LessonsFree, in plain English.
A structured course from the basics to how professionals trade. Start at Track 01 or jump to what you need.
Stocks
How the stock market works, how companies are valued and what moves prices.
What is a stock, and what is the stock market?
Shares, exchanges, IPOs and why a share price moves at all.
How the market is built: indexes and ETFs
What the S&P 500 and FTSE 100 actually are, how weighting works, and how ETFs let you buy the lot.
How to trade stocks: orders, spreads and costs
Brokers, the order book, market vs limit orders, settlement and the costs that quietly add up.
Short selling: profiting from a fall
How shorting works, what it costs, short squeezes and why the risk is asymmetric.
How to read an earnings report
What companies publish each quarter, the order to read it in, and why the share price reacts the way it does.
EPS, P/E and forward P/E
How earnings per share is calculated and diluted, what P/E really measures and how to use multiples without being fooled.
Debt, equity and raising capital: how companies fund growth
Debt-to-equity, dilution, convertibles, buybacks and dividends, and how to judge management’s capital allocation.
Value investing: price, value and the margin of safety
Graham, Buffett and the idea that price and value are different things.
Macro for stock investors: rates, bonds and economic data
Why bond yields move stocks, how to read the economic calendar and where macro fits alongside fundamentals.
Central banks, interest rates and liquidity: QE and QT
How the Fed and Bank of England set rates, how QE and QT add and drain liquidity, and why markets hang on every meeting.
Liquidity, market structure and efficient markets
Who is on the other side of your trade, what liquidity really means and whether markets can be beaten.
Derivatives
Options, futures, perpetuals, swaps and FX, with the trades that made history.
What are derivatives? Forwards, futures and swaps
Contracts whose value comes from something else, why they exist and the three ways people use them.
What are options? The Greeks and IV
Calls, puts, strikes and premium, then delta, gamma, theta, vega and IV in plain English.
Moneyness, expiry and payoff curves: options vs futures
ITM, ATM and OTM, how expiries work from monthlies to 0DTE, and how option and futures payoffs compare.
Futures and perpetuals: basis, funding and leverage
How futures are priced, contango and backwardation, and how perpetual swaps use funding payments instead of expiry.
Forex and the carry trade: from the yen carry to Soros vs the pound
How currency markets work, why carry trades earn steadily then crash, and the trade that broke the Bank of England.
Swaps: interest rate, credit default and total return
The biggest derivatives market by notional, how swaps work and two blow-ups that made them famous.
Market mechanics
Hedging, market making and the dealer flows that shape price action.
Market making and order flow
How market makers earn the spread, the risks they manage and what order flow tells you.
Hedging: delta, portfolio and tail hedges
How professionals reduce risk, what it costs and why hedges can fail when they are needed most.
Selling options: who does it, why, and the risks
Covered calls, cash-secured puts and spreads, who sells premium, and the risks that matter most.
What is gamma exposure, and how is it used?
What GEX is, how dealer hedging creates it, what the zero gamma flip means and how to use it without overtrusting it.
Beyond gamma: DEX, VEX, CEX and second-order Greeks
Vanna and charm, how changes in volatility and time force dealers to hedge, and why it matters around expiry.
Quantitative finance
The models and maths behind pricing, risk and systematic trading.
Black-Scholes, intuitively
The model that priced the options market, what it assumes, and why it is still used even though it is wrong.
Volatility surfaces, skew and term structure
Why implied volatility differs by strike and expiry, and what the shape of the surface tells you.
Beta, alpha and alpha decay
Separating market returns from skill, and why trading edges shrink once they are discovered.
Latency and high-frequency trading
Why microseconds matter, how HFT firms make money and the incidents that shaped regulation.
Technical analysis
Volume, levels, candles and patterns, how institutions use them, and an honest look at what works.
Volume and what it tells you
Why volume confirms or questions a move, how to read it and the tools traders use to measure it.
What is VWAP, and why do institutions care?
What volume-weighted average price represents, why funds are measured against it and how traders use it as a level.
Support, resistance and trend
The building blocks of chart reading, why levels form and how moving averages define a trend.
Candlesticks and chart patterns: what the evidence says
Flags, cup and handle, head and shoulders and key candles, how traders use them, and whether any of it predicts anything.
How institutions use technical analysis
Execution, risk, trend-following funds and positioning: how professionals use charts, and how that shapes the levels everyone else sees.
Does technical analysis actually work?
What the evidence says, which parts hold up, which are noise, and how to use charts honestly.
Corporate finance
How companies are valued, financed, bought and sold.
Time value of money
Why a pound today is worth more than a pound tomorrow, and the maths that underpins all of valuation.
Cost of capital and WACC
The return investors demand from a company, how to estimate it, and why it sets the bar for every investment.
How to build and read a DCF
Forecasting free cash flow, the terminal value, discounting, and how to stress-test the answer.
Revenue quality: ARR, MRR and unit economics
The metrics that matter for subscription businesses, and how to tell good growth from expensive growth.
Mergers and acquisitions
Why companies buy each other, how deals are valued and paid for, and why so many disappoint.
Leveraged buyouts
How private equity buys companies with debt, where the returns come from, and the risks of high leverage.
Crypto
How crypto markets work, from blockchains to perps and stablecoins.
What is Bitcoin, and what is a blockchain?
How a decentralised ledger works, what mining and the halving are, and the arguments for and against Bitcoin.
Ethereum, smart contracts and DeFi
Programmable blockchains, proof of stake, and how decentralised exchanges and lending protocols work.
Stablecoins: how they hold the peg
Fiat-backed, crypto-backed and algorithmic stablecoins, why they matter and what happened to TerraUSD.
Crypto market structure: exchanges, perps and liquidations
How crypto trades 24/7, why perpetual futures dominate, and how leverage turns moves into cascades.
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