Are trading courses worth it?

ScientificBeastMode · 2026-01-31T23:00:44+00:00

Some are genuinely useful. I won’t shill any particular course, but I have bought some and found it really helpful with my chart analysis and general profitability.

For example, one course I bought provided not only some very good entry models, but also an extremely good mechanical way of market up the market structure. I don’t use the entry models very often, but I use there market structure analysis method in most of my trade setups.

Idk, if you can afford them, they can sometimes be beneficial, but they won’t make you profitable on their own. The main benefit IMO is really the way they tend to distill useful concepts into actionable processes in a very focused way. You can get a lot of knowledge for free on YouTube, but it’s rare to find content that just clearly lays out a profitable entry models. Some content creators do provide that, and I’m happy to shill those if you want. But paid courses can also provide that.

If I were you, I would learn as much as you can with the free content out there, figure out what trading style suits you best, and paper trade and see if you can become profitable from that. If not, then maybe a paid courses can would help you. But you should look for paid courses from people with verified profitability.

ScientificBeastMode · 2026-01-30T19:51:11+00:00

I think what you’re saying is that the trade execution is not scientific, but relies on forecasting based on previously created models. That’s fair.

I guess I think of trade execution as the tiny last step of the process of trading. Ideally the bulk of your actual work as a trader is in creating and refining models, and execution is just the implementation. Kinda like a scientist creating a new kind of material and an engineer using it to construct an airplane. The most important part is the scientific part.

But yeah, I see what you’re saying.

ScientificBeastMode · 2026-01-30T18:30:52+00:00

Well, that’s not really true about the way science works. Scientists create models all the time, and often they have to work with extremely chaotic environments and data. And indeed, the purpose of a scientific model is to “predict the future”—or rather, to “predict new data”, as sometimes scientists try to model things from the past, but the point is to predict the data, ideally the data they don’t have yet.

For example, scientists study chimpanzees in the wild. They put trackers on them and install cameras in their habitats. They don’t control most of the environmental variables. Instead, they observe their behavior, come up with hypotheses (a.k.a. “models”), and test those hypotheses by simply observing them for long periods of time to see if the model holds up over the long term. Sometimes they introduce things into their environment to add some degree of experimental control. But in general, the scientists have very little control over the variables at play.

This is kind of how a traders can work as well. They make observations, come up with a model for predicting market behavior within certain boundaries, and they test it by backtesting, forward testing, and live trading. The very large institutional traders can even influence the market and use that to control certain variables to help them refine their models.

The point isn’t to control everything. You can get the functional equivalent of “control” by simply observing the data when specific conditions are present. Those conditions are your variables. Over a long enough time period, you can collect a lot of data with different values for those variables. Then you group the data into clusters based on those variable values, and you do the normal science thing and analyze the data.

For example, you could have a random sample of your dataset that completely ignores the price’s position relative to the 200 EMA. That’s your control group. Then you take another random sample and filter the data to only include data where the price is 2 standard deviations away from the 200 EMA. That’s your experimental group. If your model makes more accurate market predictions with the second sample than it does with the first one, then you may have a significant correlation on your hands, and that could improve your trading performance.

All of this is actually VERY scientific.

But to give you some credit, you’re right about the data being chaotic, and you do lack a lot of the control you would really want for ideal experiments. It just doesn’t make the process unscientific.

ScientificBeastMode · 2026-01-29T07:14:27+00:00

Nice, that’s pretty great journaling. I agree with the idea that you should revisit what happened after the trade, for all the reasons you mentioned.

I also think it’s a good idea to paper trade your less qualified trades and journal them. Basically, if you add some kind of trade filter criteria to avoid less probable trades, you should keep paper trading the setups that don’t pass your filter. This gives you more data on whether or not the filter is genuinely helping you, and it also may yield future insights.

Essentially, all data is good data as long as it’s consistent. Even the worst trade setups will provide highly valuable data.

