For viewing charts and analyzing price action, TradingView is the best tool in the market right now. Download the app, watchlist the instruments you want to trade, and get familiar with the interface.

Tip: you don't need the premium version unless you're doing algo trading — which is rare for most people.

Before anything else loads on the chart, know two numbers: how much you're willing to lose on this specific trade, and what share of your account that represents. Most blown accounts aren't the result of one bad trade — they're the result of size quietly creeping up after a few wins, until one ordinary loss does outsized damage. Keep the risk-per-trade number boring and constant, and let the strategy do the interesting work.

Coverage here focuses mostly on the Forex market, with notes on how to handle it from an Indian banking perspective.

Though psychology is king, you still need some technical analysis to be right often enough. Take your own pace with this — Rome wasn't built in a day.

If you already have experience with order flow, watch the summarized video below. If you're completely new, work through the in-depth section top to bottom.

Trading is entirely about how you manage your risk and psychology — no amount of analysis or technique will help you in the long run. Risk and psychology are deeply correlated: the more emotional you are, the poorer the decisions you're bound to make.

• It's okay to see a big profit turn into a little profit — that's how you eventually get the big wins too.
• Be cautious chasing profit near a high-of-day or low-of-day — big reversals often happen fast right at, barely below, or barely above those levels.
• If you can't handle the pressure of watching a trade, don't watch it. Do something else.
• Don't chase your stop loss.

Classify every trade into one of three types:

The journal that survives long-term isn't the one packed with charts and screenshots — it's the one you'll actually fill out on a losing day. Two lines is often enough: what the setup was, and whether you followed your own rules or not. Everything else — the reasons, the excuses, the market narrative — you can add later if it still matters a week from now.

• Survive the curve: practice, study, size down your capital, take fewer trades, and focus on surviving the initial learning phase.
• Accept losses: expect them and handle them like an adult. There's no strategy that avoids every red day — the trick is not blowing up your account when it happens.
• Execute the edge: develop a clear edge, believe in it, and execute it mechanically every time you see it. Set strict risk parameters and let the trade play out to your stop loss or take-profit.
• Control the vices: don't be impatient or greedy. Never trade out of boredom, and don't force your ideas onto a chart hoping the market agrees with you.
• Be realistic: you don't need to understand every candle or catch every move. Take what the market gives you, protect your capital, and try again the next day.

• The technicals: roughly 2–3 hours of daily study to learn the technical side of charts.
• The psychology: controlling your emotions takes years. You can never fully eliminate emotional responses — the goal is reducing the negative effects of bad decisions.
• The progress: you might revenge trade daily at first. After 2–3 years of discipline, the urge still shows up, but you might only give in once every 2–3 months. Progress is about frequency and control, not perfection.

Your brain evolved for survival, not for generating trading profits. Every instinct that kept your ancestors alive in the wild will actively work against your account. Before your trading day, run through these diagnostic questions:

• Do you increase your position size immediately after a win?
• Do you hold onto losing trades longer than you hold your winners?
• Do you make impulsive revenge trades right after a loss?
• Do you check your open positions obsessively every few minutes?
• Do you blame your losses on market "manipulation" instead of your own execution?

A playbook is just a written answer to one question: what does your edge actually look like while it's happening? Write down the exact setup, the conditions that have to line up, and the specific point that proves you're wrong. If a trade doesn't match anything on that page, it isn't a trade — it's a guess wearing a costume. Revisit the playbook every week, not to pile on more rules, but to cut the ones that never earned their place.

Most blown accounts trace back to two or three repeat offenders: a red morning that turns into forcing size to "get it back," a green streak that turns into doubling up on the very next entry, or a slow session that turns into trading out of sheer boredom. None of these are character flaws — they're predictable reactions to a specific internal state. The fix isn't gritting your teeth harder in the moment. It's catching the state early enough to step back from the screen before the trigger has a chance to fire.