Let’s consider trading not from the perspective of exchanging goods for further consumption, nor from the perspective of earning “passive” income while waiting for coupons or dividends, but as a speculative operation, where profit or loss is made solely due to changes in the price of the traded asset. In my view, such trading requires a mindset different from that of what we are accustomed to.

Speculation on the stock market has one unique feature. Any other activity depends on the demand of other people for that particular service. Whether you are a loader or a lawyer, a hairdresser or a doctor, how much you earn depends not only on your qualifications but also on the demand for your service at that moment in time and place. Trading, in the form of stock market speculation, does not depend on external demand for it. The entire structure is already in place; liquidity and volatility arise not for the sake of the speculator, but due to the periodicity and cyclicity of human needs. The speculator parasites on a structure that was created before them and not for them. However, this feature requires a different approach to learning.

Education in other fields is primarily aimed at helping you solve someone else’s pain quickly and with maximum quality, satisfying the needs of others. From this, certain rules arise, based on current trends. In market speculation, the other side is not a client but the market itself. The market is soulless; it has no pain. You only need to solve your pain, which no one but you cares about, and thus no one will solve it for you. No standard method of learning gives you one instruction for all occasions. And if there is a recipe for a delicious dish or a proper blueprint (no offense intended), there is no recipe for correct trading.

In this sense, trading is closer to art. There are also techniques in art that one must know, and on their basis, something unique is created. But unlike art, your creation in trading must immediately bring you money.

There is no one-size-fits-all strategy: everyone must and will have their vision of the market, and everyone will set their own goals.

Unfortunately, most existing textbooks or trading courses are based on the description of certain patterns. Two things are completely excluded from consideration: the volatility of the instrument and profit planning.

Volatility is important because, with different levels of volatility, the significance of patterns can change: with one level of volatility, a double top might signal a sell, while with another, it might indicate stabilization with a continuation of the trend.

It is difficult to say where planning begins at all. I haven’t encountered anything beyond the ratio of profit to loss. In any other business, the viability of the business is considered only as the ratio of the received amount to the time it took to obtain that amount. Why does this metric disappear in retail trading? In terms of profit, trading is a business like any other, and this metric should be present.

In conclusion, if we talk about trading as speculation, then learning in trading should differ from other fields of human activity, as it relates to the redistribution of material resources, not their consumption or production.

You must take into account the volatility of the instrument, not just its geometry. Most resources focus on describing geometric patterns while ignoring the amplitude of these patterns.

And finally, remember the most important thing—planning. You must be able to plan profits and scale their growth. Here you will need to consider another parameter—the market’s liquidity.

If the program offered to you does not include these parameters, compare the promises with the content, and if something is missing, move on.

Best regards.