[Beginners & Intermediate] Where to learn about trading?
I will introduce this by reminding that this is not school and not a 9 to 5 job either. No one will just hand over a strategy and go "ok go make some money instead of me now", there are a few strategy out there on the internet an never know one might have an edge, but it's not even worth it to spend hours looking for something. And makes no sense, "too lazy to find one on my own so I spend hours looking for the holy grail on the internet".
People got brainwashed to learn something by heart at school, go to work from 9 to 5 - this must be why there are so many day traders, they do not know how to function differently than 9 to 5 -, get a wage every month, the more you do the bigger the reward...
Real life does not work like this. Even the cheetah know this. While they run at formula 1 speeds, they still stalk their prey and are real careful and plan ahead and make sure they have a good risk to reward and high probabilities of catching their (big) prey. And then they protect it. They do not leave carcasses lying around and spend all their time chasing prey like idiots.
It's like with Einstein, no one told him "k now go prove that Newton gravity theory is false, this is how you will do it".
There are plenty of different type of strategy, merger arbitrage, quantitative systematic, discretionary, a combination of both (I think this is what I do), stock long bias, stock short bias (haha), and so on.
But in any case you have to do your own research. Arbitrage means analysing data and looking for numbers in sheets of numbers, quant & discretionary means analysing data and looking for numbers in sheets of numbers, and so on.
Still you have to understand how markets work, what futures are and are not if you trade those, the different terms, compounding (it does not just mean "waow I make lots of money"), learn that after losing 20% to get back to breakeven you need to make 25%, that markets gap, markets change...
Also you need to get used to tools, used to the places you'll get your info from, and constently be learning from especially at some point we do want to learn how to invest to get some passive income because we do not know if we will still be making money 5 years from now.
The road is long, so be sure you are legit interested, and it is as important to have reliable sources as it is to make it fun & interesting, because the road is real long.
1- At the source
Biggest exchange, and best website: The CME. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Both the best for beginners, and for advanced.
www.cmegroup.com/
The site is huge. They have what is at human scale infinite data. And it is well designed.
They even have some courses, webinars, and more.
Here you can find courses for each of their asset classes, and if you select none you got generic ones too. All free.
Free and reliable. The problem with trolls that sell $5000 education is it is often infested with errors, including very dangerous ones.
Maybe the cme is going to get greedy seing millions of new fresh amateur liquidity providers, and start charging for their content. I hope not.
Thinking of it, this sort of people is not looking for some sober information dense content, but for flashy lights and "get abs in 30 days with no efforts lose 10 pounds a week make 10% every day".
www.cmegroup.com/education/courses.html
They even have an introduction to dairy, in 13 modules.
www.cmegroup.com/edu...uction-to-dairy.html
We live in the day of big data funds, and they charge a few hundred to a few thousand dollars for access to TB of data on their products.
Bitcoin and a few other featured/new products are free.
datamine.cmegroup.com/
Crypto is free xd but who cares? Crypto traders won't download this ever will they? Not like there is enough data to get anything out of it, but still can be interesting to look at.
If you do not know where to start you can (and probably should if you trade futures) spend thousands of hours on the CME website alone, looking at various info and going throught courses (I'd recommend starting with just a handful of assets and getting into those + taking a quick look at others for greater understanding).
The second biggest exchange group is the ICE. They operate the Intercontinental Exchange (no kidding) and the famous New York Stock Exchange.
The ICE is king on a few futures:
- The big non grain 4 agri: Cotton, Cocoa, Sugar, Coffee. Unless another exchange steals this it is unlikely it will ever disappear, did you know that over 1000 years ago the most traded product after gold was Kola nuts? People were already addicted to "chocolate & coffee" back then. Anything that binds to opiod receptors & is socially acceptable = invest for 100 generations. Sugar is sugar obviously. I think those are the most interesting products they have.
- Brent Oil, Natural Gas variations
- Equity derivatives (FTSE, FANG)
- The Euribor
I think those are the main ones.
Their site just makes me angry. I want to punch my screen everytime I go there unless I use a direct link and go straight for the info I want.
They list their futures so bad so wrong, they have them literally hidden in a list of 100 other ones no one cares about and of course why show volumes so people can get there faster or why put them at the top of the list when you can rather have people waste time every single time?
