Learning volume, order flow and fundamentals
Three branches — what the chart is doing, why it did it, and a video course that works through both in order. All of it is written to be read in sequence.
Free, with no account and no purchase — you do not have to own anything of ours to read it.
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Fundamental and timing analysis
Twelve free lessons on trading the fundamentals: the economic calendar, GDP, the dollar index, interest rates, the yield curve, PMI, CPI and sentiment.
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Building a fundamental trading strategy, step by step
Instrument, market, timeframe, bias, position size and hedging — the eight decisions in the order that stops you reopening them. Lesson 12 of 12, free.
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The economic calendar and streaming news
What the previous, forecast and actual columns mean, how to work a calendar before the week starts, and one payrolls release read across three markets.
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GDP, and what it does to a currency
What gross, domestic and product each mean, why the first estimate moves the most, and why the same beat pushes forex and equities opposite ways.
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The global markets, and the instruments that track them
The seven global markets and what sits inside each: commodities, equities, forex majors and exotics, derivatives, ETFs and crypto — and what a CFD is.
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Market sentiment and the speculative sentiment index
Why a correct forecast can still lose money, what the ratio of open long to short positions measures, and why it is read against the crowd, not with it.
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Monetary policy and the rate decision as a tradeable event
The three tools of monetary policy, why two identical rate cuts produced opposite reactions, and how to check what is already priced in.
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Money, interest rates and the central bank
Why the interest rate is the price of money, what M0 to M3 measure, and how to read a Fed statement, a dot plot and market-implied odds.
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The releases that move the tape: PMI, employment, retail sales and CPI
Why fifty is the only level that matters on PMI, why average earnings beat the jobs number, and why core retail sales and core CPI are the ones to read.
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Reserve currencies, resource currencies and market bias
Why the yen, franc, dollar and gold rise on bad news while the Australian and Canadian dollars fall, and how to set a market bias from it.
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The US Dollar Index: four indices, four answers
Why four dollar indices give four answers, why DXY is more than half euro, and why gold and crude move against the dollar while the S&P 500 does not.
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Why price moves: events, non-events and sentiment
The three causes of a price move, why the surprise against forecast matters more than the number, and why "the market is random" describes the observer.
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The yield curve, and how bonds lead currencies
Why bond prices and yields move opposite ways, what a flat or inverted curve forecasts, and how the ten-year spread prices a currency pair.
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Volume and order flow analysis
Twelve free lessons on reading a chart from what traded: trend structure, volume-based levels, delta, the order book and tape, risk and scalping.
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Trend, structure and Dow theory brought up to date
Dow theory brought up to date: labelling a trend with P1, P2 and P3, and what volume should do across a movement and a correction.
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Entry setups: where to actually get in
Twelve entry setups for trend trading: the hammer, the double outside, Midas VWAP and delta divergence, plus seven hourly setups ranked by risk.
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Market delta cycles, and what a divergence is telling you
What a delta divergence actually claims, the seven ordinary things that cause one, and nine zones read against CPI and the interest rate differential.
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Support and resistance built from volume
Levels drawn from where business was actually done: pivots, three lengths of VWAP, the volume journal, volume profile and TPO — and when not to use one.
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The order book, the tape and market speed
Passive against aggressive orders, market by order and icebergs, the footprint, the tick measurements that expose algorithms, and TVVR in nine steps.
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Stop hunting, and entering after it
Why price takes yesterday's low by a few points and turns: where the stops sit, and the six things to watch while a hunt is happening.
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Risk and trade management
The daily, weekly and monthly ceilings, the formula that turns a stop distance into a position size, and how pyramiding grows size out of profit.
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Scalping with range bars and aggressive data
A range bar closes on movement, not the clock, which shortens the stop. Ten footprint signals and thirty-two states of a trading day, with a win rate each.
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Trading currency futures: contracts, rates and covered interest parity
Reading a futures symbol and its month code, why the interest rate differential is already in the price, and covered interest parity with real numbers.
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The currency pairs, one at a time
Daily range, pip value and stop distance for 6E, 6J, 6B, 6S, 6C, 6A and 6N, the three contracts that move opposite to the CFD, and the economy behind each.
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Stock index futures: ES, YM and NQ
Daily range, tick structure, point value and stop distance for the E-mini S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq-100, and why levels are set in points, not ticks.
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What actually moves an index, and when
How few companies really carry the S&P, Nasdaq and Dow, what the pre-market and after-hours sessions are worth, and the overlap where volatility sits.
