionals read.
Filings
Four Sections Worth Your Afternoon
Four Sections Worth Your Afternoon
A 10-K runs to hundreds of pages, and almost everything you need is in four of its items.
Filings
Lighter, Faster, and Unaudited
Lighter, Faster, and Unaudited
The quarterly report arrives sooner and carries less assurance, which changes how much weight a single quarter deserves.
Filings
The Filing That Cannot Wait
The Filing That Cannot Wait
An 8-K reports a material event within days, and the item number tells you what happened before you read a word.
Filings
Where the Pay and the Conflicts Live
Where the Pay and the Conflicts Live
The proxy is the only filing that says what management is paid to achieve, and what related-party arrangements exist.
Filings
The First Time a Company Explains Itself
The First Time a Company Explains Itself
An S-1 is the most complete document a company ever files, because it is the first and everything has to be established from scratch.
Filings
Permission to Sell, Held in Advance
Permission to Sell, Held in Advance
A shelf registration is standing authority to issue shares later, and an at-the-market program lets a company sell them quietly into the open market.
Filings
A Photograph Forty-Five Days Old
A Photograph Forty-Five Days Old
13F shows what large managers held at quarter end, reported six weeks later and with significant categories missing.
Filings
One Letter Tells You the Intent
One Letter Tells You the Intent
Crossing five percent triggers a filing, and whether it is a 13D or a 13G says whether the holder plans to interfere.
Filings
The Two-Day Filing
The Two-Day Filing
Insider transactions must be reported within two business days, and the transaction code tells you whether it was a real decision.
Filings
The Offering, Priced and Final
The Offering, Priced and Final
A 424B is the filing that says an offering actually happened, at what price and in what size — the details the announcement leaves out.
Filings
A Notice of Intent to Sell
A Notice of Intent to Sell
Form 144 signals a planned sale by an affiliate before it happens, which makes it the earliest warning of insider supply.
Filings
The Spread Is the Market's Doubt
The Spread Is the Market's Doubt
When a deal is announced the target trades below the offer, and the size of that gap is a live estimate of the odds it closes.
Filings
The Regulator's Questions, Published
The Regulator's Questions, Published
When the SEC queries a filing, both the questions and the company's answers become public — and nobody reads them.
Filings
Twenty Minutes, Done Properly
Twenty Minutes, Done Properly
A filing can be triaged quickly if you read it in the right order and use the search box instead of the first page.
Filings
The Annual Report of a Foreign Filer
The Annual Report of a Foreign Filer
Foreign private issuers file a 20-F rather than a 10-K, which means different accounting, less frequency and a later deadline.
Filings
The Filing About the Employee Plan
The Filing About the Employee Plan
An 11-K reports on a company's employee stock plan, and its main value is showing how much of the plan sits in employer stock.
Filings
The Filing That Has to Argue Fairness
The Filing That Has to Argue Fairness
A going-private transaction requires an unusual disclosure: the insiders must state why they believe the price is fair to everyone else.
Filings
Raising Money Without a Full Registration
Raising Money Without a Full Registration
Exemptions let companies raise capital with far less disclosure, and the trade-off falls on whoever buys the securities.
Filings
Filings a Machine Can Read
Filings a Machine Can Read
Every US filing is tagged in a structured format, which is why screening across thousands of companies is possible at all.
Macro and the Federal Reserve
20 lessons · read the articlesMacro
One Rate, and Everything Downstream
One Rate, and Everything Downstream
The Fed sets one overnight rate between banks. Every other rate in the economy is a market's reaction to it.
Macro
The Chart That Is Not a Promise
The Chart That Is Not a Promise
The dot plot shows where each official thinks rates should go, anonymously and without commitment — which is why it moves so much.
Macro
The Rate Everything Else Is Priced From
The Rate Everything Else Is Priced From
The fed funds rate is what banks charge each other overnight, and it is the anchor for every other rate in the system.
Macro
Changing the Size of the Balance Sheet
Changing the Size of the Balance Sheet
QE is the Fed buying bonds when it cannot cut rates further, and QT is letting those holdings run off. Both work on long rates rather than short ones.
Macro
The Number Behind the Headline
The Number Behind the Headline
CPI is a basket, a set of weights and a series of judgements — and the core measure exists because the headline is too noisy to steer by.