There might be some things no one is looking at in some ignored assets... But one has to get past the anger...
They sometimes hide the central, important info, and blind you with absolutely useless and stupid things. Even the dumbest things... I clic on one of their links then the site buttons just move! Why are they not in the same corner? Why is every page built a little differently? Not completely different, but just enough to annoy you.
I go on the main page for a CME future I directly see volumes & for the past days and open interest and for each expiry, with the ICE... It's a 5 months projects, I have to clic on some links that are so not explicit at all, then there is another list of links and I always end up on the wrong one and so on.
Well I think it improved, it is not as irritating and useless as it used to be. Maybe another 10 years and they enter the 21st century?
Recently their charts on tradingview went from EOD to regular, I don't know how that happened, but this sort of thing can help them get into the spotlight a bit more, retail has no interest whatsoever in their futures except maybe Brent so it might not be very helpful, but it is a start.
www.theice.com/index
They offer some insights that are pretty helpful. Nah I'm joking they are useless like the rest of the site.
www.theice.com/insights
Industrial metals are not popular they are less popular than some rando chinese mlm stock (with retail I mean, many of the metals have volumes of over 5 bil a day), but I will link the LME site anyway, it is well designed, and they have plenty of useful ressources.
www.lme.com/
The biggest ones are I think Aluminum, Nickel, Zinc. Nickel has an adv of 10 billion usd which is more than silver & copper, and was very roughly twice the silver volume until recently where it exploded. Volumes have been going up, maybe in large part due to EV batteries needing this metal, and lots of mines getting opened in south america. The limitation for amateurs to get into this is it is priced in tonnes (1 future = 6) and I do not think there are brokers with minimum sizes below 1 unit (tonne). The price being $15000 and min tick size $5 eliminates alot of participants. The spread alone would already be on the min order $30. That is 1% of a 3 grands account so forget it.
Another one I really liked the chart of is Zinc, but I did not look much into it.
Interesting site even if it is more for advanced participants, there are no e-mini-ultra-super-micro-get-started-with-your-lunch-money-no-experience-required s&p for baby accounts like the CME did recently (e-mini was not small enough for the "legends" to gamble).
For FX there is no "at the source". But interesting places would be GS website, they publish public reports sometimes, the international bankers with the imf & bis, the fed websites have alot of info, but there is no "learn trading" or market data there. And FX does not have all its info available if you are not part of a bank. So objectively it is probably harder to get into.
The FED (one of them) published a report on patterns in charts, their conclusions are "sometimes head and shoulders work".
They have some info. A little of verified tested and legit info is better than tons of worthless crap filled with mistakes a marketting troll put together. Morgan Stanley... Here is a pdf from them with performances from hedge funds (max drawdown, sharpe ratio, returns), shows what is possible and realistic.
www.morganstanley.co..._why_hedge_funds.pdf
Then for stocks there are all kinds of places.
The nyse I never go to and is as ugly as the ice website, probably as bad too.
www.nyse.com/index
The nasdaq that was always down when I used to check. News, short interest (They showed you that half the planet was shorting Tesla a year ago), all the important stock info you would expect...
www.nasdaq.com/
For crypto: nothing. There simply is nowhere to go to. Satoshi whitepaper maybe. The CME & Nasdaq website have a little on crypto so might as well go there check it out (I haven't, no idea what is inside).
Who I would not recommend on the "at the source" side: Brokers. I mean... lol brokers come on.
2- Specialised websites
There is already enough to be busy for several thousand hours in 1-, but there is more.
First there is tradingview. Not sure if I wanted to put them in social networks or here.
You will find all kindz of people making all kindz of gainz- I mean losses.
It's a place to exchange ideas, see what others are doing, learn crowd psychology...
And they have the most ergonomic convenient charting service.
Support page to find how to use the tools and ... I had to link something.
www.tradingview.com/support/
Babypips is offering an education on forex in 348 lessons (free), they have quizz also.
Remember to never take anything as reality, in general I mean not them in particular.
Have the chart & source data at the tip of your finger.
Completing this should take a good 500 hours. Since you are not just rush reading it and seing for yourself on charts how things play out.