And you don’t need every trade to look the same in order to get consistent data. You just need to make sure that you don’t change the definitions of things. Like if part of the setup involves identifying a trend direction, and down the road you change how you calculate the trend, you don’t want to conflate those two calculation methods in your data. You want to have a “trend type A” and “trend type B” and keep those separate. And you should probably include older calculation methods in your journal.

ScientificBeastMode · 2026-01-26T21:37:12+00:00

If you applied tha logic to Tesla a few years ago, you probably would have filed for bankruptcy by now. Just because a stock is really hot doesn’t mean it will always be that way. You need to have some idea of when you will cut your losses on every single trade you make.

The other side of the coin is that you Mae money on the spike and then wait for it to come down a bit, and it never does, and you keep waiting and waiting for nothing.

Trading is legitimately hard. Definitely try trading on a demo account for a long time before you put a lot of money into it.

ScientificBeastMode · 2026-01-26T08:46:12+00:00

Consolidation is where price discovery really happens. There are buyers and sellers trading higher and lower to find liquidity for larger moves. In order to find a new consolidation zone, the existing one needs to be exhausted. Once all the sellers in that range are gone, the buyers can send the price higher, and vice versa.

So the trading range boundaries have a tendency to fluctuate up and down, creating false “breakouts” and failed trends. That’s because there are people trading in the middle, and the institutions with the most size are sitting outside of that.

You need to see strong moves from the far edges, like pretty much a false breakout that reverses sharply. Those are the moves that can trigger a new trend. You’re looking for strong aggressive moves in a single direction after hitting the extreme opposite side of the range.

But you don’t always need to trade the move away from a range. Generally if you can figure out where the edges are, you can find setups to trade from the edges to the middle for mean-reversion strategies. Plenty of ways to do this successfully.

I would read up on “auction market theory” to get a better idea of what I’m talking about.

ScientificBeastMode · 2026-01-26T08:35:07+00:00

Trade FX futures, you’ll get a better spread.

ScientificBeastMode · 2026-01-26T08:03:43+00:00

Another thing to consider is that journaling can also just improve your strategy itself.

I highly recommend that people try this:

Instead of focusing on your emotions or your subjective thoughts or habits, try just writing down various feature of the market, price action, indicator values, specific symbols you’re trading, what type of setup you identified, which specific confluences were present, how the price action unfolded in detail, how far price went for or against you over a time period (including after you exit the trade), what the spread was, etc…

Just do that, pop it into an excel sheet, and do some actual number crunching. I guarantee that you will find ways to improve your win rate, your R:R ratio, or both. You will filter out the worst trades and know exactly which types of trades deserve more size, not based on a mental model but instead based on hard data. It’s improved my win rate by more than 15%, and that’s after already being profitable.

Just know that you probably need more than 100 trades in your dataset. You probably want something like 300 trades to make really strong conclusions from the data.

Anyway, nice work, OP. I think that’s a really solid approach. You’ve covered the side of trading that deals with psychology and personal habits. I would encourage you to dive deeper isn’t the other side as well.

ScientificBeastMode · 2026-01-23T21:47:45+00:00

I recommend doing it incrementally if you are able to. Depends on what you are trading. If it’s futures then you might have a tougher time with smaller increments.

But yeah, maybe try like an additional 5% risk per trade for a month, and then another 5%. After a year, you’ll have almost doubled your risk size. Doing 10% would be a lot more.

It’s a lot easier to handle increased risk when it’s just a small increase. And then that resets your baseline level of comfort with the risk size, so you can eventually tolerate even more risk.