Macro
The Measure the Fed Actually Targets
The Measure the Fed Actually Targets
The Fed's two percent target is PCE, not CPI, and the two differ in weights and in whether they let people substitute.
Macro
Two Surveys That Disagree
Two Surveys That Disagree
The payrolls number and the unemployment rate come from two different surveys, which is why they sometimes tell opposite stories.
Macro
The Slowest Important Number
The Slowest Important Number
GDP is comprehensive, quarterly and revised repeatedly, which makes it excellent history and a poor early warning.
Macro
The Signal With No Timetable
The Signal With No Timetable
An inverted curve has preceded recessions with a good record and terrible timing, which makes it a warning rather than a trigger.
Macro
A Currency Move Is an Earnings Move
A Currency Move Is an Earnings Move
A large share of index revenue is earned abroad, so the dollar changes reported earnings without anything happening in the business.
Macro
The Inflation Policy Cannot Fix
The Inflation Policy Cannot Fix
A supply shock raises prices and lowers output at the same time, which is the one combination interest rates cannot solve.
Macro
Only a Few Releases Actually Matter
Only a Few Releases Actually Matter
Dozens of data points publish every week and a handful move markets. The difference is whether the release changes the rate path.
Macro
Fifty Is the Whole Scale
Fifty Is the Whole Scale
Survey indices ask whether conditions improved, not by how much — so the level tells you direction and the change tells you momentum.
Macro
Two Thirds of the Economy
Two Thirds of the Economy
Consumption dominates GDP, so retail sales is one of the few monthly numbers that genuinely tracks the whole economy.
Macro
The Most Rate-Sensitive Thing There Is
The Most Rate-Sensitive Thing There Is
Housing responds to interest rates faster than almost anything else, which makes it an early read on whether policy is working.
Macro
What People Say Versus What They Do
What People Say Versus What They Do
Sentiment surveys measure how people feel, and the gap between stated pessimism and actual spending is often very wide.
Macro
The Other Lever, and Who Holds It
The Other Lever, and Who Holds It
Fiscal policy is spending and taxation, controlled by Congress rather than the Fed, and it can push directly against monetary policy.
Macro
A Measure That Stopped Behaving
A Measure That Stopped Behaving
Money supply once tracked inflation closely enough to target, and the relationship broke down badly enough that policy abandoned it.
Macro
One Number for the Whole Environment
One Number for the Whole Environment
A financial conditions index bundles rates, spreads, equities and the dollar into a single measure of how easy money is to get.
Macro
Rates Are Relative Too
Rates Are Relative Too
The Fed is not alone, and the gap between its policy and everyone else's drives currencies and capital flows.
Risk, Sizing and Execution
15 lessons · read the articlesRisk
Size Is the Decision, Not the Entry
Size Is the Decision, Not the Entry
Position size is what turns a stop distance into a fixed, known risk — and it is the only variable you fully control.
Risk
A Stop Is a Statement, Not a Wish
A Stop Is a Statement, Not a Wish
A stop marks the price at which your reason for the trade is gone — which is a chart decision, not a tolerance for pain.
Risk
The Number That Lets You Be Wrong
The Number That Lets You Be Wrong
Reward-to-risk decides how often you can be wrong and still be profitable, which is why it is checked before the entry.
Risk
Diversification Fails When You Need It
Diversification Fails When You Need It
Holding many things only reduces risk if they do not move together, and correlations converge toward one in exactly the worst conditions.
Risk
The Maths That Punishes Big Losses
The Maths That Punishes Big Losses
Recovery is not symmetric with loss, and the asymmetry gets brutal fast — which is the entire argument for cutting losses early.
Risk
Being Right Is Not the Goal
Being Right Is Not the Goal
Expectancy combines how often you win with how much you win, and it is entirely possible to be right most of the time and lose money.
Risk
The Price You See Is Not the Price You Get
The Price You See Is Not the Price You Get
Slippage is the gap between the quote and your fill, and it scales with your size relative to what actually trades.
Risk
The Costs That Are Not on the Statement
The Costs That Are Not on the Statement
Commission is the smallest and most visible cost. Spread, slippage, taxes and financing are larger and mostly invisible.
Risk
Decide Before It Costs You Anything
Decide Before It Costs You Anything
A written plan is not bureaucracy. It is a decision made while you are calm, to be executed while you are not.
