13,604 words, 50 slides, and 3 months - just for 1 video!

I want you to succeed, and I have nothing to sell you.

After the introductory video, we will get into technical analysis, finding your edge, journaling, risk:reward ratios, and everything else that you need to learn in order to start trading with the approach that will work best for you. Do not buy courses or mentorships from anyone.

Only 13% of the 1.3 million viewers made it until the end. It’s time to find out if you’re serious about learning how to trade.

Or, continue reading if you don’t need the basics covered. This guide is about 1-hour long, and it has chapters on each section for you to navigate through on your own.


So, you want to be a trader. Let’s get started.

What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you read indicator or trading strategy

  • RSI?

  • Moving averages?

  • Supply and demand?

  • Smart money concepts?

All popular trading strategies and indicator-based systems have already been automated with 100% precision, and you can actually find most of them for free on TradingView. So, why would someone give away an algorithm that perfectly follows the rules of a “profitable” trading strategy? It’s because they don’t actually work. Of course there are profitable algorithms, systems, and indicators, but they’re not being sold for $15/month to retail traders. Imagine how silly it would be for Jim Simons’ massively successful algorithmic hedge-fund to start selling a trading bot or indicator. They wouldn’t give up their edge, because they’re too busy using it to make billions.

And yet, there are profitable traders using indicators and other simple strategies…

So, how is this possible, and what exactly is going on? Well, since people go to YouTube to learn how to trade from YouTubers who have 0 proof of profitability and make new “trading strategy” videos once a week, most traders don’t last long enough to understand the answer:

  • The system or pattern either works, so automate it and become a millionaire

Or:

  • The system only works when you choose how and when you will or will not follow it, making discretion what makes that system “work.”

Every popular system, strategy, and indicator just gives you a perspective to learn price action

Everything works in the same way that nothing works. Let me explain.

Thinking that a few demand zones or fair value gaps that worked means proof of a profitable system is why failed traders can become millionaires through mentorships, courses, and YouTube ad revenue (like ICT). It’s a fundamental lack of even a shred of understanding about the amount of data there is in trading. Anything can work a few times, but nothing broadcasted on YouTube works long-term on its own. Do you really think if you found a pattern that would make you $10,000,000 / year that you would sell it for $20 a month? Come on now. If you choosing when and when not to follow your system is what makes it work long-term, then that’s as valid as choosing when and when not to use my cat’s meows as buy signals. The only difference is that your system would be far better for learning, but their validity is the same because they only work based on the discretionary read of the underlying price action. Both systems could be automated because they are all codable instructions, yet none of them work long-term. They only start working when you decide when not to follow them, and only you can figure that out. If it could be explained rationally and coherently by you or a guru, then that explanation could be automated. If you bought because price did x while volume was doing y, then that can be automated.

So, how do you learn the only part of trading that makes a non-algorithmic strategy work? 

Early on in your trading, you might take a setup that fails, but someone with more experience might’ve avoided that setup due to information that only experience can teach. That knowledge cannot be learned from a book or video. This is because intuition (this word is used incorrectly by 95% of the trading community, which is partially my fault for introducing it as a concept a couple years ago) is built through implicit learning. It’s not magic. It’s science. It’s why you can hold a conversation without having to focus on tying your shoes. It’s why it took you hundreds to thousands of hours to get good at a video game. Just for a minute, imagine if trading was like playing an instrument. Watching videos and reading books will help with some basic knowledge and terms, but it won’t actually make you a good piano player. The only way to develop those skills is through thousands of hours of just playing the piano. Beyond the basic fundamentals on rules, terms, and strategies, watching videos has essentially 0 translation to real improvement and performance at tasks like sports, instruments, and trading (unless you make an algorithm). Watching a PowerPoint on how to play golf wouldn’t make you the next tiger woods, but the only thing that separates intuition from hope is a whole lot of time and targeted learning. Your strategy should be as automated and specific as possible, or else there is 0 chance for you to become a successful discretionary trader. You can’t just stare at the candles and click buy because you feel like it’s going to go up. Implicit learning can only happen in very specific and repetitive scenarios. However, the concept of implicit learning remains largely hypothetical only when it comes to trading. All we know is that if it does work here, then automating a system as much as possible gives you the best chance at success.