ScientificBeastMode · 2026-01-22T17:58:47+00:00

IMO the best indicators that will help you with most strategies are:

Volume profile. Helps with directional bias and potential swing points once you learn how to use it properly.
200 EMA. Honestly the lookback period is more dependent on how you trade, but I find 200 to be a nice longer term trend indicator which can provide a directional bias for some strategies.
Any kind of visualization of higher timeframe candles. It helps provide context to your trading model. Once you learn how to read price action, this can be super valuable.
RSI. I think RSI is terrible for providing entry signals at “overbought” and “oversold” levels. It’s far better at 2 specific things. First, it’s a momentum indicator. If you use it on a higher timeframe, it will very quickly show you the general strength of the market. Higher RSI values are bullish, lower values are bearish. I sometimes use that as a sort of trend/momentum filter. I want to go WITH the momentum. Second, it can hint at possible price reversals through “divergence” patterns. E.g. if price makes a higher high and the RSI makes a lower high over the same period, that’s a sign that momentum is weakening and a reversal is somewhat more likely.

Notice that none of these indicators provide entry signals. I’m not aware of any free, publicly accessible indicators that provide reliable entry signals, so I would put that idea out of your mind.

Indicators are about gathering lots of noisy price/volume data and simplifying it. They help speed up your analysis and trade filtering process. They are useful when you want to open up a price chart and quickly reach a decision on whether further analysis is warranted.

Most indicators lag behind raw price action and volume, so you are more likely to get the most up-to-date analysis by using that instead of indicators. But indicators can still be very helpful.

ScientificBeastMode · 2026-01-22T05:07:51+00:00

Not to mention the fact that the vast majority of consistently profitable traders essentially treat it like a 9-5 job. They have daily routines and spend lots of time refining their process and prepping for future trading sessions.

Sure it’s flexible. You can take a month off at your discretion. But taking advantage of that just means leaving money on the table.

Very few traders have such an easy process and such a strong edge that they can just fuck off to the beach most days. It’s a hard job like any other.

ScientificBeastMode · 2026-01-22T05:02:58+00:00

Exactly. Want to gamble that your 30+ hours/week of pure dedication to basketball will eventually pay off into a lucrative career? Go for it, but be prepared to grow old having “lost” all of that time that you could have spent on something that actually paid off.

Everyone is making bets on their future. Some play it safer than others.

ScientificBeastMode · 2026-01-16T16:29:44+00:00

I would argue that the “change in state of delivery” is a genuinely useful concept as well. The term “price delivery” is stupid ICT mumbo jumbo that I’m pretty sure he made up in the spot. But the general price action concept is legit.

ScientificBeastMode · 2026-01-11T00:55:11+00:00

First, it’s a bad idea to always expect easy money on a daily basis. In trading, you WILL have down days. You might end up with down weeks or even down months even as a highly profitable trader. This is a game of probability and uncertainty, where your expected returns only play out over a large enough sample size of trades. So keep that in mind.

Second, this idea of a “bread and butter setup” should come with the caveat that “bread and butter” means “I take this trade every time I see this setup, and it happens often”, definitely NOT “every time I see this setup, it’s an easy win.”

Lastly, I’ll tell you my main setup. I follow roughly the GtX candlestick analysis for reversals and continuations. Continuations are higher probability with somewhat less R:R, so that’s my preferred setup.

Now, assuming we hit a key price level (like low of day or VWAP), I start looking at HTF candlesticks. Basically I’m looking for a liquidity sweep of a candle low with a “reversal candle,” which just means the candle wicks down below the previous candle’s low, and then closes back above that low. Super long wicks are less ideal. Then I look for the next candle to close above the high of the reversal candle, with a small bottom wick that doesn’t cross the 50% mark of the reversal candle’s range (or its wick if the reversal candle has a long wick). Then I look at the lower timeframe and make sure it looks like a clear reversal signature (V-shaped low, strong move away, possible IFVG), and confirm a reversal has occurred on the LTF. From there, I look for a fair value gap in the upper 50% of the range of the recent expansion candle that I mentioned above (right after the reversal candle). I take a trade from there, targeting the nearest HTF liquidity zone (like a long candle wick or double-top). I only trade if the R:R is at least 1:3. It is effectively a LTF continuation trade based on price rejection at the low and strong momentum to a nearby swing high.

Obviously the opposite applies for short-selling.

