Learn Trading: Free Lessons from Socratic Trading Academy
One hundred seventeen short lessons, from how markets work to spotting guaranteed-return claims. Each takes five to seven minutes. Start at the top or jump to a topic.
Module 1: Foundations
- How Markets Work: Bids, Asks, Spread and Liquidity
- What You Can Trade: Stocks, ETFs, Futures and Options
- Order Types Explained: Market, Limit, Stop and Bracket
- Trading Sessions and Costs: Hours, Fees and Slippage
- Exchanges, Brokers and Clearing: Who Does What in a Trade
- Reading a Quote: NBBO, Level 1 and Level 2
- Leverage and Margin Across Stocks, Futures and Options
- Account Types and the Pattern Day Trader Rule
- Choosing a Broker: Questions to Ask, Not Answers to Copy
Module 2: Charting
- Charting Platforms and the Chart Layout: What Is on the Screen
- Symbols, Timeframes and Sessions on a Chart
- Chart Types: Candles, Bars, Lines and Their Settings
- Drawing Tools: Lines, Zones and Keeping Charts Clean
- Adding Indicators and Reading Their Settings
- Saving Layouts, Templates and Watchlists
- Alerts as Reminders of Your Own Levels
- Bar Replay for Practice: Uses and Limits
Module 3: Reading price
- Candlestick Anatomy: Open, High, Low, Close and Wicks
- Reading Candlesticks as Behavior: Doji, Hammer, Engulfing
- Timeframes and Multi-Timeframe Analysis Explained
- Market Structure Explained: Swings, BOS and CHoCH
- Support and Resistance Zones: How Traders Mark Levels
- Chart Patterns Explained: Flags, Triangles, Double Tops
- Trends, Trendlines and Channels: How Traders Draw Direction
- Price Gaps Explained: Opening, Breakaway and Exhaustion Gaps
- Breakouts, False Breakouts and Retests in Price Action
- Fibonacci Retracements and Extensions: What the Ratios Measure
- Heikin-Ashi, Renko and Range Bars: Charts That Change the Bars Themselves
- Why Chart Patterns Fail: Base Rates, Hindsight and Context
- Futures Sessions and Timeframes: Nearly 24 Hours, Different Characters
Module 4: Volume and indicators
- Trading Volume Explained: Volume vs Open Interest
- What Is VWAP? Session vs Anchored VWAP Explained
- Technical Indicators Explained: MA, RSI, MACD, Bollinger, ATR
- Moving Averages in Depth: SMA, EMA, Lag and Crossovers
- RSI and Stochastic Oscillators: What Overbought Really Means
- MACD Explained: Lines, Histogram and What Crosses Mean
- Bollinger Bands, Keltner Channels and ATR: Measuring Volatility
- Divergence in Depth: Regular, Hidden and Why Most Go Nowhere
- Anchored VWAP: Averaging From a Chosen Starting Point
- OBV, Accumulation/Distribution and Relative Volume
- Overfitting and Repainting: When Indicator Results Look Too Good
- Putting Volume Tools Together: One Session, Three Tools, One Plan
Module 5: Order flow and auction market theory
- Auction Market Theory Basics: Balance, Value, Rotation
- Volume Profile Explained: POC, Value Area, HVN, LVN
- Opening Types and Day Types: A Descriptive Guide
- Order Flow Basics: DOM, Time and Sales, Delta
- How to Replay a Trading Session: A Worked Example
- TPO Profile Basics: Letters, Periods and Profile Shape
- Initial Balance and Range Extension: How They Are Measured
- Excess, Poor Highs and Lows, and Single Prints Explained
- Reading Delta and Imbalance on a Bid/Ask Volume Chart
- Reference Levels from Prior Sessions: High, Low, Close and Value
- Reading the DOM Honestly: Spoofing, Icebergs and Hidden Size
- Composite Profiles and Value Migration: Reading Several Sessions Together
- Bid/Ask Volume Charts: Reading Volume at the Bid and Ask by Price
- Cumulative Delta and Its Limits
- Liquidity, Sweeps and Stop Runs: A Descriptive Look
- Overnight Inventory and the Overnight High and Low
- Three Fictional Session Replays: Applying Auction Market Theory End to End
