Trading academy: indicators, candlesticks, risk

The mechanics of a Higher/Lower trade step by step: instrument, stake, direction, expiry, entry price, payout %, win, loss and tie, with a worked example.

Break-even win rates by payout, expected value per trade, why short expiries behave like coin flips, and how overtrading and chasing losses finish the job.

How to pick an expiry that fits your chart timeframe and setup, why 5–30 second trades are mostly noise, and practical examples for M1, M5 and M15 charts.

What OTC means in finance and on Sky Trade: server-generated random-walk prices, 24/7 availability, payouts, and why there are no OTC patterns to exploit.

Approximate forex session hours in UTC, how daylight saving shifts them, the overlaps, which pairs are active when, and what the weekend close means.

The main drivers of exchange rates explained with examples: interest rates, inflation, employment, GDP, risk sentiment, commodity currencies and safe havens.

How to read an economic calendar: actual, forecast, previous, impact; NFP, CPI and rate decisions, and why to skip short trades before big releases.

A structured 2–4 week demo plan: fixed stake rules, a journal, at least 100 trades, win rate vs break-even, and when not to switch to real money.

What a candlestick shows, how open, high, low and close build the body and wicks, why candles change with the timeframe, and how Heikin Ashi differs.

How support and resistance form, why they are zones rather than lines, role reversal, round numbers, how to draw levels step by step and how they break.

How to draw a trend line through swing points without forcing it, how to build a price channel, what a trend-line break really means and common errors.

What chart timeframes are, how S5 to D1 candles differ, why low timeframes are noisy, how to do multi-timeframe analysis and how timeframe relates to expiry.

How to read market structure from swing highs and lows, tell an uptrend from a downtrend or a range, spot a break of structure and avoid false signals.

What a breakout is, why many breakouts fail, how confirmation and retests work, how to avoid chasing a move and how false breakouts trap traders.

What market volatility means, the intuition behind standard deviation, volatility clustering, how to measure it with ATR, Bollinger width and candle ranges.

How the classic chart patterns form, where the neckline and measured move come from, how to tell a valid pattern from a forced one and why they fail.

What RSI measures, how average gain and loss over 14 periods become a 0–100 value, what 70/30 really mean, divergences, the 50 line and typical mistakes.

How MACD is built from 12 and 26 EMAs and a 9-period signal line, how to read crossovers, the zero line, the histogram and divergence, and why it lags.

How Bollinger Bands are built from a 20-period SMA and 2 standard deviations, what a squeeze means, how bands are walked in trends and when to fade them.

How SMA, EMA and WMA are calculated and differ, what Hull MA, DEMA and TEMA add, which periods traders use, crossovers, dynamic support and the lag problem.

How the Stochastic oscillator compares the close with the recent high-low range, what %K and %D mean, 80/20 levels, crossovers and how it differs from RSI.

How the Average True Range is calculated, why it says nothing about direction, and how to use ATR to compare instruments, timeframes and expiries.

What Tenkan-sen, Kijun-sen, Senkou Span A and B and Chikou Span show, how to read the Ichimoku cloud, and why it gets noisy on very low timeframes.

How to draw Fibonacci retracement from swing to swing, what the 23.6, 38.2, 50, 61.8 and 78.6% levels mean, why they sometimes work, and common pitfalls.

How Parabolic SAR places its dots, what the 0.02 and 0.2 acceleration settings do, how it trails a trend, and why it whipsaws in sideways markets.

How the Average Directional Index and its +DI and −DI lines work, what ADX above 25 means, why ADX ignores direction, and how to combine it with trend tools.

How CCI is built from typical price and mean deviation, what readings above +100 or below −100 mean, and when traders use it for mean reversion or trend.

What volume shows in exchange markets, why forex has only tick volume, and why volume analysis cannot be used on Sky Trade, whose feed has no volume.

How to combine indicators sensibly: leading vs lagging tools, avoiding redundant oscillators, one trend tool plus one momentum tool plus levels.

What a doji candle is, the standard, long-legged, dragonfly and gravestone types, what indecision really means, and why a doji alone is rarely a signal.

How to spot hammer and hanging man candles, why the same shape reads differently after a decline or a rally, and why the next candle matters.

How shooting star and inverted hammer candles form, why the same shape means different things at a top or a bottom, and how traders confirm or reject them.

How bullish and bearish engulfing candles form, why traders compare bodies rather than wicks, why location matters most, and how engulfing patterns fail.

How morning star and evening star patterns form, what each candle means, why textbook gaps are rare in 24-hour forex and OTC, and how they fail.

How bullish and bearish harami patterns form, how they relate to the inside bar, what a harami cross is, and why a harami shows a pause rather than a reversal.

How piercing line and dark cloud cover patterns work, why the second candle must pass the first one's midpoint, and what changes without gaps.

How three white soldiers and three black crows form, what they say about momentum, why the same run can signal exhaustion, and how to judge them in context.

How tweezer tops and tweezer bottoms form, why matching highs or lows matter more at a known level, how close is close enough, and how the pattern fails.

What marubozu and spinning top candles are, how body size relative to range shows conviction or indecision, and why both depend on context to mean anything.

How to size each stake as a share of your balance, what the 1–2% rule really means, how streaks hit different sizes, and how to set a daily loss limit.

Martingale doubles the stake after each loss to win it all back. See the streak odds, why payouts below 100% need more than doubling, and where it breaks.

What a drawdown is, why a 50% loss needs a 100% gain to recover, how normal losing streaks are, how to read an equity curve, and an intuition for risk of ruin.

What to record for every trade, a ready-made journal template, the metrics that matter (win rate vs break-even, average payout) and how to run a weekly review.

The mental traps that cost short-term traders most: loss aversion, revenge trading, FOMO, tilt and the gambler's fallacy, plus practical circuit breakers.

How to spot overtrading, why more trades multiply losses when expectancy is negative, and how a plan, trade limits and breaks keep sessions in check.

A tour of the Sky Trade terminal: instrument picker and payouts, chart tools and indicators, amount and time, Buy/Sell, trades, settings, hotkeys.