Investing & Trading Basics

A course in three levels. Each level builds on the one before it, and each article also works on its own. Every graphic here is our own, drawn from synthetic price series. It shows the shape of a pattern, not a real price history, because a real example would always be one we picked afterwards.

What this course does not give you: ready-made signals, entry rules or forecasts. What it does give you: the concepts behind them, and for every tool an honest note on what it measures and where it stops working.

1. 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.

   1. 1 How to Read a ChartChart types, timeframes, axes – and what a chart always leaves out.
   2. 2 Reading Candles: Body, Wick, ColorHow a candle is built, the body-to-wick ratio – and what gets lost.
   3. 3 Trend, Trendline, ChannelHigher highs, higher lows – and why trendlines bend more easily than they look.
   4. 4 Support and ResistanceZones instead of lines, role reversal, round numbers – and where these areas come from.
   5. 5 Volume: The Second Opinion on PriceVolume confirms moves – except where it is not centrally recorded at all.
   6. 6 Risk, Stops and Position SizingThinking in R, sizing from the stop – and why losses cost more than they look.
   7. 7 What Technical Analysis Can and Cannot DoBase rates, selection bias, self-fulfillment – a sober assessment.
2. 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.

   1. 1 Candlestick Reversal PatternsHammer, engulfing, star formations – construction, meaning, preconditions.
   2. 2 Continuation Patterns and the Doji FamilyDoji, marubozu, soldiers and crows – indecision or continuation.
   3. 3 Reversal Chart PatternsH&S, double top, double bottom, rounding bottom – and what their targets are worth.
   4. 4 Continuation Chart PatternsTriangles, flags, pennants, wedges, rectangles – pauses in a trend.
   5. 5 Moving AveragesSMA, EMA, crossovers – smoothing and its price: lag.
   6. 6 Oscillators: RSI and StochasticsRSI, stochastics, divergences – and the overbought misconception.
   7. 7 MACD and Trend StrengthMACD, signal line, histogram – and ADX as strength without direction.
   8. 8 Measuring Volatility: Bollinger and ATRBollinger, ATR, squeeze – volatility drives stops, not direction.
   9. 9 Testing a PatternFrom shape to testable rule – and the traps along the way.
3. Level 3

   AI in trading

   8 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.

   1. 1 Why Machine Learning Fails in MarketsWhy standard methods break on price series – the list of failure modes.
   2. 2 Data and Bars: The Sample DecidesTime bars are a poor sample – the alternatives and why.
   3. 3 Stationarity and MemoryReturns erase memory – fractional differentiation does not.
   4. 4 Labels: Triple Barrier and Meta-LabelingFixed horizons produce unusable labels – the triple barrier fixes that.
   5. 5 Overlapping Examples and Sample WeightsOverlapping labels fake independence – and how to correct for it.
   6. 6 Cross-Validation Without LeakageWhy k-fold leaks on price data – purging, embargo, CPCV.
   7. 7 Backtest Overfitting: The Number of Trials CountsThe best of 50 trials always looks good – how to correct for it.
   8. 8 Feature Importance and Bet SizingWhich features actually carry the model – and how that becomes a position size.

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.