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
One of the most reliable single-candle reversal signals when it appears in the right place. Here is how to tell a real hammer from the dozens of look-alikes that trap beginners.
- bullish 2 candles
Bullish Engulfing Pattern
A two-candle reversal that carries its own confirmation. When a green candle completely engulfs the prior red one, control of the market changed hands in a single session.
- neutral 1 candle
Doji Candlestick
The most misunderstood candle on the chart. A doji marks a pause and never a reversal on its own, and knowing that difference separates the traders who use it well from the ones who lose money on it.
- bearish 1 candle
Shooting Star Candlestick
The mirror image of the hammer, appearing at tops. A long upper shadow means the rally was sold into, and everyone who bought the high is now trapped.
- bearish 2 candles
Bearish Engulfing Pattern
A two-candle topping signal with confirmation built in. When a red candle swallows the prior green one whole, sellers took back a full session in a single day.
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
When everything goes up, every long strategy looks as though it works. The real test of a method is a sideways year and a falling one, and most traders have never run either.
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The First and Last Hour of Trading: Why Volatility Peaks
The open is where overnight orders collide and price finds its level. Plenty of pros wait for that to settle before committing. Here's what's happening and how to use it.
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Relative Strength Beats Buying Cheap
The stock that fell least while everything else fell is telling you something the cheap one is not: somebody is buying it when they do not have to.
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.