Risk
The Optimal Bet Nobody Should Take
The Optimal Bet Nobody Should Take
Kelly gives the mathematically growth-optimal position size, and almost every practitioner uses a fraction of it, for good reasons.
Risk
Splitting the Decision Into Pieces
Splitting the Decision Into Pieces
Scaling trades a better average for a smaller position, and both directions have a cost worth naming.
Risk
Paying to Remove a Risk
Paying to Remove a Risk
A hedge exchanges an uncertain outcome for a smaller certain cost, which means a hedge that never pays out did its job.
Risk
Add Up What You Would Lose Today
Add Up What You Would Lose Today
Portfolio heat is the total risk across every open position, and it is the number that stops a good rule from failing in aggregate.
Risk
The Events the Model Says Cannot Happen
The Events the Model Says Cannot Happen
Financial returns have fatter tails than a normal distribution, which is why 'once in ten thousand years' events keep arriving every decade.
Risk
Two Strategies, One Bet
Two Strategies, One Bet
Strategies that look different can depend on the same market condition, which means they fail in the same week.
Trading Psychology
11 lessons · read the articlesPsychology
The Worst Price Feels the Safest
The Worst Price Feels the Safest
Chasing happens because confidence peaks exactly when a move is most extended, which is also when the risk is largest.
Psychology
Why Losers Get Held and Winners Get Sold
Why Losers Get Held and Winners Get Sold
Losses feel roughly twice as strong as equivalent gains, which produces exactly the wrong holding behaviour in both directions.
Psychology
You Will Find What You Look For
You Will Find What You Look For
Once a position exists, the search itself becomes biased — and the fix is a written disconfirming condition rather than an intention to stay objective.
Psychology
Activity Feels Like Progress
Activity Feels Like Progress
Trading more feels productive and costs money at every step, which is why frequency needs a limit that is not based on how you feel.
Psychology
Memory Is Not Evidence
Memory Is Not Evidence
You will remember your trading inaccurately and in a flattering direction, which makes a written record the only real feedback loop.
Psychology
Four Boxes, Not Two
Four Boxes, Not Two
A good decision can lose and a bad one can win, so judging yourself on outcomes teaches exactly the wrong lessons.
Psychology
The Price You Paid Is Irrelevant
The Price You Paid Is Irrelevant
Your entry price is a fact about your history, not about the security, yet it dominates decisions it should have no part in.
Psychology
The Last Thing Weighs the Most
The Last Thing Weighs the Most
Recent events dominate judgement out of all proportion, which is why strategies get abandoned right before they start working.
Psychology
Comfort Is Not Confirmation
Comfort Is Not Confirmation
Agreement feels like evidence and is not, and crowded positions are exactly the ones with the narrowest exit.
Psychology
Skill and Luck Look Identical Early
Skill and Luck Look Identical Early
A run of wins feels like evidence of skill, and it is exactly the moment position size tends to increase.
Psychology
Avoiding the Feeling, Not the Loss
Avoiding the Feeling, Not the Loss
Regret aversion changes behaviour to minimise how bad a decision will feel rather than how much it costs.
Accounts, Brokers and Execution
14 lessons · read the articlesAccounts
The Wrapper Decides the Tax
The Wrapper Decides the Tax
The same portfolio in a taxable account, an IRA and a Roth produces three completely different after-tax outcomes.
Accounts
Two Different Legal Relationships
Two Different Legal Relationships
A margin account is not just a cash account with borrowing. The shares are held differently, and that changes what you own.
Accounts
The Call You Do Not Get to Answer
The Call You Do Not Get to Answer
A margin call is a broker's right to sell your positions, at their discretion, and the timeline can be measured in hours.
Accounts
The Number That Is Not Your Money
The Number That Is Not Your Money
Buying power in a margin account includes borrowed funds, so using all of it means being fully leveraged.
Accounts
Who Pays for Your Free Trade
Who Pays for Your Free Trade
Payment for order flow means a firm pays your broker to handle your order, which is where the revenue from commission-free trading comes from.
Accounts
It Covers the Broker Failing, Not the Market
It Covers the Broker Failing, Not the Market
SIPC protects against your brokerage disappearing. It offers nothing at all against your investments falling.
