Specialist track, course code TR
Discretionary Trading
Trading courses for people who place their own trades: how markets and orders work, how to read a chart and test what it says, what each trade costs, and how professionals run day, swing, futures, options and macro books. No programming at any point.
These trading courses are for people who place their own trades: retail traders, prop traders, manual traders on bank and fund desks, and people who have never traded and want to start properly. The track covers the craft of discretionary trading, from the first order you place to the way a professional desk trades futures, options and macro events. Nothing in it requires programming.
What does the discretionary trading track cover?
The introductory courses settle the mechanics: how stocks trade, what a broker does with your order, how to read a chart, what a bid-ask spread costs and what day trading really involves. The intermediate courses cover the methods traders actually use, technical analysis, price action, swing and intraday trading, news trading and a first look at options, each with the evidence for and against it. The advanced courses cover order flow, futures, momentum, macro, fundamental analysis and the way bank and proprietary desks think about risk and reward.
How is this track different from the algorithmic trading courses?
The algorithmic trading courses teach you to write and test programs that trade. This track teaches you to trade yourself, with the same respect for costs, evidence and risk. A discretionary trader still needs to know whether a method has an edge, and the courses show how to find out with a journal and a spreadsheet instead of code.
Where does this track lead?
Its courses, with those of the trader judgement track, make up the three semester certificates of the trader path and the Diploma in Professional Trading.
Open courses in this track
Free primers. Read, watch and work the exercises before you spend anything.
Foundation courses in this track
The mathematics, statistics, data and market knowledge every later course assumes.
- Day Trading for Beginners: What It Really Takes 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.
- How to Read Stock Charts: Candles, Volume and Levels How to read stock charts the way a careful trader does: what each candle records, how timeframes change the picture, what volume adds, where support and resistance come from, and which chart claims fail when tested.
- How to Trade Stocks: Markets, Brokers and Orders 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.
- Trading Costs: Bid-Ask Spreads, Commissions and Slippage The bid ask spread is the first cost of every trade and the one most traders never count. This course measures it with commissions, slippage, financing and fees, and shows which trading styles survive their costs.
Practitioner courses in this track
Lab-based courses. You build, test and cost real strategies and systems on market data.
- Fundamental Analysis for Traders: Reading the Numbers Fundamental analysis reads a company's accounts to judge what it is worth and how its results may move the share price. This course teaches the three financial statements, the main valuation ratios, earnings quality and guidance, and how traders use fundamentals to choose which stocks to trade and which events to respect.
- Global Macro Trading: Rates, Currencies and the Cycle Global macro trading takes positions on the big forces: interest rates, inflation, growth, currencies and commodities. This course teaches how central banks set policy, how rates drive currencies and asset prices, how the business cycle shows in markets, and how to turn a macro view into a sized trade with a clear exit.
- How to Trade Futures: Contracts, Margin and Rolls How to trade futures without learning the hard way: what a contract is, how tick values and margin turn a small move into a large profit or loss, how expiry and rolling work, which contracts suit a small account, and how to size positions so leverage never decides for you.
- Intraday Trading: Manual Execution and Spread Costs Intraday trading lives or dies on execution. This course covers the shape of the trading day, how spreads and depth change from the open to the close, how to place orders by hand without paying away your edge, and how to measure slippage and cost per trade in your own record.
- Momentum and Breakout Trading Momentum trading buys what has been rising and sells what has been falling, one of the best-documented effects in finance. This course covers the research on time-series and cross-sectional momentum, breakout entries, exits that let trends run, the sharp reversals called momentum crashes, and how to run a manual momentum book.
- News Trading: Earnings, Data Releases and Events News trading reacts to scheduled and unscheduled information: central bank decisions, economic data, earnings and company announcements. This course teaches how markets price an expected number, why the surprise matters more than the headline, what happens to spreads around a release, and when the right trade is no trade.
- Options Trading for Beginners: Calls, Puts and Risk Options trading for beginners, taught with payoff diagrams and a spreadsheet instead of formulas: what calls and puts are, how premium, time decay and implied volatility set the price, the common strategies such as covered calls and spreads, and the ways options lose money for the people who buy them.
- Order Flow Trading: Tape Reading and Volume Profile Order flow trading reads the orders behind the price: the limit order book, the time and sales record, volume at each price and the balance of buying and selling. This course teaches each tool, what the research on order flow shows, and how to test an order flow setup on your own record.
- Price Action Trading and Market Structure Price action trading reads the chart itself rather than indicators: market structure, swing points, trends and ranges, breakouts and failed breakouts, pullbacks and the zones where orders gather. Every setup is defined by a rule and checked on your own record.
- Swing Trading: Holding Trades for Days and Weeks Swing trading holds positions for days to weeks, which suits people who cannot watch a screen all day. This course covers scanning for candidates, the main setups, the overnight and gap risk that comes with holding, earnings and event dates, and a weekly routine you can keep.
- Technical Analysis, Tested: Indicators and Evidence 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.
Credentials that use this track
- Foundation Certificate in TradingThe first semester of the trader path: a trading course for beginners in eight parts, 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.
- Intermediate Certificate in TradingThe second semester of the trader path: a day trading course and swing trading course in one, covering technical analysis, price action, intraday execution, news, options, evidence-based testing and the written trading plan, with a tested-plan capstone. No programming.
- Advanced Certificate in TradingThe third semester of the trader path, for a certified trader at advanced level: order flow, futures, momentum and breakouts, global macro, fundamental analysis, how desk traders think, prop trading firms and overtrading, with a desk-style simulated book as the capstone. No programming.
- Diploma in Professional TradingThe top credential on the trader path and the Institute's trading certification for people who do not write code. Three semesters, 24 courses and a 160-hour capstone, from a first lesson on how markets work to a six-month simulated trading business reviewed like a desk.
Questions applicants ask
Do I need to know how to code for these trading courses?
No. Every course in this track is taught and assessed without programming. Where a course tests an idea, it does so by hand, in a trading journal or in a spreadsheet.
What is discretionary trading?
Trading in which a person makes each decision, usually within written rules, rather than leaving the decision to a program. Most day traders, swing traders and many prop and bank traders work this way.
Can I start with no trading experience?
Yes. The free course How to Start Trading assumes nothing, and the Foundation Certificate in Trading starts from how a stock exchange and a broker work.