How to find the best trading strategy for YOU

Can you sit still and be patient for long periods of time with sustained focus, or do you have about 17 minutes of intense focus before the goblins take over and you completely abandon your strategy? It makes no sense to force a system that goes against your biology when there are so many different ways to trade, and only the ignorant try to convince you that any one type of trading is superior to another. Advice like that is pushed by people who don’t have enough experience and/or skills yet to realize how irrational and nonsensical they’re being. Or, they skipped the development stage when children realize that other people have their own unique attributes and experiences. When it comes to your specific approach, there are a lot of variations in what you can do. You might be great at the high-volatility market-open and terrible after, the complete opposite of that, or you could find no correlation between performance and the time of day. Nobody can find what the best answer is except for you, but making a conclusion about important metrics like that after 3 days of results is an insult to your middle-school science teachers. You need to collect a lot of data before you can make any conclusions or inferences, but, even then, you don’t want to put yourself in a box too early. You need consistency and structure while also being open to new ideas. Expecting to be a consistently profitable trader after a year is a recipe for disaster. First comes the experimenting, and then you start refining a specific strategy. Every strategy has losses.

Watch here for more information

Everything so far has just been reworded from this video. Also, literally nobody clicks on my website from Google search results, so maybe writing more will improve my SEO score. HAH.

Using a trading journal to enhance the learning process

Not journaling implies every time you make a realization or get an idea that it will just be forever embedded in your mind with no need for a reminder, which is insane. How are you supposed to learn if you don’t write anything down or collect any data? Unfortunately, this is what most people do - watch a YouTube video by their favorite guru who can’t trade, go long because they think candlestick patterns work, fail, and then repeat that for 2 years and wonder why they’re not making money while saying that their trading guru is aCtUaLlY vErY hElPfUl!  You might find that if you get to a certain point down on the day that you have a high chance of doing much worse. For example, I found a max daily loss in my trading history that if hit had more than an 80% chance of doing significantly worse, and that guided my decision on setting an exact max daily loss where I stop no matter what. So, find that number for you, but don’t set it too early, because you need a proper amount of data. I had at least 6 months of performance to determine mine. and there was no way for me to figure that out except for putting in the work. You can also take screenshots of the price action during your trading session, which will start the process of determining your strengths and weaknesses (if there’s any correlation) between volatility and/or price action’s degree of direction versus consolidation.

The power of a reminder document for your trading sessions

All of you would probably benefit from a reminder document you look at before and during trading, because even though recording and journaling is an excellent way to learn, you still have to actually implement those lessons into your trading. Plus, as time goes on, there’s a good chance you might forget some really important lessons and put yourself into a never ending cycle of repeating past mistakes. Reminders are short simplifications of more complex lessons learned through the power of recording trades and journaling. They come from ideas and will be unique to every person. Mine are great for me, they might be terrible for you, and vice versa. Reminders should come from journaling, which can be as simple as writing down “Oh, don’t go bing bong when the doodoo is going meow meow.” You don’t need to write a 5-paragraph essay every day. An important note is that these will change as you solve old problems and encounter new ones, but, again, you should keep old reminder documents in case you ever revert to harmful behavioral patterns. This will help you escape the cycle of repeating mistakes and not making progress.

And finally, once you’ve got your edge and the simulation environment is no longer of use…

I think prop firms are the best way to eventually transition yourself to real money, or maybe you stay with prop firms like me for the advantages they offer. MyFundedFutures is currently the cheapest and easiest path to funding in the entire prop firm industry. Evaluations have no minimum trading days or consistency rules, and they also have some of the best drawdown to profit-target ratios (making them more fair and easier to pass). Technically, you can pass in 1 trade in 1 day, but be smart about that. Be sure to automatically get the highest available discount by using code Iman. Thank you. Before completely diving in to firms, make sure you’re smart about it and don’t start too early. This page here has resources to help you understand evaluations, rules, advantageous strategies, and more.

Don’t go yet, we’re just getting started!


Wake up to the truth about trading gurus and stop “learning” from frauds!

There’s nothing in trading that can’t be learned for free. Stop searching for a shortcut by buying instructions on how to trade from people who can’t trade. All of these gurus capitalize on your dreams to succeed. You’re really asking me if the guy who has uploaded 24 “tHe OnLy SuPpLy AnD dEmAnD tRaDiNg GuIdE yOu’Ll EvEr NeEd” videos is legit?? Come on now. Watch this and don’t get scammed.

A full introduction/guide to futures or options

Personally, I believe futures are the best to trade for many reasons, but you already know that because you watched the 1-hour guide up at the top of this page. Right? RIGHT?? Futures have no PDT rule (you can day trade with less than $25,000), fantastic liquidity (great bid/ask spreads), flexible trading hours, and are by far the most simplest “thing” you can trade. But, if you do what to trade options, I also have a full guide on that. It’s what I started trading with, and documenting my use of the opening-range-break strategy with options is the whole reason my channel started.

