{"format":"alysly-page/1","url":"https://alysly.com/learn/","json":"https://alysly.com/json/learn/index.json","lang":"en-US","title":"Learn Trading Basics: Charts, Patterns, Indicators & AI","description":"ETF basics and technical analysis from the ground up: costs, taxes, fund names, reading charts, candlestick and chart patterns, indicators, machine learning.","modified":"2026-11-04T09:15:31+01:00","alternates":[{"lang":"de-DE","url":"https://alysly.com/de/lernen/","json":"https://alysly.com/json/de/lernen/index.json"}],"about":"Machine-readable version of the page at url. It contains the text, tables and key figures published there, but not the interactive charts and tools.","content":[{"type":"heading","level":1,"text":"Investing & Trading Basics"},{"type":"paragraph","text":"A course in four levels, from investing and ETF basics to machine learning. Each level builds on the one before it, and each article also works on its own. Every graphic here is our own. In the chart levels, they are drawn from synthetic price series and show the shape of a pattern, not a real price history. A real example would always be one we picked afterwards. The ETF basics use worked calculations and, where stated, our own holdings data with its reporting date."},{"type":"paragraph","text":"The course offers no ready-made signals, entry rules or forecasts. It explains the concepts behind them and, for every tool, what it measures and where it stops working."},{"type":"list","ordered":true,"items":[{"id":"level-0","text":"Level 0 Investing & ETF Basics 16 articles Before any chart comes the question of what to invest with. This level explains how ETFs are built, how to read a fund name, what costs and taxes add up to, and where broad indices reach their limits.","items":[{"text":"What Are ETFs? The Basics Explained An ETF bundles many stocks into one fund that trades on an exchange like a single stock. How ETFs work, what they cost and how to see what they hold.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/what-are-etfs/"},{"text":"What Is an Index? Rules Instead of Picks An index is a rules-based basket of securities — the thing an ETF tracks. How the rules work and why weights follow market value.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/what-is-an-index/"},{"text":"ETFs for Beginners: The Five Basic Decisions Time horizon, brokerage account, choice of index, savings plan or lump sum, and how to handle market declines: the five decisions at the start of ETF investing.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/etf-for-beginners/"},{"text":"ETF Names Decoded: What Each Part Means iShares Core MSCI World UCITS ETF USD (Acc) — every part of an ETF name explained.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/decode-etf-names/"},{"text":"ETF Fees: TER and Hidden Costs What an ETF really costs: TER, spread, order fees and tracking difference — and what half a percentage point does over 30 years.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/etf-fees/"},{"text":"Distributing or Accumulating ETFs? The Difference Distributing ETFs pay out dividends, accumulating ETFs reinvest them automatically. How the two differ in reinvestment, income and tax.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/distributing-or-accumulating/"},{"text":"Savings Plan or Lump Sum: What Historical Data Shows Invest a sum at once or spread it out? What historical comparisons show, where their limits are and how to run both in the calculator.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/savings-plan-vs-lump-sum/"},{"text":"The Rule of 72: Estimating Doubling Time A rule of thumb for compounding: 72 divided by the annual return gives roughly the years until a sum doubles — with its limits and the exact calculation.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/rule-of-72/"},{"text":"ETFs & Tax in Germany: The Essentials Teilfreistellung, Vorabpauschale and the saver's allowance: how ETFs are taxed in Germany, explained clearly.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/etf-taxes-germany/"},{"text":"MSCI World Criticism: How Big Is the US Concentration? The MSCI World is criticized for its heavy US weighting. The current breakdown by country and sector, and which fund types change the weighting.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/msci-world-criticism/"},{"text":"Sector ETFs: A Single Industry in One Fund Sector ETFs bundle one industry — like consumer staples. What that means for diversification and volatility, with an example from current data.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/sector-etfs/"},{"text":"Dividend ETFs: Payouts and Required Capital How distributing ETFs generate regular payments, where the payout comes from and how large a portfolio must be for a given amount.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/dividend-etfs/"},{"text":"Factor ETFs: Value, Quality, Growth & Small Cap Beyond the plain MSCI World: what value, quality, growth and small-cap factor ETFs actually hold, with current holdings.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/factor-etfs/"},{"text":"Small Cap Value: A Factor Premium With Long Dry Spells Small and cheaply valued companies added return in historical studies, but not in every decade. The factor ETFs in the catalog with their holdings.