A floor
A level buyers stepped in before. Under it sits a pool of sell-stops — fuel for a sweep.
Trading, from zero
What trading
actually is.
No jargon, no hype. Five short sections with animations you can play with — by the end you'll be able to read a chart and work out what a trade risks before you place one.
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01 · The decision
It starts with
a directional read.
A trade is a structured decision, not a coin flip. From what the chart is doing, you judge whether price is more likely to rise or fall from here. Take a long and you gain if it rises; take a short and you gain if it falls. Before you enter, you fix the price that would prove the read wrong — the stop — so a wrong call costs a small, known amount.
02 · The candle
One candle = one slice of time.
A candlestick packs four prices into one shape: where the period opened, where it closed, and the high and low it reached in between. Tap a part to see what it means.
Open
The first traded price of the period. On a green (bullish) candle the open sits at the bottom of the body, because price finished higher than it started.
03 · Reading the flow
Price hunts liquidity.
This is the core of Smart Money Concepts. Large players have to fill big orders somewhere, so price gets driven toward the pools of stop-losses resting above old highs and below old lows. Track where that liquidity sits and you can anticipate the next move instead of chasing it.
A ceiling
A level sellers defended before. Above it sits a pool of buy-stops waiting to be taken.
The fake-out
Price spikes just past the level, triggers the stops resting there, then reverses hard. Learn to spot it and you stop being the one who gets stopped out.
04 · Risk & leverage
Size is the thing that keeps you alive.
Leverage lets a small deposit control a large position. That cuts both ways: a 1% move against you, using 20x leverage, wipes out 20% of your money. Disciplined traders fix the loss first — risking a small, constant slice per trade — and let position size follow from the stop distance.
Your deposit$1,000
Controlled position @ 20x$20,000
Risk per trade (fixed)$10 · 1%
This is an illustration, not advice. Leverage magnifies losses as well as gains and can result in losing more than your initial deposit with some account types. Never risk money you cannot afford to lose.
05 · Putting it together
One trade, start to finish.
- Bias. The bigger picture is pointing up. We only look for buys.
- Liquidity. We wait for price to sweep a low and take out the stops resting there, then reclaim.
- Entry & stop. Enter when price returns to the area the big move started from — the "order block". Place your stop just beyond the sweep. The gap between entry and stop is what you are risking.
- Target. Aim for the next place stops are likely to be sitting — usually an old high — and only take the trade if the reward is at least twice what you are risking.
- Manage. Move your stop to your entry price once the trade is working, so you can no longer lose on it. Then journal the trade.
Next
Now put it to work.
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Join the flow →Educational content only — not investment advice. Trading involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone.