Trading education & analysis tools
Learn technical analysis. Trade with defined risk.
In-depth guides to candlestick patterns, chart analysis and risk management, plus eleven free calculators and a stock market simulator. Every guide gives you the setup, the level that invalidates it, and how to size the position.
- Every pattern with its own chart, entry rules and stop placement
- Calculators run in your browser, and nothing you enter is stored
- No account, no paywall, no email required
Core guides
The mechanics of trading, how to read a chart, and the risk arithmetic that decides whether a strategy survives a losing streak.
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Stock Trading
How a trade works from order to exit, what it really costs you, and how trading differs from investing.
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Technical Analysis
Reading trend, levels and volume, with an honest account of what chart reading can't do.
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Day Trading
The mechanics, the $25,000 rule, four real strategies, and the success rates nobody advertises.
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Swing Trading
Days to weeks, and it fits around a job. The most realistic style for most people, once you respect the overnight risk.
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Options Trading
Calls, puts, time decay and the Greeks, plus which strategies beginners should never touch.
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Risk Management
Position sizing, stops, R multiples and drawdown maths. This is the part that decides whether you last.
Candlestick patterns
Each guide covers the same ground: the identification rules, the order flow that produces the shape, what makes it fail, and where the stop belongs.
- bullish 1 candle
Hammer Candlestick Pattern
That long tail marks a price where buyers absorbed everything the sellers had. The people who sold into those lows are trapped, and their buying back is the fuel.
- bullish 2 candles
Bullish Engulfing Pattern
Control of the market changed hands in one session, and the shorts who were comfortable the day before are now covering into it. The confirmation is built into the candle.
- neutral 1 candle
Doji Candlestick
Open and close land at the same price, so the body shrinks to a line. Dragonfly and gravestone are the two worth acting on; a short-shadowed one is usually a slow day.
- bearish 1 candle
Shooting Star Candlestick
Buyers drove price up all session and handed back every point by the close. The crowd that bought near the high is now holding losses, and their stops sit just below.
- bearish 2 candles
Bearish Engulfing Pattern
By the close, every long opened in the previous session is underwater and the stops beneath it are already firing. That forced selling is why these follow through fast.
From the blog
What the writers learned the expensive way, and what they do differently now.
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Don't Confuse a Bull Market With Skill
Buy more or less anything in a rising market and it pays. Subtract what an index fund would have returned at your average exposure, and what remains is your contribution.
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The First and Last Hour of Trading: Why Volatility Peaks
The open is where every order held overnight arrives at once and price argues its way to a level. Let the argument finish and the range it leaves behind is worth trading.
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Relative Strength Beats Buying Cheap
Whoever held a stock up through the decline was choosing it while everything else sat on sale. That says something about demand that no valuation ratio will tell you.
Free trading calculators
Position sizing, risk/reward, options payoff, dividends and a stock market simulator. Everything runs in your browser, and the numbers you enter never leave it.
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How many shares should I buy?
Position Size Calculator
Work out exactly how many shares to buy so a stop-out costs only what you decided to risk.
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Is this trade worth taking?
Risk / Reward Calculator
Reward-to-risk ratio, R multiple, and the win rate you would need just to break even.
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What did this trade net?
Stock Profit Calculator
What a trade actually netted after commissions, in dollars, percent and R. Works for long or short.
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What is my real cost basis?
Stock Average Calculator
Weighted average cost across multiple purchases, plus break-even price and unrealised P&L.
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What does a split do to my holding?
Stock Split Calculator
How a forward or reverse split changes your share count, price and cost basis.
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What does this option pay at expiry?
Options Profit Calculator
Profit, loss and breakeven for calls and puts at expiry, with a payoff diagram.
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What will this portfolio pay me?
Dividend Calculator
Project dividend income over time, with reinvestment and dividend growth.
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Is this yield sustainable?
Dividend Yield Calculator
Yield, yield on cost and the payout ratio that shows whether a dividend is affordable.
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How does an account grow over time?
Compound Growth Calculator
Project an account forward with compounding returns and regular contributions.
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How big is this company really?
Market Cap Calculator
Market capitalisation, size category, enterprise value and P/E from share count and price.
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Can I practise without risking money?
Stock Market Simulator
Practise on a live-moving chart with fake money. Buy, sell, set stops and advance the chart day by day.
How we cover this
Where each method breaks
Most pattern guides list shapes and let you assume they're signals. Every guide here spends as long on what breaks a pattern as on the pattern itself, because that's where positions are lost.
No signals, picks or subscriptions
We don't publish trade ideas, run a chat room, or take broker affiliate commissions in exchange for recommendations. The site covers method. The decisions stay yours.
Risk before entries
Position sizing, R multiples and expectancy get more coverage here than entry signals do, because over a few hundred trades they account for more of the result.
New to this?
Start here
Read these three in order. Between them they cover the shape, the context and the arithmetic, which is most of what you need before risking real money.
- The complete candlestick pattern referenceWhat each shape means, and when it doesn't matter.
- Risk management from first principlesWhy sizing decides your results more than analysis does.
- The position size calculatorTurn a stop level into the number of shares to buy.