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/small-cap-value/"},{"text":"The Pension Gap: Calculating Capital Needs and Withdrawals How much capital a given retirement budget requires and how long a portfolio lasts with regular withdrawals, with a worked example.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/pension-gap/"},{"text":"Gold and Inflation: How Reliable the Hedge Really Is Is gold an inflation hedge? What the long run shows, what actually moves the gold price and what gold does not do, with the latest gold price.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/gold-and-inflation/"}]},{"id":"level-1","text":"Level 1 Reading Charts 7 articles Price displays, candles, trends, zones and volume — plus the arithmetic that comes before any pattern: how much a single position may cost you. Without this level, everything after it is decoration.","items":[{"text":"How to Read a Chart Chart types, timeframes, axes — and what a chart always leaves out.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/reading-a-chart/"},{"text":"Reading Candles: Body, Wick, Color How a candle is built, the body-to-wick ratio — and what gets lost.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/reading-candles/"},{"text":"Trend, Trendline, Channel Higher highs, higher lows — and why trendlines are easier to bend than it seems.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/trend-and-trendlines/"},{"text":"Support and Resistance Zones instead of lines, role reversal, round numbers — and where these areas come from.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/support-and-resistance/"},{"text":"Volume: The Second Opinion on Price Volume confirms moves — except where it is not centrally recorded at all.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/volume/"},{"text":"Risk, Stops and Position Sizing Thinking in R, sizing from the stop — and why losses cost more than it seems.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/risk-and-position-sizing/"},{"text":"What Technical Analysis Can and Cannot Do Base rates, selection bias, self-fulfilling prophecies — a sober assessment.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/what-technical-analysis-can-do/"}]},{"id":"level-2","text":"Level 2 Patterns & Indicators 9 articles Candlestick patterns, chart formations, moving averages, oscillators and volatility measures — each with what it measures and what it cannot do. The level closes with the question of how to test a pattern at all.","items":[{"text":"Candlestick Reversal Patterns Hammer, engulfing, star formations — structure, meaning, conditions.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/candlestick-reversal-patterns/"},{"text":"Continuation Patterns and the Doji Family Doji, marubozu, soldiers and crows — indecision or continuation.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/candlestick-continuation-patterns/"},{"text":"Reversal Chart Patterns H&S, double top, double bottom, rounding bottom — and what their targets are worth.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/reversal-chart-patterns/"},{"text":"Continuation Chart Patterns Triangles, flags, pennants, wedges, rectangles — pauses in a trend.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/continuation-chart-patterns/"},{"text":"Moving Averages SMA, EMA, crossovers — smoothing and its price: lag.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/moving-averages/"},{"text":"Oscillators: RSI and Stochastics RSI, stochastics, divergences — and the overbought misconception.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/oscillators/"},{"text":"MACD and Trend Strength MACD, signal line, histogram — and ADX as strength without direction.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/macd-and-trend-strength/"},{"text":"Measuring Volatility: Bollinger and ATR Bollinger, ATR, squeeze — volatility drives stops, not direction.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/volatility/"},{"text":"Testing a Pattern From shape to testable rule — and the traps along the way.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/testing-a-pattern/"}]},{"id":"level-3","text":"Level 3 AI in Trading 9 articles Why standard machine learning fails on price series and what financial research developed instead: sampling, labels, leak-free cross-validation, and the question of how much a backtest proves at all.","items":[{"text":"AI Trading: How It Works and Where It Fails From data to order: how AI trading works, and the hurdle it has to clear.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/ai-trading/"},{"text":"Why Machine Learning Fails in Markets Why standard methods break on price series — the list of failure modes.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/why-ml-fails-in-finance/"},{"text":"Data and Bars: The Sample Decides Time bars are a poor sample — the alternatives and why.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/data-and-bars/"},{"text":"Stationarity and Memory Returns erase memory — fractional differentiation does not.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/stationarity-and-memory/"},{"text":"Labels: Triple Barrier and Meta-Labeling Fixed horizons produce unusable labels — the triple barrier fixes that.