Credential program on the trader path
Foundation Certificate in Trading
The first stage of the trader path: a trading course for beginners in five courses, from how markets and orders work to costs, charts, risk, edge, psychology and the trading journal, with a simulated-account capstone. No previous knowledge and no programming.
Most people who try trading start in the wrong place, and the typical trading course for beginners lets them. They begin with a strategy from a video, place real orders before they understand what each one costs, and judge themselves on a handful of trades. The Foundation Certificate in Trading starts where professional training starts: with how markets work, what trading costs, how to size a position so that one mistake cannot end the account, and how to keep a record honest enough to learn from.
What does the Foundation Certificate cover?
How stock markets, brokers and orders work. The full cost of a trade, from the bid-ask spread to slippage. Reading charts: candles, volume and levels. What day trading really demands. Stop losses and position sizing. Edge, expectancy and the part luck plays in short records. The psychology of decisions under risk, including the habits that turn trading into gambling. And the trading journal that every later course in the path builds on.
How is it assessed?
Each course has its own quizzes, problem sets and a proctored exam with a 60% pass mark. The certificate is awarded when all five courses and the capstone are passed. The capstone is an eight-week simulated trading record under a written plan, assessed in writing by the faculty.
Who should take it?
Complete beginners who want a serious start, discretionary traders who never had formal training, and anyone planning the full Diploma in Professional Trading. No programming is needed at any point.
The courses in this program
- How to Trade Stocks: Orders, Costs and the Spread How to trade stocks with a clear picture of what happens behind the button: exchanges and brokers, every common order type, margin and short selling, corporate actions, settlement and the records you keep for tax. It also teaches the bid-ask spread and every other cost of a trade.
- Technical Analysis: Reading Charts and Price Action Technical analysis as a set of claims you can check: moving averages, momentum oscillators, volume indicators and chart patterns, what each measures, what the published evidence says, and how to test one on your own market with a spreadsheet. It also teaches how to read stock charts from scratch and price action trading.
- Day Trading for Beginners: Intraday Trading Done Properly Day trading for beginners without the sales pitch: how the trading day is structured, which instruments suit it, the rules and costs that apply, the main setups, and the evidence on how many day traders make money. It also teaches intraday trading routines and limits.
- Stop Losses, Position Sizing and Your Trading Edge Where to put a stop loss and how large a position to take, as one decision: fixed-fraction sizing, volatility-based stops, the risk reward ratio, daily and monthly loss limits, and what happens when the market gaps through your stop. It also teaches how to measure your trading edge as expectancy.
- Trading Psychology, the Trading Journal and Overtrading Trading psychology taught from the research on decisions under risk: why traders hold losers and cut winners, how overconfidence grows after a good run, what tilt and revenge trading look like, and the routines that protect you from yourself. It also teaches the trading journal and overtrading and how to stop it.
What every course contains
Every paid course comes with the first seven and the certificate, whichever level it sits at. The proctored exam and the credential come when the course is taken as part of a Certificate, Diploma or Fellowship. Everything is self-paced: the material is yours to study in any order, at any hour, for the whole of the license.
- Workbooks. Written to train the thinking patterns and the important concepts of the course, with worked problems and the reasoning behind each answer, so that you learn to think the way the subject is thought.
- Audio edition. Focused, well-presented recordings with explainers and examples of the material, made to be interesting, relevant and entertaining, so that the general subject can be learned away from the desk.
- Notes. Pre-produced notes with every fact the course relies on, written out in full, so that nothing has to be transcribed from the films or the audio.
- Cheat sheet. One sheet with every important learning concept of the course on it, to keep beside you during the work and to revise from before the exam.
- Named sources. Every fact in the notes names its source, the paper, the book or the dataset, for anyone who wants to dig in further.
- Explainer films. Focused films, in the style of the sample films on the catalog page, that walk through the most difficult concepts of the course with visual explanations of a high standard.
- Transcript. A full transcript of every film and every audio recording, searchable and quotable.
- Proctored exam. Taken as part of a Certificate, Diploma or Fellowship, the course ends in a proctored multiple-choice questionnaire, with a pass mark of 60% and three retakes included. A course taken on its own is assessed by its coursework and has no exam.
- Verifiable certificate. A certificate of completion that a third party can verify: an employer sends the code on it to the credentials office and receives written confirmation of the course, the date and the result.
- Credential of the program. The Certificate, Diploma or Fellowship of the program, track or path the course belongs to, awarded when every course in it is passed. Which one depends on the program you choose.
What is the foundation trading capstone?
You trade a simulated account for eight weeks under a written plan: two setups, a risk rule and daily loss limits set before the first trade. Every trade goes into your journal. The submission is the journal and a report of about 2,000 words on your costs, your expectancy and how closely you followed the plan. The faculty assess it against published criteria and return written feedback: whether the plan was followed, whether risk stayed within its limits, and whether the conclusions match the record.
What does the credential record?
It records that you passed the proctored exam of every course listed on this page and the capstone, assessed by the Institute's faculty. The credential is issued by the Institute. Each one carries a verification code that an employer can check with the credentials office.
Questions applicants ask
Can I start with no trading knowledge at all?
Yes. The certificate assumes nothing beyond school arithmetic and the use of a spreadsheet. The free courses How to Start Trading and Is Day Trading Gambling? are a good first look before you enroll.
Will I trade real money?
No. All graded trading uses a simulated account, so the course costs you nothing in losses. Whether you trade real money afterwards is your decision, and the capstone report is designed to inform it.
How long does the certificate take?
44 hours of material across the five courses, each hour with its audio edition and workbook, and a capstone of 20 hours of your own work. The license runs 12 months, so you set the pace around a job.