Accounts
Ten Minutes Before You Send Money
Ten Minutes Before You Send Money
Registration and disciplinary history are public and free to search, and checking them is the single highest-value ten minutes available.
Accounts
Where the Costs Are Actually Written
Where the Costs Are Actually Written
A statement records what happened, and the sections most people skip are where fees, lending and cost basis are disclosed.
Accounts
What Happens to Your Position Overnight
What Happens to Your Position Overnight
Splits, mergers and spin-offs reach your account through a processing chain, and the delay between the event and your statement is normal.
Accounts
Moving an Account Without Selling It
Moving an Account Without Selling It
A transfer moves positions in kind rather than liquidating them, which preserves both the tax position and the cost basis — if it goes right.
Accounts
A Share of a Share, Held by the Broker
A Share of a Share, Held by the Broker
Fractional shares let small amounts be invested fully, and the fraction is a broker-level record rather than something the market knows about.
Accounts
Automatic, and Not Always Right
Automatic, and Not Always Right
Reinvesting dividends compounds automatically and creates a long tail of tax lots, and it quietly overrides your allocation.
Accounts
Your Shares, Somebody Else's Trade
Your Shares, Somebody Else's Trade
Brokers lend customer shares to short sellers, and the member usually finds out through a changed dividend line on a statement.
Accounts
The Receipt Worth Reading Once
The Receipt Worth Reading Once
A confirmation is the legal record of what happened, and it discloses the capacity, the venue and the fees the ticket price hides.
Fixed Income in Depth
10 lessons · read the articlesFixed Income
Lending to a Company, With Rules
Lending to a Company, With Rules
A corporate bond is a contract with a legal claim ahead of shareholders, and the covenants inside it are where the protection lives.
Fixed Income
An Opinion, Paid For by the Issuer
An Opinion, Paid For by the Issuer
Ratings are useful, standardised and structurally conflicted, and the line between investment grade and high yield moves real money.
Fixed Income
The Market's Live Fear Gauge
The Market's Live Fear Gauge
A credit spread is the extra yield demanded over a government bond, and it reprices continuously while ratings do not.
Fixed Income
Somebody Else Holds an Option
Somebody Else Holds an Option
An embedded call lets the issuer repay early, which caps your upside exactly when falling rates would have paid you.
Fixed Income
Compare After Tax, Not Before
Compare After Tax, Not Before
A municipal bond's lower yield can be worth more than a corporate's higher one, and only the taxable-equivalent yield reveals it.
Fixed Income
The Principal Moves With Prices
The Principal Moves With Prices
Inflation-linked bonds adjust their principal with the price index, which protects purchasing power and creates a tax quirk.
Fixed Income
Three Ways to Arrange Maturities
Three Ways to Arrange Maturities
A ladder, a barbell and a bullet hold the same asset class and produce completely different sensitivities to rates.
Fixed Income
One Has a Maturity Date, One Does Not
One Has a Maturity Date, One Does Not
An individual bond repays par on a known date. A bond fund never matures, which changes what a rate rise means for you.
Fixed Income
Nearly Cash, and Not Quite
Nearly Cash, and Not Quite
Money market funds hold very short, very high-quality paper and are close to cash — but they are investments, not deposits.
Fixed Income
Default Is Not Zero
Default Is Not Zero
A default is a missed payment rather than a total loss, and what a holder gets back depends almost entirely on where they sat in the queue.
Derivatives
14 lessons · read the articlesDerivatives
Two Halves, and Only One Survives
Two Halves, and Only One Survives
An option price is intrinsic value plus time value, and the time half decays to nothing on a schedule that accelerates.
Derivatives
Four Numbers That Explain the Move
Four Numbers That Explain the Move
Delta, gamma, theta and vega each measure sensitivity to one thing, and together they explain why a correct call still lost money.
Derivatives
The Move the Market Has Already Priced
The Move the Market Has Already Priced
Implied volatility converts into a dollar range, and that range is the bar your trade has to clear rather than the direction.
Derivatives
Selling the Upside You Already Own
Selling the Upside You Already Own
A covered call collects premium in exchange for capping the gain, which makes it a trade about the distribution, not a free yield.
Derivatives
Insurance, With a Premium to Match
Insurance, With a Premium to Match
A protective put sets a floor under a position, and like all insurance it costs money whether or not you need it.