Doable in 30 days if you spend 16 hours a day on it. Maybe faster if you skip the indicators part, but nah everyone should look at those at least once. Prime brokers on their PF offer indicators and pros use them (especially small funds) so if it helps... I think most PM use at least some indicators they just don't over-rely on them and not any indicator. And it is interesting, you might indirectly learn something, also early on maaaaybe they can help because you are not experienced enough to see with the naked eye.
www.babypips.com/learn/forex
Investing dot com. Now with free ebooks!
www.investing.com/ed...on/forex-trading-kit
Investopedia has all sorts of definitions and articles
www.investopedia.com...d-essentials-4689654
3- Social networks
MyFxBook contains the best systems that go from the top followed to the top discussed when they go to zero.
Coinflip outliers get popular, go to zero, get most discussed, disappear. There is no big "went to zero recently" at the moment, but they happen all the time. Some might not go to zero because they found a bug with a broker and are exploiting it until it gets fixed.
Some people also cheat the results are fake, if you look for it you can find it explained how it works.
If seing huge results makes you sad, then stay away. I only check from time to time to see fools blow up.
www.myfxbook.com/mem...dsurfer-real/1561706
www.myfxbook.com/mem...oc/ivan-saqi/3187044
Forexfactory, pretty classic, with calendars forums and all, they have variants of the site for stocks & for commodities
www.forexfactory.com/
EliteTraders
www.elitetrader.com/...eaty-with-us.349324/
Trade2Win I never go there not flashy and full of dumb trolls enough for me, must mean it's half decent. I get most of my entertainement elsewhere, and I don't want to say I know everything but I don't really need tips - that are always the same ones - anymore.
www.trade2win.com/
Stocktwits
stocktwits.com/
Then there are also youtube channels.
Some I like are:
- The ukspreadbetting channel, they have interviews with traders, and for the past couple of years Mark has been pumping out videos at an inhuman rate.
- MoneyWeek, especially their old videos which are also the most popular
- Patrick Boyle channel, he is quantitative speculator (he analyses data and looks for pattern) that worked with Soros I discovered his channel recently he was being interviewed and cracking up about "fast car trading educators". "Patrick Boyle is a hedge fund manager, a university professor and a former investment banker."
- OBVIOUSLY Peter Schiff, GoldSilver (w/ Mike Maloney), and any permabear I can get my hands on will be a favorite ^^
- Dan Pena videos for the screaming
- Ricky Gutierrez, Timothy Sykes, Tai Lopez, FxLifeStyle Forex for... well let's just leave it there shall we?
There are plenty of channels. The list could go on.
4- Books & other tools
Math & stats sites are usually pretty safe. The sort of people that wants to get rich quick is not the sort of people that goes to those ;)
They're not infested with wolfs of wall street advice.
Books are boring but some I know of and are good are Market Wizards, Reminiscences of a stock operator, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. You can find the last 2 on the internet as free pdf.
A probability calculator is here (to estimate odds of drawdown, and other things):
vassarstats.net/binomialX.html
Well tradingview, excel, and the printscreen button.
5- Expensive educators
I don't want to only bash them, hey even pro athletes and gamers have coaches and mentors right?
It makes little sense to me for a novice that knows nothing to go pay hundreds or thousands to learn basics that are out there for free.
I would at least pick someone with credentials, and be aware that because someone was a floor traders or a market maker in a bank, or a trader only supposed to execute clients orders like Nick Leeson, does not mean they know how to make money speculating (especially if they are Nick Learned his Lesson). Chances are they don't, they tried but they just can't because not every one can make it into one of the hardest games.
There will always be people that want to lose 30 kilos in 30 days and want quick abs and so the scammers will keep proliferating, can't even blame them.
Just get in front of a chart and grind your way up noting what happened everytime specific conditions came together checking how often it worked out and what was the payout and far did it go in the wrong direction first, find the point where the SL is the most optimal for WR & RR, run stat tools and note everything about it.
Log your trades, gain experience, read about economic news, keep learning, keep analysing charts, work on your routine, get more organised, design ways to decide you will look at a specific asset, then design your method for building an opinion on it based on your vast database of probabilities, intuition, macro conditions etc.
It's not that hard. You either want to be a financial speculator or you don't. And this is what it is.
You can't go for a job but without doing that job and constantly looking for tricks to do anything but that job.
