All Articles

How to Trade Stocks: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners

From opening an account to placing your first order and knowing exactly when to get out. The steps in the order they matter, which is rarely the order they are taught.

By Ellis Hartley · 6 min read

Stock Market for Beginners: How It Works

Shares, exchanges, indices, bid and ask, and why prices move. The foundation everything else rests on, without the jargon loop most explanations get stuck in.

By Ellis Hartley · 5 min read

Dividend Stocks: How They Work and What to Check

Getting paid to own a business. How dividends work, the dates that catch people out, and how to tell a healthy payout from one about to be cut.

By Graham Whitlock · 4 min read

Penny Stocks: How They Work and Why Most Traders Lose

Cheap shares are not cheap companies. The structural reasons penny stocks are harder to trade than large caps, and the schemes that specifically target people who do not know that.

By Graham Whitlock · 4 min read

Trading Costs: What Zero Commission Does Not Cover

Commissions went to zero and costs did not. The spread, slippage and tax drag that decide whether an edge survives contact with reality.

By Graham Whitlock · 4 min read

How to Write a Trading Plan You Will Follow

Most trading plans fail because they describe intentions rather than decisions. Here is what a usable one contains, and the sections people leave out.

By Ellis Hartley · 4 min read

How to Read Stock Charts: A Practical Walkthrough

Most people read charts backwards: smallest timeframe first, indicators everywhere. Here is the top-down order that produces a decision.

By Ellis Hartley · 5 min read

Support and Resistance: How to Find Levels That Matter

The foundation everything else in charting sits on. How to find the levels worth marking, why most traders mark too many, and what a break tells you.

By Ellis Hartley · 4 min read

Day Trading Strategies With a Logic Behind Them

Four intraday setups with defined rules, and the market conditions that break each one. A structure to test rather than a system to follow blindly.

By Ellis Hartley · 5 min read

Swing Trading Strategies: Four Setups With Clear Rules

Four setups you can run from the daily chart in twenty minutes an evening, each with the market condition that breaks it stated plainly.

By Ellis Hartley · 5 min read

Options Trading Strategies: From Safest to Most Dangerous

Six strategies ranked by how much trouble they can cause, with the risk profile of each stated plainly. Start at the top; most people start in the middle and regret it.

By Ellis Hartley · 5 min read

Head and Shoulders Pattern: Rules, Target and Stop

The best-known reversal pattern in technical analysis, and the most over-identified. Three peaks, one neckline, and a measured target you can calculate exactly.

By Ellis Hartley · 3 min read

Double Top and Double Bottom: Rules and Targets

Two attempts at the same level, both rejected. The simplest reversal structure on a chart, and the one most often traded too early.

By Ellis Hartley · 3 min read

RSI Indicator: How It Works and How It Is Misread

The most widely used and most widely misunderstood oscillator. What the number measures, and why shorting every reading above 70 loses money.

By Ellis Hartley · 3 min read

MACD Indicator: Crossovers, Histogram and Divergence

Two moving averages, their difference, and a signal line. Straightforward arithmetic, widely misused, mostly by traders acting on every crossover.

By Ellis Hartley · 3 min read

Moving Averages: SMA vs EMA and How to Use Them

The simplest indicator there is, and the most useful, provided you treat it as a trend filter rather than a signal generator.

By Ellis Hartley · 3 min read

Trading Expectancy, Sample Size and Sizing Beyond the 1% Rule

The fixed 1% rule is a beginner's safety net, not a sizing model. Here is the arithmetic that replaces it, including how to tell whether your edge is real or noise.

By Graham Whitlock · 4 min read

Backtesting Trading Strategies Without Fooling Yourself

Every backtest is optimistic. The question is by how much. Here are the five biases that inflate results and the procedures that control for each.

By Graham Whitlock · 4 min read

Market Internals: Reading Breadth Beyond the Index

An index can rise while most of its constituents fall. Breadth measures show you which, and it is the difference between a healthy trend and a narrow one about to break.

By Graham Whitlock · 4 min read

Volume Profile: Trading Price Acceptance, Not Time

Standard volume tells you how much traded in a period. Volume profile tells you how much traded at a price, which is the question that locates real support.

By Ellis Hartley · 4 min read

Multi-Timeframe Analysis: Alignment Without Paralysis

Three charts, three jobs: one sets direction, one finds the setup, one times the entry. Most traders use three charts to look for agreement, which is the wrong use.

By Ellis Hartley · 4 min read

Correlation and Portfolio Heat: Why Six Positions Can Be One

Six positions at 1% risk each is not six independent bets. If they move together, you are holding one 6% position with extra commission.

By Graham Whitlock · 4 min read

Implied Volatility and Skew: Why Puts Cost More Than Calls

Two options equidistant from the price rarely cost the same. That asymmetry is the market pricing crash risk, and it is the part of options beginners never see.

By Ellis Hartley · 4 min read

Key Stock Metrics: What Each One Measures and Hides

Twelve numbers cover most of what matters about a business. What each measures, what it leaves out, and which ones management can adjust at will.

By Graham Whitlock · 4 min read

Value Traps: Why Cheap Stocks Keep Getting Cheaper

Every value trap looks like a bargain on the way down. The distinguishing tests are in the cash flow statement and the margin trend, not in the multiple.

By Graham Whitlock · 4 min read

Insider Buying vs Selling: Which Signal Matters

Executives sell for a hundred reasons and buy for one. That asymmetry is what makes insider data useful, and it is why most people read it backwards.

By Graham Whitlock · 3 min read

Hammer Candlestick Pattern: How to Spot and Trade It

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.

By Ellis Hartley · 8 min read

Bullish Engulfing Pattern: Rules, Psychology and Entries

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.

By Ellis Hartley · 5 min read

Doji Candlestick: What It Means and How to Trade It

The most misunderstood candle on the chart. A doji is a pause, not a reversal signal, and knowing the difference is what separates traders who use it well from those who lose money on it.

By Ellis Hartley · 4 min read

Shooting Star Candlestick: A Bearish Reversal Signal

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.

By Ellis Hartley · 3 min read

Bearish Engulfing Pattern: Rules, Psychology and Stops

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.

By Ellis Hartley · 3 min read

Hanging Man Candlestick: The Warning at the Top

The same shape as a hammer, in the opposite place. After an uptrend, that long lower shadow stops being reassuring and starts being a warning.

By Ellis Hartley · 3 min read

Spinning Top Candlestick: What Indecision Really Means

A small body with shadows either side. Price travelled in both directions and finished near where it began: a stalemate, and a change in character worth noticing.

By Ellis Hartley · 3 min read