Futures Guide

Options Guide


Trading is unlike anything you’ve ever done

The tools, shortcuts, and the tricks your brain uses that are typically beneficial in ordinary life suddenly become harmful. But, maybe some of these abilities can be used to your advantage. Sort of. Not really. Watch the video.

Why I trade through a firm instead of risking my own money

The firm takes the loss, but you keep the profits. Sort of. Read below.

Risk-free trading

You pay a set price to take an evaluation challenge (hit a profit target before the max drawdown), and, if you pass the evaluation and follow the rules, you are guaranteed funding. If you fail the funded account and lose the firm money, you don’t pay for any of that (the firm does). You just have to take another evaluation if you want to get funded again.

Less pressure

Since the only costs from you are paying to take the evaluation, you can’t lose anything beyond that. So, rather than being paralyzed by fear while trading with your own money, you can trade with the firm’s money. Your risk is locked at the cost of the evaluation, but your reward is unlimited once you get funded. It’s easier to trade when the money being risked isn’t yours!

Review of MyFundedFutures - #1 Firm

Easiest evaluations, can pass in 1 day, same profit split as Topstep and TradeDay, cheaper than Apex for funding…

Code Iman always gets you the highest discount. Click here or on the picture for the full review, or click here to go right to their site.

Save yourself some time and learn what took me months of daily trading and experimenting to realize

What’s the deal with risk:reward ratios?

There is way too much misinformation pushed by traders who don’t really know what they’re talking about in regards to risk:reward ratios. Without an edge, increasing or decreasing the risk:reward of your trades is not going to change a whole lot in regards to your return. The ratios mean nothing by themselves, and they only matter once you pair them with your personal win rate.

ATR is extremely useful, and here’s why it’s the only indicator I use.

Price structure is always there regardless of volatility and the time of day, but the size of these movements is always different, and ATR helps to show by how much. I personally use ATR to show me the range of each individual candle, and this shows me what size trades (profit targets and stop losses) I can go for to match the current conditions.

Trading psychology’s relation to indicators and strategies/systems.

One common tactic by gurus is to blame psychology on a system not working, when really it’s just because the system doesn’t work at all. But, you already learned that from the first video after the big trading guide. This video covers the relationship between trading psychology and your actual edge.

Strategies and approaches will work differently depending on price action conditions.

This video is incredibly important for all traders. If you are working on a strategy that requires specific price action conditions to work, the implications of that are pretty serious. This video gets into that, and I wish all beginners would watch this.

Let’s talk about the different “timeframes” and wHiCh OnE iS bEsT!

This one includes a fun little test that nobody has been able to pass successfully, which shows you that trading can be done on almost any time frame (within reason). You’re about to see why the concept of determining which timeframe is best is incredibly stupid and irrational. But, that’s okay, everyone was a beginner at one point.

If you’ve made it this far, you’ve saved yourself a whole lot of headaches and time. But, some of you are only here because you scrolled to the bottom. lol. Either way, good luck out there, and do not pay for private communities or courses. I could cheat livestreams, trading performance, and everything else to trick people into thinking I’m a millionaire trader. Unfortunately for me and my bank account, I don’t do that because I have morals. I’m on Patreon if you’d like to support me and my mission, but there’s nothing there on how to trade. I put my videos there early, and it gets you an epic golden-colored name on my Discord servers. Again, that’s to support me, not to get access to my SuPeR sEcReT 99% WiN rAtE aLgOrItHm.

If you want to see how I personally trade, then click the button below. In 2024, I achieved 4 consecutive months of consistent prop firm withdrawals totaling about $9,200. That’s not even minimum wage, but at least it’s not losing money! I’m happy with that.

RISK AND AFFILIATE DISCLOSURE - Never risk money you can’t afford to lose!

Futures, foreign currency and options trading contains substantial risk and is not for every investor. An investor could potentially lose all or more than the initial investment. Risk capital is money that can be lost without jeopardizing ones financial security or lifestyle. Only risk capital should be used for trading and only those with sufficient risk capital should consider trading. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. Most traders do not succeed. The links on this site are primarily affiliate links, which financially supports me at no extra cost to you. I partnered with multiple firms, because I don’t see 1 firm that has it all. Not being exclusive to one firm also helps to reduce bias, because I’m partnering with the firms that I think are the best.