Or just go try to become a multi millionaire golf player without ever picking up a club, at least you'll get some fresh air.
Same goes for going for it but expecting the journey to last 200 hours and then that's it you are profitable and can now relax on your expensive boat delusional to the max 😆
People got brainwashed to learn something by heart at school, go to work from 9 to 5 - this must be why there are so many day traders, they do not know how to function differently than 9 to 5 -, get a wage every month, the more you do the bigger the reward...
Real life does not work like this. Even the cheetah know this. While they run at formula 1 speeds, they still stalk their prey and are real careful and plan ahead and make sure they have a good risk to reward and high probabilities of catching their (big) prey. And then they protect it. They do not leave carcasses lying around and spend all their time chasing prey like idiots.
It's like with Einstein, no one told him "k now go prove that Newton gravity theory is false, this is how you will do it".
There are plenty of different type of strategy, merger arbitrage, quantitative systematic, discretionary, a combination of both (I think this is what I do), stock long bias, stock short bias (haha), and so on.
But in any case you have to do your own research. Arbitrage means analysing data and looking for numbers in sheets of numbers, quant & discretionary means analysing data and looking for numbers in sheets of numbers, and so on.
Still you have to understand how markets work, what futures are and are not if you trade those, the different terms, compounding (it does not just mean "waow I make lots of money"), learn that after losing 20% to get back to breakeven you need to make 25%, that markets gap, markets change...
Also you need to get used to tools, used to the places you'll get your info from, and constently be learning from especially at some point we do want to learn how to invest to get some passive income because we do not know if we will still be making money 5 years from now.
The road is long, so be sure you are legit interested, and it is as important to have reliable sources as it is to make it fun & interesting, because the road is real long.
1- At the source
Biggest exchange, and best website: The CME. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Both the best for beginners, and for advanced.
www.cmegroup.com/
The site is huge. They have what is at human scale infinite data. And it is well designed.
They even have some courses, webinars, and more.
Here you can find courses for each of their asset classes, and if you select none you got generic ones too. All free.
Free and reliable. The problem with trolls that sell $5000 education is it is often infested with errors, including very dangerous ones.
Maybe the cme is going to get greedy seing millions of new fresh amateur liquidity providers, and start charging for their content. I hope not.
Thinking of it, this sort of people is not looking for some sober information dense content, but for flashy lights and "get abs in 30 days with no efforts lose 10 pounds a week make 10% every day".
www.cmegroup.com/education/courses.html
They even have an introduction to dairy, in 13 modules.
www.cmegroup.com/edu...uction-to-dairy.html
We live in the day of big data funds, and they charge a few hundred to a few thousand dollars for access to TB of data on their products.
Bitcoin and a few other featured/new products are free.
datamine.cmegroup.com/
Crypto is free xd but who cares? Crypto traders won't download this ever will they? Not like there is enough data to get anything out of it, but still can be interesting to look at.
If you do not know where to start you can (and probably should if you trade futures) spend thousands of hours on the CME website alone, looking at various info and going throught courses (I'd recommend starting with just a handful of assets and getting into those + taking a quick look at others for greater understanding).
The second biggest exchange group is the ICE. They operate the Intercontinental Exchange (no kidding) and the famous New York Stock Exchange.
The ICE is king on a few futures:
- The big non grain 4 agri: Cotton, Cocoa, Sugar, Coffee. Unless another exchange steals this it is unlikely it will ever disappear, did you know that over 1000 years ago the most traded product after gold was Kola nuts? People were already addicted to "chocolate & coffee" back then. Anything that binds to opiod receptors & is socially acceptable = invest for 100 generations. Sugar is sugar obviously. I think those are the most interesting products they have.
- Brent Oil, Natural Gas variations
- Equity derivatives (FTSE, FANG)
- The Euribor
I think those are the main ones.
Their site just makes me angry. I want to punch my screen everytime I go there unless I use a direct link and go straight for the info I want.
They list their futures so bad so wrong, they have them literally hidden in a list of 100 other ones no one cares about and of course why show volumes so people can get there faster or why put them at the top of the list when you can rather have people waste time every single time?
There might be some things no one is looking at in some ignored assets... But one has to get past the anger...