Module 6: Risk, process, and mindset
- Risk Management Arithmetic: Position Size, Risk-Reward, Drawdown
- Trade Management: What Happens Between Entry and Exit
- Trading Plans, Journaling and Honest Backtesting
- Building a Trading Plan Document
- A Pre-Trade Checklist: Slowing Down Before Acting
- Journaling Your Reasoning, Not Just Your Results
- The Weekly Review: Process Before Outcome
- Trading Psychology: FOMO, Loss Aversion and Routines
- Economic Events and Headlines: Volatility, Not Instructions
- How to Spot Trading Gurus and Guaranteed-Return Claims
- Sizing Futures Positions in Contracts: Ticks, Tick Value and Whole Numbers
- Risk of Ruin: How Losing Streaks and Bet Size Interact
- Overnight and Gap Risk: When Prices Jump Past a Stop
- Tax Concepts for Traders: Words to Know Before You Ask a Professional
- Reviewing Your Own Trade Statistics: Expectancy, MAE and MFE
- Common Trading Scams: Beyond Gurus
- Capstone: One Method, Start to Finish
Module 7: Stocks and ETFs
- How a Stock Trades: Exchanges, Market Makers and Auctions
- Premarket and After-Hours Trading: Extended Hours Explained
- Short Selling Explained: Borrowing, Fees and Short Squeezes
- Stock Splits, Dividends and Corporate Actions Explained
- How ETFs Work: Creation, Redemption, NAV and Costs
- Leveraged and Inverse ETFs: Daily Reset and Volatility Decay
- Sectors, Indexes and Market Breadth: Reading the Whole Market
Module 8: Options
- Options Basics: Calls, Puts, Strikes and Expiration
- Option Premium: Intrinsic Value, Time Value and Moneyness
- Option Payoff Diagrams: Long and Short Calls and Puts
- The Option Greeks in Plain Language: Delta, Gamma, Theta, Vega
- Implied Volatility and the Expected Move Explained
- Exercise, Assignment and Settlement: What Happens at Expiration
- Straddles and Strangles: Payoffs Built From Volatility
- Volatility Skew and Term Structure: The Shape of Implied Volatility
- Earnings and IV Crush: Why Options Can Lose Value After the News
- 0DTE Options: How Same-Day Expirations Behave
- Index Options, ETF Options and Options on Futures Compared
- Vertical Spreads: Defined-Risk Payoffs With Two Strikes
- Covered Calls and Cash-Secured Puts: Payoff Shapes and Trade-Offs
Module 9: Futures
- Futures Contract Specifications: Size, Tick, Multiplier and Months
- Futures Margin and Daily Mark-to-Market Explained
- Futures Expiration, Rollover and Continuous Charts
- Futures Trading Hours, Settlement Prices and Price Limits
- Equity Index Futures: E-mini and Micro Contracts Compared
- Commodity Futures: How Crude Oil and Gold Contracts Work
- Interest Rate Futures: Treasury and SOFR Contracts Explained
- Currency Futures: How They Compare With Spot Forex
- Calendar Spreads and the Forward Curve in Futures
- The Commitments of Traders Report: Who Holds Futures Positions
- Micro vs Standard Futures Contracts: Same Market, Different Size
- Seasonality in Futures: Patterns, Causes and Limits
Module 10: Fundamentals and macro
- Reading Company Financial Statements: A Plain-Language Guide
- Earnings Reports and Guidance: Estimates, Surprises and Calls
- Valuation Ratios Explained: P/E, EV/EBITDA, P/S and Yield
- Revenue, Margins and Earnings Quality: Reading Beyond EPS
- Central Banks and Interest Rates: How Policy Reaches Markets
- Inflation Reports: CPI, PCE and PPI Explained
- The Jobs Report: Payrolls, Unemployment and Wages
- GDP, PMI and Retail Sales: Measuring Economic Growth
- The Yield Curve: Shape, Inversion and What It Reflects
- The Dollar, Oil and Gold: How Macro Markets Connect
- Forex and Crypto Basics: Pairs, Pips and 24-Hour Markets
- Reading Primary Sources: Filings, Releases and Exchange Notices
See also the trading glossary.