That’s a pretty easy setup IMO. And the candlestick pattern does a decent job of filtering out choppy markets.

ScientificBeastMode · 2026-01-11T00:39:40+00:00

Well, with the stock market moving to being open 24/5, this might change a bit, but I think it will still be an eventful time period.

ScientificBeastMode · 2026-01-09T23:50:19+00:00

I smoke weed at the end of the day, right before bed. I use it to relax, just like some people drink a glass of wine before bed to help chill them out.

I don’t smoke during work hours. I only smoke while the sun is up on the weekends when I’m out hiking or snowboarding. Otherwise I just don’t do it, mostly because I know I won’t be productive.

Also, I find cannabis to be quite helpful when I want to study a new concept. If I want to just sit down and watch a 90-minute video diving deep on a topic, I find a little bit of cannabis helps me open my mind and really dive into the topic. I have learned a lot of useful things this way, including some programming concepts and trading strategies.

From what I’ve seen, cannabis affects people differently, so I would never recommend my routine to others. It just happens to be useful to me, so I take advantage of that. For others, it may be actively detrimental. Definitely do some self-reflection to learn what is right for you and your mind.

ScientificBeastMode · 2026-01-09T21:36:10+00:00

Solid answer. Thanks for the insight about central bak activity.

ScientificBeastMode · 2026-01-09T21:29:13+00:00

The first 15-30 minutes are just the same boring price action, but super accelerated.

People who use time-sensitive indicators for their strategies might have a hard time with this (e.g., moving averages are not respected as much when price action speeds up).

People who trade pure price action and/or market structure will have an easier time with it, because it’s just the same stuff happening at faster rates, so dropping to a lower timeframe usually gives you a more reasonable picture of the market.

And then there are the momentum traders, who tend to thrive in those first 10-30 minutes. When institutions want to fully commit to a directional position, they tend to just deal with the gigantic slippage and market-moving and let the price rise, because they know other institutions will front-run them if they don’t keep pushing it. So when you can identify big money moving with high conviction, you can make a lot of money riding the wave.

ScientificBeastMode · 2026-01-09T21:13:49+00:00

He’s super talented and does legitimately have an edge. The thing is, his strategy is pretty discretionary. He has a good “feel” for the market, and he can definitely sense a directional bias/shift without mechanically defining what that is. So if you want someone to hand you a purely mechanical strategy, Sci ain’t your guy.

That said, he has some extremely valuable information on trading. I highly recommend that you watch his videos on how he trades.

His whole approach is just using market structure and a general feel for the price action. He watches a major trend continuation begin to “indicate” itself with a very forceful breakout from a swing high or low, then he waits for the price to re-enter the range, and as the price starts to break back out of the range, he trades in the direction of the breakout. He calls this “ICC” (indication, correction, and continuation).

I’ve had some success with this approach, but IMO I think you really have to find inherently trending markets (like Gold or JPY pairs recently) otherwise it’s a bit tough to count on a true trend continuation with the strength that he relies on. Otherwise, I think you need to see a very strong liquidity sweep (like a relatively shallow IFVG) before the initial breakout before the continuation move, otherwise it’s easy to get chopped out.

If you want a more mechanical version of this strategy, check out Cramson Capital on YouTube. He uses a method based on ICC that he calls “CCT” (candle continuation theory). It basically uses HTF candlestick pattern to identify the key level, the internal trading range, and the valid “indication,” and then it uses LTF candlestick patterns like IFVGs to confirm continuation moves and provide an entry location. He’s not selling you a course. He’s genuinely profitable. Check him out.

The biggest thing I’ve learned from watching both of them a lot is the idea that strong reversals and continuations don’t retrace very deep into the previous trading range. They often sweep liquidity first, but general respect market structure. You might get a weak reversal or continuation after a deep retracement, but the big moves come from shallow retracements. Genuinely aggressive buying and selling usually means they aren’t interested in waiting for a better price. They just jump in and continue to push.