They sometimes hide the central, important info, and blind you with absolutely useless and stupid things. Even the dumbest things... I clic on one of their links then the site buttons just move! Why are they not in the same corner? Why is every page built a little differently? Not completely different, but just enough to annoy you.
I go on the main page for a CME future I directly see volumes & for the past days and open interest and for each expiry, with the ICE... It's a 5 months projects, I have to clic on some links that are so not explicit at all, then there is another list of links and I always end up on the wrong one and so on.
Well I think it improved, it is not as irritating and useless as it used to be. Maybe another 10 years and they enter the 21st century?
Recently their charts on tradingview went from EOD to regular, I don't know how that happened, but this sort of thing can help them get into the spotlight a bit more, retail has no interest whatsoever in their futures except maybe Brent so it might not be very helpful, but it is a start.
www.theice.com/index
They offer some insights that are pretty helpful. Nah I'm joking they are useless like the rest of the site.
www.theice.com/insights
Industrial metals are not popular they are less popular than some rando chinese mlm stock (with retail I mean, many of the metals have volumes of over 5 bil a day), but I will link the LME site anyway, it is well designed, and they have plenty of useful ressources.
www.lme.com/
The biggest ones are I think Aluminum, Nickel, Zinc. Nickel has an adv of 10 billion usd which is more than silver & copper, and was very roughly twice the silver volume until recently where it exploded. Volumes have been going up, maybe in large part due to EV batteries needing this metal, and lots of mines getting opened in south america. The limitation for amateurs to get into this is it is priced in tonnes (1 future = 6) and I do not think there are brokers with minimum sizes below 1 unit (tonne). The price being $15000 and min tick size $5 eliminates alot of participants. The spread alone would already be on the min order $30. That is 1% of a 3 grands account so forget it.
Another one I really liked the chart of is Zinc, but I did not look much into it.
Interesting site even if it is more for advanced participants, there are no e-mini-ultra-super-micro-get-started-with-your-lunch-money-no-experience-required s&p for baby accounts like the CME did recently (e-mini was not small enough for the "legends" to gamble).
For FX there is no "at the source". But interesting places would be GS website, they publish public reports sometimes, the international bankers with the imf & bis, the fed websites have alot of info, but there is no "learn trading" or market data there. And FX does not have all its info available if you are not part of a bank. So objectively it is probably harder to get into.
The FED (one of them) published a report on patterns in charts, their conclusions are "sometimes head and shoulders work".
They have some info. A little of verified tested and legit info is better than tons of worthless crap filled with mistakes a marketting troll put together. Morgan Stanley... Here is a pdf from them with performances from hedge funds (max drawdown, sharpe ratio, returns), shows what is possible and realistic.
www.morganstanley.co..._why_hedge_funds.pdf
Then for stocks there are all kinds of places.
The nyse I never go to and is as ugly as the ice website, probably as bad too.
www.nyse.com/index
The nasdaq that was always down when I used to check. News, short interest (They showed you that half the planet was shorting Tesla a year ago), all the important stock info you would expect...
www.nasdaq.com/
For crypto: nothing. There simply is nowhere to go to. Satoshi whitepaper maybe. The CME & Nasdaq website have a little on crypto so might as well go there check it out (I haven't, no idea what is inside).
Who I would not recommend on the "at the source" side: Brokers. I mean... lol brokers come on.
2- Specialised websites
There is already enough to be busy for several thousand hours in 1-, but there is more.
First there is tradingview. Not sure if I wanted to put them in social networks or here.
You will find all kindz of people making all kindz of gainz- I mean losses.
It's a place to exchange ideas, see what others are doing, learn crowd psychology...
And they have the most ergonomic convenient charting service.
Support page to find how to use the tools and ... I had to link something.
www.tradingview.com/support/
Babypips is offering an education on forex in 348 lessons (free), they have quizz also.
Remember to never take anything as reality, in general I mean not them in particular.
Have the chart & source data at the tip of your finger.
Completing this should take a good 500 hours. Since you are not just rush reading it and seing for yourself on charts how things play out.
