Mechanics
Beginner6 min read
How Trade Execution Works: From Click to Settlement
Between deciding to trade and owning the asset sit routing, matching, clearing, and settlement. Each step affects what you pay.
11 in-depth guides
Market Mechanics, Order Types, and Execution
The gap between a backtest and a brokerage statement is execution. Learn how orders are matched, what you pay to trade, and how to lose less of your edge to friction.
Beginner guides
No prior knowledge assumed. Start here.
Mechanics
Beginner5 min read
Order Types Explained: Choosing How You Enter and Exit
The order type decides which risk you accept: the risk of a bad price, or the risk of no fill at all. There is no option that avoids both.
Mechanics
Beginner5 min read
Slippage Explained: Why You Never Get the Price You Saw
Slippage is the difference between the price you expected and the price you got. It is the cost that backtests most often ignore.
Mechanics
Beginner5 min read
The Bid-Ask Spread: The Cost You Pay on Every Trade
The spread is the price of immediacy. It is charged on every trade, it is invisible on the confirmation, and it decides which strategies can work.
Mechanics
Beginner5 min read
Trading Sessions Guide: When Markets Are Actually Liquid
Liquidity is not spread evenly through the day. Knowing when it concentrates determines your costs more than most strategy decisions.
Intermediate guides
Assumes you know order types, charts, and basic risk sizing.
Mechanics
Intermediate5 min read
Circuit Breakers and Trading Halts: When Markets Stop
A halt removes your ability to exit. Knowing which halts exist and how they resolve is the difference between a plan and a surprise.
Mechanics
Intermediate6 min read
Dark Pools and Payment for Order Flow: Where Retail Orders Go
Most retail orders never reach a public exchange. Understanding where they go, and why, explains both the price improvement and the controversy.
Mechanics
Intermediate5 min read
Margin and Settlement: How Leverage and Ownership Actually Work
Margin determines how much you can lose before the broker acts. Settlement determines when you actually own what you bought.
Mechanics
Intermediate5 min read
Market Makers and Liquidity: Who Takes the Other Side
When you trade, someone takes the other side. Usually it is a market maker with no view on direction, and knowing how they operate explains most execution behaviour.
Mechanics
Intermediate5 min read
Short Selling Explained: Mechanics, Costs, and Regulations
Short selling is mechanically different from buying, not just directionally opposite. The borrow, the fees, and the recall risk all have no long-side equivalent.
Advanced guides
Assumes comfort with statistics, code, or derivatives.
Mechanics
Advanced5 min read
The Order Book Explained: Reading Market Depth
The order book shows resting intentions, not commitments. Understanding what it hides is as important as reading what it displays.
Every guide in this category
- Circuit Breakers and Trading Halts: When Markets Stop
- Dark Pools and Payment for Order Flow: Where Retail Orders Go
- How Trade Execution Works: From Click to Settlement
- Margin and Settlement: How Leverage and Ownership Actually Work
- Market Makers and Liquidity: Who Takes the Other Side
- Order Types Explained: Choosing How You Enter and Exit
- Short Selling Explained: Mechanics, Costs, and Regulations
- Slippage Explained: Why You Never Get the Price You Saw
- The Bid-Ask Spread: The Cost You Pay on Every Trade
- The Order Book Explained: Reading Market Depth
- Trading Sessions Guide: When Markets Are Actually Liquid
Other categories
Trading Foundations
Plain-English foundations for new traders: what a trading strategy is, how markets work, order types, timeframes, and how to build a first rule-based plan.
Trading Strategy Types
In-depth guides to every major trading strategy type, from trend following and mean reversion to pairs trading, arbitrage, market making, and event-driven trading.
Indicators & Signals
How technical indicators are calculated, what they actually measure, and how to turn moving averages, RSI, MACD, ATR, and volume tools into tested trading rules.
Chart Patterns & Price Action
Candlestick patterns, classical chart patterns, support and resistance, and price action structure, each with objective definitions you can actually code and backtest.
Strategies by Asset Class
The strategies that actually fit each market: stocks, ETFs, options, futures, forex, crypto, commodities, bonds, and index products, with costs, hours, and leverage compared.
Risk & Money Management
Position sizing, stop losses, drawdown control, correlation risk, and the maths of ruin, explained so you can size trades with a formula instead of a feeling.
Algorithmic & Quant Trading
How to turn a discretionary idea into code: signal design, factor models, execution algorithms, data pipelines, machine learning pitfalls, and production monitoring.
Backtesting & Validation
Backtesting methodology that survives contact with live markets: look-ahead bias, survivorship bias, walk-forward analysis, Monte Carlo testing, and realistic cost modelling.
Trading Psychology & Process
The behavioural side of trading: loss aversion, revenge trading, overconfidence, journaling, routine design, and the process controls that keep rules intact under stress.