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/labeling/"},{"text":"Overlapping Examples and Sample Weights Overlapping labels fake independence — and how to correct for it.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/sample-weights/"},{"text":"Cross-Validation Without Leakage Why k-fold leaks on price data — purging, embargo, CPCV.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/cross-validation/"},{"text":"Backtest Overfitting: The Number of Trials Counts The best of 50 trials always looks good — how to correct for it.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/backtest-overfitting/"},{"text":"Feature Importance and Bet Sizing Which features actually drive the model — and how that becomes a position size.","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/feature-importance/"}]}]},{"type":"heading","level":2,"text":"Books to Go Deeper"},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Where an article stops, a book keeps going. The Books section sorts the standard works by topic rather than alphabetically: each entry says what prior knowledge it assumes, what it covers and where it has aged.","links":[{"text":"Books","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/books/"}]},{"type":"list","ordered":false,"items":[{"text":"Trading & Technical Analysis 9 titles · 9 assessed · 2× Alysly Book Pick","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/books/trading/"},{"text":"Investing & Portfolio 11 titles · 9 assessed · 1× Alysly Book Pick","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/books/investing/"},{"text":"Money, Real Estate & Retirement 9 titles · 9 assessed","href":"https://alysly.com/learn/books/wealth/"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Data note 1","href":"#dn-1"},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Everything here is information, not investment or tax advice. All graphics are our own, drawn from synthetic price series — they show the shape of a pattern, not real market data."},{"type":"heading","level":3,"text":"Related Research"},{"type":"list","ordered":false,"items":[{"text":"Oct 14, 2025 Trading +227.8% the market itself, 2017–2026, no trading Why Most Traders Lose Money: What the Data Shows The market paid 13.5% a year. Five measurable forces decide how much of that a trader keeps, and at ordinary trading frequencies it is very little.","href":"https://alysly.com/research/why-most-traders-lose-money/"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Updated Nov 4, 2026 · Data checked automatically Nov 13, 2026"},{"type":"heading","level":2,"id":"note-legend-h","text":"Data Notes"},{"type":"paragraph","text":"All calculations run automatically and are not investment advice."},{"type":"list","ordered":true,"items":[{"id":"dn-1","text":"Title, author, publisher, extent and format are checked against at least one independent source per book. Assessments are written in-house, not taken from any blurb; purchase links are Amazon affiliate links."}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"Data and methodology: Alysly · Responsible for content: Alexander Bock","links":[{"text":"Alysly","href":"https://alysly.com/methodology/"},{"text":"Alexander Bock","href":"https://alysly.com/about/"}]},{"type":"paragraph","text":"View all data notes","href":"https://alysly.com/notes/"}],"structured_data":[{"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://alysly.com/#org","name":"Alysly","url":"https://alysly.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://alysly.com/img/icon-512.png","width":512,"height":512},"description":"Free analysis tools for traders and long-term investors. Built on data we collect and keep current.","email":"mail@alysly.com","contactPoint":{"@type":"ContactPoint","contactType":"customer support","email":"mail@alysly.com","availableLanguage":["de","en"]},"address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","addressLocality":"Haltern am See","postalCode":"45721","addressCountry":"DE"},"founder":{"@id":"https://alysly.com/#founder"},"sameAs":["https://www.linkedin.com/company/alyslycom/","https://www.youtube.com/@alyslycom","https://x.com/alyslycom"],"publishingPrinciples":"https://alysly.com/methodology/","correctionsPolicy":"https://alysly.com/corrections/"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https://alysly.com/#founder","name":"Alexander Bock","jobTitle":"Founder and data analyst","url":"https://alysly.com/about/","sameAs":["https://www.linkedin.com/in/abxk/"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://alysly.com/#site","url":"https://alysly.com/","name":"Alysly","inLanguage":["de-DE","en-US"],"publisher":{"@id":"https://alysly.com/#org"}},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://alysly.com/learn/#webpage","url":"https://alysly.com/learn/","name":"Investing & Trading Basics – Alysly","description":"ETF basics and technical analysis from the ground up: costs, taxes, fund names, reading charts, candlestick and chart patterns, indicators, machine learning.","inLanguage":"en-US","isPartOf":{"@id":"https://alysly.com/#site"},"dateModified":"2026-11-04T09:15:31+01:00","publisher":{"@id":"https://alysly.com/#org"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://alysly.com/og.png","width":1200,"height":630}}]}],"notice":"© 2026 Alysly.com"}