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Order flow trading course
A free video course on order flow and volume in NinjaTrader 8: trend structure, delta, volume profile, the order book and the footprint.
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Market structure: how trends form, break and reverse
A trend is decided by closes, not wicks. How pivots become definite, when a trend has really broken, and the volume that warns of a reversal first.
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The trade pyramid: how traders actually progress
The four gears behind a trading plan, the four stages of trader competence, and the Dow theory foundations of trend trading. Lesson 1, free.
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Trend trading, and what you actually trade on MetaTrader
Why trend trading comes first, and what a MetaTrader chart really is: a CFD copied from the futures market, not the forex market. Lesson 2, free.
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Where forex volume comes from, and what level 2 data shows
Your broker’s volume is its own customers. The real volume sits in the futures market, where level 2 data shows who is actually buying and selling.
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Instrument specifications
Daily range, tick value, tick structure and stop distance for the seven currency futures and for ES, YM and NQ, with their deviation ladders.
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What Is Volume Spread Analysis, and Why Does It Still Work?
VSA reads the relationship between a bar's spread, its close and the volume behind it. Here is where the method came from, the three ideas it rests on, and how it maps onto the order flow tools traders use today.
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Cluster Charts and Footprint Charts: Reading Volume Inside the Bar
A candlestick tells you where price went. A footprint tells you what it cost to get there. What these charts actually plot, what delta and imbalance mean, and the data you need before either is worth looking at.
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Free NinjaTrader Indicators: What You Already Have
Before you go looking for free NinjaTrader indicators, it is worth knowing what the platform already gives you. NinjaTrader 8 ships with volumetric bars, a volume profile and a market depth ladder — and most of what people download replaces something already there.
Nothing matches that. Try a shorter phrase — or ask us and we will point you at the right lesson.
The three parts of the material
One reads the chart. One explains why the chart did that. The third teaches both on video, in order. They are separate because they are learned separately — and most people who get stuck are missing the second one.
12 lessons
Volume and order flow analysis
Reading a chart from what actually traded: trend structure, volume-based support and resistance, delta, the order book and the tape, scalping, and the risk management that holds it together.
12 lessons
Fundamental and timing analysis
What put the move there before it reached the chart: central banks and interest rates, the releases on the calendar and the ones that are not, the yield curve, the dollar index, and the positioning that decided how far it went.
Video course
Order flow trading course
Sixty-four video lessons, released one a week, that build in layers: trend structure first, then volume and delta, then the volume profile, then the order book and the footprint — and finally all of them combined into one way of trading. Taught in NinjaTrader 8 by the person who built the indicators, using those indicators, so nothing is described in the abstract. Every lesson carries its full transcript, so you can read it as well as watch it.
Start at lesson one
The series begins with market structure: how to decide what a trend is doing without guessing, where a movement ends and a correction begins, and why a pullback of eighty per cent can still be a pullback.
From there it runs through entries, delta, volume-based support and resistance, the order book and the tape, stop hunting, and risk. Each lesson links to the next.
The instruments, with the numbers
Three of the volume lessons are reference material rather than technique: what the seven currency futures actually do in a day, how ES, YM and NQ differ, and which sessions and releases move them.
All ten contracts are also collected into one table — daily ranges, tick values, stop distances and the three deviation ladders side by side — for when you want the figure rather than the reasoning.
Inside the bar
The footprint chart is the highest-resolution view of order flow and the one that takes longest to read reliably. Imbalance, absorption, delta divergence and unfinished auctions are all read there, and the lessons on delta and on the order book build up to it.
Our own footprint tool is still being written. The reading is the same whatever draws it.
Articles and the manual
Shorter pieces on single topics sit alongside the lessons — how one chart is read, what a term actually means, where a common reading goes wrong. There are 2 at the moment and more are being written.
Every setting in the tools we ship is documented too, with what it does and when you would change it. That is on the product page rather than behind a login, so you can read it before deciding whether to buy anything.
The course is here, and it is free
Everything above is finished, and so is the question people used to ask about it. The structured course — the same ground taught in order, on video — is publishing now, one lesson a week, and it costs nothing either.
The written lessons were never a teaser for it. They stay free and complete, and so does the course.
Stuck on something specific?
If a lesson leaves something unclear, tell us which one and what did not land. If it is a common question we will rewrite that part, and either way you get an answer.