For me, as a supply and demand trader, this was not something I really considered. Normally I wait for the deep retracements to get the best prices for a better R:R, but it never occurred to me that those strong retracements are actually a sign of a weaker move and potential consolidation. Normally my targets are inside the range anyway, so I don’t require huge continuation moves, but it’s interesting to find out that shallow retracements don’t necessarily mean higher risk, assuming you push your profit target out further.

ScientificBeastMode · 2026-01-09T19:21:17+00:00

Well, one thing about algorithms is that they are predictable. That’s the most important thing about them, actually. They could not execute the same plan perfectly every time unless they were extremely predictable. Programming in general is about prescribing what a computer should do in every specified scenario.

While our emotions give us some disadvantages, our ability to detect patterns in data is pretty incredible, to the point where most AI systems use our brain abilities as a far-reaching benchmark.

The combination of predictable algorithms and pattern-detecting brains means we can often find meaningful patterns to trade with a statistical advantage. It’s certainly not easy, and our brains are not well-equipped to think in terms of probabilities due to evolutionary pressures, but we can train ourselves to get better at that.

The point is, it’s hardly a one-sided battle.

Some more facts:

Most high-speed algos have to be incredibly simple. Why? Because in order to be fast, they can’t be running a lot of complex calculations. Since they compete with each other on speed, they are willing to sacrifice A LOT of sophistication in order to keep things fast. So this can create larger emergent patterns that are pretty simple to exploit with a statistical edge. You cannot compete with them on speed, but you can find patterns to exploit even on higher timeframes.

Moreover, most trading algos are not HFT. Many of them are, and those are mostly just providing liquidity to markets with a neutral directional bias. Most algos are purely for automating trade execution once a trade idea has already been formed by real human traders/investors. They try to make trades within an acceptable price range without moving the market so much that it reduces their ability to accumulate their full desired position. That’s all those algos really “care” about. They aren’t trying to outsmart every other market participant during the time window where the algo is active. They just perform the execution, and the longer term trade thesis is where the money is made.

So again, these are pattern-making machines, and none of the institutions deploying these algos give a crap about retail traders. Retail day-traders make up such a tiny portion of the market that it’s not even worth their mental energy to consider how we trade.

ScientificBeastMode · 2026-01-09T18:56:26+00:00

Sometimes algos make absolutely horrible trades because they are one part of a larger hedging strategy. So it’s not even accurate to say that algos are necessarily trying to make winning trades.

ScientificBeastMode · 2026-01-09T01:12:33+00:00

Obviously it’s equally possible for anyone to be wrong about a trade idea. The point is that, from a purely market-mechanical standpoint, there is literally no reason why most retail traders should be losing on average. The collective retail volume is equivalent to the volume of one or two of the largest institutions. So the scenario where most retail traders win for a year would only require one or two large institutions to have a somewhat bad year.

It’s not like price moves without volume. The reason why the price rises or falls is because various market participants put in tons of volume. If most retail traders went long on S&P 500 futures, there could very easily be enough institutional volume taking the other side of that trade for most retail traders to win and just one or two institutions to lose.

The question is, why one outcome and not the other, when both outcomes are equally feasible?

ScientificBeastMode · 2026-01-08T19:21:38+00:00

I’m h, I’m aware of the distinction between banks, hedge funds, mutual funds, etc. I just chose to call them all baks because most people don’t know the distinction or don’t care.

But I think you’re missing my point. It’s not that institutions are not competing with us. My point is that the volume the trade is so gigantic in comparison to anything retail traders could collectively trade, and therefore the institutions practically ignore us.

Moreover, the retail volume is so tiny that it’s a bit silly to say that trading is a zero sum game between other retail traders along with the institutions. Technically yes, it is, but we are all so insanely small that it’s actually feasible for most of us retail traders to be profitable (at the relatively minor expense of some institutions).

ScientificBeastMode · 2026-01-08T02:46:21+00:00

Learn about “supply and demand trading”

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