Derivatives
Capping Both Ends on Purpose
Capping Both Ends on Purpose
A vertical spread buys one option and sells another, which caps the gain, caps the loss and cuts the cost of being wrong on timing.
Derivatives
Selling Time to Somebody in a Hurry
Selling Time to Somebody in a Hurry
A calendar spread sells a near option and buys a further one, which makes it a position on time decay rather than on direction.
Derivatives
The Obligation That Arrives Overnight
The Obligation That Arrives Overnight
Selling an option means it can be exercised against you, and the timing is not yours to choose.
Derivatives
Buying Time Instead of Renting It
Buying Time Instead of Renting It
A long-dated option decays slowly and costs far more upfront, which changes what can go wrong with the position.
Derivatives
An Agreement, Not a Purchase
An Agreement, Not a Purchase
A futures contract commits both sides to a transaction on a future date, which is why the margin is a performance bond rather than a down payment.
Derivatives
Settled Every Single Day
Settled Every Single Day
Futures gains and losses move in cash daily, which means a position can be closed out long before your view is proved right.
Derivatives
Losing Money in a Rising Market
Losing Money in a Rising Market
Roll yield can make a commodity fund fall over a year in which the underlying commodity rose, and the futures curve is where you see it coming.
Derivatives
You Cannot Buy the Index
You Cannot Buy the Index
VIX is a calculation, not a tradable asset, so every product tracking it holds futures — and inherits their roll cost.
Derivatives
Daily Means Daily
Daily Means Daily
A 3x fund promises three times the daily return, and compounding those daily results over time produces something quite different.
Crypto and Digital Assets
6 lessons · read the articlesCrypto
A Ledger Nobody Owns
A Ledger Nobody Owns
A blockchain is a shared record that many parties can verify and none can quietly rewrite, and that property is the entire technical claim.
Crypto
The Key Is the Asset
The Key Is the Asset
Ownership is possession of a private key, which makes self-custody genuinely final in both directions.
Crypto
An IOU Until You Withdraw
An IOU Until You Withdraw
A balance shown on a platform is a claim on that platform, and several large failures have demonstrated exactly what that means.
Crypto
The Wrapper Changes the Risks
The Wrapper Changes the Risks
A spot ETF puts crypto inside a regulated fund structure, which removes some risks, adds others, and changes none of the price volatility.
Crypto
Stable Depends Entirely on the Backing
Stable Depends Entirely on the Backing
A stablecoin holds its peg because of what stands behind it, and that backing ranges from short Treasuries to nothing but an algorithm.
Crypto
The Question Still Being Argued
The Question Still Being Argued
Whether a given token is a security decides which rules apply to it, and that question has been contested rather than settled.
Portfolio Construction
12 lessons · read the articlesPortfolio
The Decision That Outweighs the Rest
The Decision That Outweighs the Rest
How much sits in each asset class explains most of a portfolio's variability — far more than which specific securities were chosen.
Portfolio
Selling What Worked, On Purpose
Selling What Worked, On Purpose
Without rebalancing a portfolio drifts into whatever has risen most, which is the opposite of what the original plan intended.
Portfolio
A Behavioural Tool, Not a Return Booster
A Behavioural Tool, Not a Return Booster
Spreading purchases over time usually costs a little return and buys a large amount of consistency, and that trade is often correct.
Portfolio
Two Different Questions
Two Different Questions
Horizon is when you need the money and tolerance is what you can watch happen. The lower of the two governs.
Portfolio
The Yardstick Decides the Verdict
The Yardstick Decides the Verdict
Beating a benchmark means nothing unless the benchmark represents what you could have held instead.
Portfolio
How Far a Fund Wanders
How Far a Fund Wanders
Tracking error measures how much a fund's returns differ from its benchmark, and low is only good if tracking was the point.
Portfolio
Return Per Unit of Discomfort
Return Per Unit of Discomfort
Sharpe divides excess return by total volatility; Sortino divides it by downside volatility only, which changes who looks good.
Portfolio
An Idea Worth Knowing, and Its Limits
An Idea Worth Knowing, and Its Limits
The frontier shows the best return available at each level of risk, computed from inputs nobody can actually know in advance.
Portfolio
Where the Return Actually Came From
Where the Return Actually Came From
Attribution splits a result into the decisions behind it, which usually shows the return came from somewhere nobody intended.
