New to Trade Chart Desk? This page lays out a reading order. Each step builds on the one before it, and every article includes worked numbers you can reproduce and the situations where the method breaks down.
Step 1: Read a chart
Learn what each candle records and how price structure is labeled before adding any indicator.
- How to Read Candlestick Charts for Crypto: A Beginner’s Guide: what open, high, low and close mean on a 24/7 market
- Market Structure Explained: HH, HL, BOS and CHoCH With Rules: how to label trends with a written swing rule
- How to Identify Key Support and Resistance Zones (With a Method): building and ranking price zones
- Mark Price vs Last Price vs Index Price in Crypto Futures: why your chart and your exchange can show different prices
Step 2: Size every trade before you take it
Risk math matters more than any entry signal. These four articles are the core of the site.
- Crypto Position Sizing: How to Calculate Risk Per Trade: the sizing formula, including leverage and fees
- Risk-to-Reward Ratio: Formula, Win Rate, and Expectancy: break-even win rate and expectancy
- Cross Margin vs Isolated Margin: Liquidation Math, Worked: how margin mode changes what you can lose
- Trading Journal Guide: Columns to Track and a Monthly Review: measuring your own results instead of guessing
Step 3: Understand how indicators are calculated
Each guide works the formula by hand so you know what the line can and cannot tell you.
- EMA Crossover Strategy for Beginners: How It Works, Why It Lags, and How to Test It: moving averages and why every crossover lags
- ATR Indicator for Trailing Stops: Calculate, Read, and Trail: measuring volatility with ATR
- Bollinger Band Squeeze Tutorial: BandWidth, Breaks, Head Fakes: volatility bands and the squeeze
- RSI Divergence Strategy for Crypto: A Worked Reversal Case: RSI and regular divergence
- MACD Hidden Divergence: How to Spot It, Confirm It, and Avoid False Signals: MACD and hidden divergence
- VWAP for Crypto: Session Resets, Anchors, and a Testable Plan: volume-weighted price and anchors
Step 4: Turn a setup into a testable plan
Strategies written as rules, with the conditions where they fail.
- Trend Following vs Mean Reversion: Matching Strategy to Regime: choosing a strategy type for the market regime
- Breakout and Retest Strategy: How to Filter False Breakouts: a breakout procedure with a cancel line
- Trailing Stop Strategies: ATR vs Moving Average vs Structure: comparing exit methods on one trade
- Stop-Loss Hunting Explained: Why Your Stop Got Hit and How to Place Better Stops: why stops get hit and how to place them
Step 5: Read market data and macro events
Derivatives data, on-chain flows and scheduled economic releases, with notes on where each number comes from.
- Funding Rates in Crypto Futures: The Formula, the Cost, the Signal: what funding costs and what it signals
- Open Interest Spikes: What They Mean and How to Read Them: reading open interest changes
- Bitcoin ETF Inflows Explained: How to Read the Daily Flow Table: reading daily ETF flow tables
- How US CPI Releases Move Bitcoin: A Trader’s Release-Day Plan: planning around CPI release days
- How Interest Rates Affect Bitcoin and Crypto Markets: interest rates and crypto markets
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Educational content only. Nothing on this site is financial, investment or trading advice.