Doable in 30 days if you spend 16 hours a day on it. Maybe faster if you skip the indicators part, but nah everyone should look at those at least once. Prime brokers on their PF offer indicators and pros use them (especially small funds) so if it helps... I think most PM use at least some indicators they just don't over-rely on them and not any indicator. And it is interesting, you might indirectly learn something, also early on maaaaybe they can help because you are not experienced enough to see with the naked eye.
www.babypips.com/learn/forex
Investing dot com. Now with free ebooks!
www.investing.com/ed...on/forex-trading-kit
Investopedia has all sorts of definitions and articles
www.investopedia.com...d-essentials-4689654
3- Social networks
MyFxBook contains the best systems that go from the top followed to the top discussed when they go to zero.
Coinflip outliers get popular, go to zero, get most discussed, disappear. There is no big "went to zero recently" at the moment, but they happen all the time. Some might not go to zero because they found a bug with a broker and are exploiting it until it gets fixed.
Some people also cheat the results are fake, if you look for it you can find it explained how it works.
If seing huge results makes you sad, then stay away. I only check from time to time to see fools blow up.
www.myfxbook.com/mem...dsurfer-real/1561706
www.myfxbook.com/mem...oc/ivan-saqi/3187044
Forexfactory, pretty classic, with calendars forums and all, they have variants of the site for stocks & for commodities
www.forexfactory.com/
EliteTraders
www.elitetrader.com/...eaty-with-us.349324/
Trade2Win I never go there not flashy and full of dumb trolls enough for me, must mean it's half decent. I get most of my entertainement elsewhere, and I don't want to say I know everything but I don't really need tips - that are always the same ones - anymore.
www.trade2win.com/
Stocktwits
stocktwits.com/
Then there are also youtube channels.
Some I like are:
- The ukspreadbetting channel, they have interviews with traders, and for the past couple of years Mark has been pumping out videos at an inhuman rate.
- MoneyWeek, especially their old videos which are also the most popular
- Patrick Boyle channel, he is quantitative speculator (he analyses data and looks for pattern) that worked with Soros I discovered his channel recently he was being interviewed and cracking up about "fast car trading educators". "Patrick Boyle is a hedge fund manager, a university professor and a former investment banker."
- OBVIOUSLY Peter Schiff, GoldSilver (w/ Mike Maloney), and any permabear I can get my hands on will be a favorite ^^
- Dan Pena videos for the screaming
- Ricky Gutierrez, Timothy Sykes, Tai Lopez, FxLifeStyle Forex for... well let's just leave it there shall we?
There are plenty of channels. The list could go on.
4- Books & other tools
Math & stats sites are usually pretty safe. The sort of people that wants to get rich quick is not the sort of people that goes to those ;)
They're not infested with wolfs of wall street advice.
Books are boring but some I know of and are good are Market Wizards, Reminiscences of a stock operator, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. You can find the last 2 on the internet as free pdf.
A probability calculator is here (to estimate odds of drawdown, and other things):
vassarstats.net/binomialX.html
Well tradingview, excel, and the printscreen button.
5- Expensive educators
I don't want to only bash them, hey even pro athletes and gamers have coaches and mentors right?
It makes little sense to me for a novice that knows nothing to go pay hundreds or thousands to learn basics that are out there for free.
I would at least pick someone with credentials, and be aware that because someone was a floor traders or a market maker in a bank, or a trader only supposed to execute clients orders like Nick Leeson, does not mean they know how to make money speculating (especially if they are Nick Learned his Lesson). Chances are they don't, they tried but they just can't because not every one can make it into one of the hardest games.
There will always be people that want to lose 30 kilos in 30 days and want quick abs and so the scammers will keep proliferating, can't even blame them.
Just get in front of a chart and grind your way up noting what happened everytime specific conditions came together checking how often it worked out and what was the payout and far did it go in the wrong direction first, find the point where the SL is the most optimal for WR & RR, run stat tools and note everything about it.
Log your trades, gain experience, read about economic news, keep learning, keep analysing charts, work on your routine, get more organised, design ways to decide you will look at a specific asset, then design your method for building an opinion on it based on your vast database of probabilities, intuition, macro conditions etc.
It's not that hard. You either want to be a financial speculator or you don't. And this is what it is.
You can't go for a job but without doing that job and constantly looking for tricks to do anything but that job.
Or just go try to become a multi millionaire golf player without ever picking up a club, at least you'll get some fresh air.
Same goes for going for it but expecting the journey to last 200 hours and then that's it you are profitable and can now relax on your expensive boat delusional to the max 😆