Portfolio
Your Country Is Not the Market
Your Country Is Not the Market
Investors everywhere hold far more of their own country than its share of world markets, which concentrates risk they already carry.
Portfolio
Concentration Builds It, Diversification Keeps It
Concentration Builds It, Diversification Keeps It
Concentration and diversification answer different questions, and the right answer changes with how much you already have.
Portfolio
Order Matters More Than Average
Order Matters More Than Average
When you are withdrawing, the sequence of returns changes the outcome — the same average return can leave you fine or leave you broke.
Quantitative and Factor Investing
10 lessons · read the articlesQuant
Cheap for a Reason, or Cheap by Mistake
Cheap for a Reason, or Cheap by Mistake
The value premium is one of the most studied results in finance, and it has spent long stretches not working at all.
Quant
The Effect That Should Not Exist
The Effect That Should Not Exist
Momentum is the best-documented and least comfortable anomaly: what has gone up keeps going up, until it crashes.
Quant
The Factor With the Best Story
The Factor With the Best Story
Quality screens for profitable, stable, well-financed firms, and it is the factor whose economic explanation is least strained.
Quant
Two Factors That Argue With Each Other
Two Factors That Argue With Each Other
The size premium says riskier small companies pay more; the low-volatility anomaly says calmer stocks do. Both cannot be a pure risk story.
Quant
Every Factor Has a Bad Decade
Every Factor Has a Bad Decade
Factors take turns working, and the periods of underperformance are long enough that almost nobody sits through them.
Quant
The Past Is Easy to Beat
The Past Is Easy to Beat
A backtest is a claim about a strategy that was designed after seeing the data, and there are several specific ways it inflates.
Quant
Fitting the Noise Perfectly
Fitting the Noise Perfectly
More parameters always fit history better and usually predict worse, and the gap between the two is the whole problem.
Quant
Two Ways the Data Lies
Two Ways the Data Lies
Survivorship removes the failures from history and look-ahead gives you information you could not have had. Both inflate results quietly.
Quant
The Line That Kills Most Strategies
The Line That Kills Most Strategies
Modelling costs properly is what separates a backtest from a plan, and impact grows faster than order size.
Quant
Testing on Data You Have Not Seen
Testing on Data You Have Not Seen
Walk-forward optimisation repeatedly fits on one period and tests on the next, which is the closest a backtest gets to honest.
Taxes
One Day Changes the Rate
One Day Changes the Rate
Holding period decides which rate applies, and the boundary is a single day past a year.
Taxes
Not Every Dividend Is Taxed the Same
Not Every Dividend Is Taxed the Same
Qualified dividends get preferential rates if a holding-period test is met, and several common income types never qualify at all.
Taxes
Which Shares Did You Just Sell?
Which Shares Did You Just Sell?
When you hold several lots, the method decides which one is sold — and that decides the gain reported.
Taxes
The Loss That Does Not Count Yet
The Loss That Does Not Count Yet
Selling at a loss and repurchasing a substantially identical security within a window defers the loss rather than allowing it.
Taxes
Realising a Loss On Purpose
Realising a Loss On Purpose
Harvesting converts a paper loss into a deduction against gains, and the value is real but smaller than it is often presented.
Taxes
Pay Now or Pay Later
Pay Now or Pay Later
Traditional and Roth accounts differ in when tax is paid, and the right choice depends on a rate comparison nobody can make with certainty.
Taxes
The Withdrawal You Do Not Choose
The Withdrawal You Do Not Choose
Tax deferral eventually ends: traditional accounts require withdrawals on a schedule, whether you need the money or not.
Taxes
The Form That Arrives After the Deadline
The Form That Arrives After the Deadline
Partnership structures pass income through to holders on a K-1, which changes both the paperwork and the timing of your filing.
Taxes
Tax Taken Before You See It
Tax Taken Before You See It
A foreign government withholds tax on its companies' dividends before payment, and whether you recover it depends on the account and the treaty.
Taxes
The Second Tax Bill
The Second Tax Bill
State treatment varies enormously and interacts with federal rules, which is why the same trade costs different amounts in different places.
Investor Protection and Fraud
10 lessons · read the articlesProtection
Who You Would Actually Call
Who You Would Actually Call
Several bodies regulate different parts of the market, and knowing which one covers your problem decides whether anyone can help.
Protection
The Records Are Public and Free
The Records Are Public and Free
Registration status and disciplinary history are searchable by name in minutes, and almost nobody looks before sending money.
Protection
The Same Six Signs, Every Time
The Same Six Signs, Every Time
Frauds vary in story and repeat in structure, and the recurring signs are about the arrangement rather than the investment.
Protection
Paid From the Next Person's Money
Paid From the Next Person's Money
A Ponzi pays existing investors from new deposits, which makes it mathematically certain to collapse and briefly indistinguishable from success.
Protection
Trust Borrowed From a Group
Trust Borrowed From a Group
Affinity fraud works by joining a community first, so the usual verification is skipped because someone trusted made the introduction.
Protection
Somebody Needs You to Buy
Somebody Needs You to Buy
A pump-and-dump manufactures demand in a thin security so an existing holder can sell into it, and the promotion is the product.
Protection
Why Did This Reach You?
Why Did This Reach You?
An unsolicited approach about an investment is a marketing act, and the first question is why you specifically were contacted.
Protection
Paid Promotion Has to Say So
Paid Promotion Has to Say So
Anyone paid to promote a security must disclose it, and that disclosure is usually present, in small print, at the bottom.
Protection
The Route You Already Agreed To
The Route You Already Agreed To
Most brokerage agreements commit disputes to arbitration rather than court, and knowing the sequence matters before anything goes wrong.
Protection
The Defence Is Set Up in Advance
The Defence Is Set Up in Advance
Exploitation of older investors relies on isolation and urgency, and the protections that work are the ones arranged before anything happens.
Using MadStockAlerts
16 lessons · read the articlesThe Platform
Ten Cards, Ten Questions
Ten Cards, Ten Questions
Deep Dive answers one company at a time, and each card exists to answer a specific question rather than to display everything available.
The Platform
The Same Question, Across the Market
The Same Question, Across the Market
Deep Dive 2 inverts the first: instead of everything about one company, it ranks every company on one measure.
The Platform
What the Analyzer Computes For You
What the Analyzer Computes For You
The Chart Analyzer reads the indicators on the chart and states what they say, with the definitions attached.
The Platform
A Workspace, Not a Chart
A Workspace, Not a Chart
Pro Charting is built for comparing several securities and timeframes at once, which is a different job from studying one chart.
The Platform
Two Dimensions in One Box
Two Dimensions in One Box
The heatmap encodes size and move together, and the 9-box splits the market into a grid you can read at a glance.
The Platform
Rotation, Made Visible
Rotation, Made Visible
Sector performance shows which parts of the market are leading, and the pattern of leadership carries information the index alone hides.
The Platform
The Calendar That Owns Your Risk
The Calendar That Owns Your Risk
Scheduled events are the known moments when a position can gap through a stop, and they are all knowable in advance.
The Platform
Reading Flows That Arrive Late
Reading Flows That Arrive Late
Institutional ownership data is delayed and partial by law, which decides exactly what it can and cannot be used for.
The Platform
A Filter, Not an Answer
A Filter, Not an Answer
The Scanner narrows thousands of securities to a readable list, and everything after that is research you still have to do.
The Platform
The Sixty-Second Orientation
The Sixty-Second Orientation
The Market Dashboard exists to answer what kind of day this is, before you look at any individual security.
The Platform
A List That Earns Its Place
A List That Earns Its Place
A watchlist is only useful if it is short enough to actually read, and the news desk exists to explain a move you have already noticed.
The Platform
Every Field, and What It Is Not
Every Field, and What It Is Not
An alert states what was observed and the levels the setup implies. It is educational analysis, and it is never an instruction.
The Platform
Named, So They Can Be Compared
Named, So They Can Be Compared
Naming setups precisely is what makes performance measurable, because a shape that means different things cannot be tracked.
The Platform
Conditions Fixed Before the Data Arrives
Conditions Fixed Before the Data Arrives
Setup detection applies conditions written in advance to every security, which is what makes the results countable rather than anecdotal.
The Platform
The Rules Are Fixed Before the Result
The Rules Are Fixed Before the Result
Performance measurement only means something when the window, the price and the counting rules are set in advance and never adjusted.
The Platform
Know Which Data You Are Looking At
Know Which Data You Are Looking At
Different products carry different data timeliness, and knowing which you have decides what you can safely do with it.
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