tradingBacktesting for Beginners: Prove Your Edge Before You Risk Money
How to backtest a simple strategy by hand and in spreadsheets, avoid curve-fitting, and know whether your win rate actually survives out-of-sample data.
3 min read
Category
trading
21 articles
trading
tradingLearn Trading, Part 7: Options Basics — Calls, Puts, Risk
Calls and puts, strike price, premium, expiration, intrinsic vs time value — how option payoffs work, and why naked premium is a slow leak for most.
4 min read
tradingLearn Trading, Part 8: Position Sizing and the Risk Model
The question is never 'how much do I win' but 'how much do I lose per trade.' Fixed-fractional sizing, the 1% rule, survival through losing streaks.
4 min read
tradingThe Trading Journal: Why You're Stuck Until You Start One
What to record after every trade, how to review a week of trades in 15 minutes, and the metrics that actually show whether you're improving.
4 min read
tradingWhat Is a Trading Plan? (Trader's Glossary)
The components of a written trading plan — entry, exit, risk, and the rules that keep emotions out of the trade — and why most unprofitable traders skip it.
3 min read
tradingTrading Strategy #3: Breakout Trading (and Failed Breakouts)
Complete rules for breakout trading with confirmation — why breaks accelerate, volume criteria, entry/stop/target placement, and trading fakeouts too.
4 min read
tradingTrading Strategy #6: Gap and Go — Trading Momentum at the Open
Complete gap-and-go rules — why gaps run, which gaps deserve trades, exact entries, stops, and targets, and the disaster scenarios that end gap traders.
4 min read
tradingTrading Strategy #4: The Opening Range Breakout
The classic day-trading setup — defining the range, why hour one sets the tone, exact ORB entry/stop/target rules, and a backtesting checklist.
4 min read
tradingTrading Strategy #2: Range Fading
Complete range-fade rules — why boundaries hold, edge entries, stop and target placement, the breakout disaster, and a backtesting checklist.
4 min read
tradingTrading Strategy #1: The Trend Pullback
Complete trend-pullback rules — why momentum persists, exact entry/stop/target criteria, a worked R-multiple example, failure modes, and a backtest checklist.
3 min read
tradingTrading Strategy #5: Trading With and Against VWAP
VWAP explained plainly — why institutions benchmark against it, trend rules, reversion rules, standard-deviation bands, and a backtesting checklist.
4 min read
tradingWhat Is a Stop-Loss? (Trader's Glossary)
A plain-English glossary pillar — what a stop-loss is, how it executes, stop types, where to place them, and the mistakes that make them fail.
3 min read
tradingWhat Is an Index Fund? (Trader's Glossary)
A plain-English glossary pillar — what index funds and ETFs are, how they track a market, why fees decide outcomes, and how they fit alongside trading.
3 min read
tradingWhat Is Leverage? (Trader's Glossary)
A plain-English glossary pillar — what leverage and margin mean, how a 10x move works, why liquidation exists, and the risk rules that keep it survivable.
3 min read
tradingWhat Is VWAP? (Trader's Glossary)
A plain-English glossary pillar — what Volume-Weighted Average Price is, how it's calculated, why institutions anchor to it, and the two ways traders use it.
2 min read
tradingLearn Trading, Part 1: How Markets Actually Work
What trading really is — instruments and leverage, how orders execute, what brokers and spreads cost, and the survival statistics nobody advertises.
4 min read
tradingLearn Trading, Part 2: Reading Charts — Candles & Structure
Candlestick anatomy, timeframes, support and resistance, trend structure, and volume — how traders actually read price, minus the magic-pattern mythology.
4 min read
tradingLearn Trading, Part 3: Risk Management — The Math of Survival
The math that separates survivors from statistics — position sizing, stop-losses, R-multiples, expectancy, drawdown math, and why risk wins.
4 min read
tradingLearn Trading, Part 4: Strategies, Edges, and Backtesting
What a trading edge really is — three honest example setups, indicators as context, and how to backtest and paper-trade before risking money.
4 min read
tradingLearn Trading, Part 5: Day-Trading Mechanics & Execution
The operational reality of day trading — sessions, the opening hour, pre-market prep, executing under speed, and the routine professionals run.
4 min read
tradingLearn Trading, Part 6: Scalping and the Psychology of Fast Money
What scalping really demands — why costs and psychology decide everything at speed, the mental traps that end accounts, and a realistic progression path.
4 min read