52 lessons from reading a single candle to indicators, patterns and backtests, with charts drawn for each concept and statistics measured on real Binance data.
The course starts with reading one candle and moves in order through trend and price structure, indicators, candlestick and chart patterns, combining signals, and finally testing results and measuring risk. Formulas and default settings follow the definitions widely used on TradingView and match the settings of this site's crypto tools, so every lesson links to a live chart where you can see the same indicator on real data.
Figures whose captions begin with "Illustration:" use made-up prices to show a concept. The indicator lines on them, such as moving averages, RSI or the Ichimoku cloud, are not hand-drawn: they are calculated from the candles in the figure. Pattern and signal results were measured on daily candles of ten coins on Binance from 2017 to September 2026, always next to a baseline of buying on any candle. Without that baseline, the market's rise over the period would look like the power of a signal.
What one candle holds, how bar length and scale change the picture, and why volume matters.
Defining trend by highs and lows, then support and resistance, trendlines, breakouts and ranges.
Moving averages, RSI, MACD, Bollinger Bands and the stochastic: formulas, defaults and measured results.
ATR, Ichimoku, Supertrend, Fibonacci retracements, volume profile and VWAP.
One- to three-candle patterns, defined precisely and checked against years of Binance data.
From head and shoulders to cup and handle: shape, confirmation, measured targets and how subjective they are.
Divergence, multiple timeframes, and futures data such as funding rates and open interest.
How to read a backtest, stop distance and position size, and the limits of chart analysis.
Order book, trade flow, intraday bars and alerts: reading what changes on a chart you keep open.
ADX, Parabolic SAR, disparity, OBV and Elliott waves: definitions, defaults and limits.
Rallies, sell-offs, the minutes after news, thin hours, new listings and volatility spikes: how charts look different in each.
The 09:00 daily close, the hour before the US open, the weekend and the journal: what to check, and when, if you keep charts open.
The course explains what charts summarize and what they cannot. It does not say when to buy or sell or how much to risk. In the measurements, the share of rises after most patterns and signals differed from the any-candle baseline by only a few percentage points. Charts are most useful for summarizing what happened, measuring risk and following your own plan consistently.
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Every candle holds four prices: open, high, low and close. What the body and wicks tell you, and what they leave out.
A timeframe is just the unit used to group the same trades. What shows up and what disappears when you change the candle length.
A log scale draws equal percentage moves at equal height. How nine years of Bitcoin look different depending on the scale you choose.
Volume is how much was traded during a candle. How to read it alongside price, from breakouts and climaxes to inflated volume.
A trend is judged by which way the highs and lows are stacking. We cover how to define a swing and where the structure breaks.
Support and resistance are zones with width, not single prices. Why they form, how to draw them, and the pivot point formula.
An uptrend line connects lows; a downtrend line connects highs. The third touch, channels, and how to read what follows a break.
A wick above resistance and a close above it are different breakouts. The ways to confirm a breakout, and what each one costs.
A range is a stretch where highs and lows do not stack in one direction. Clues for spotting one, and why trend indicators keep flipping.
A moving average is an average of past prices, so it always lags. We compare SMA and EMA and look at what measured data shows after golden crosses.
RSI compares the size of recent gains with recent losses. We use data to check what actually happened after it went above 70.
MACD is the gap between two exponential moving averages. We look at what each line calculates and what crossovers did in measured data.
Bollinger Bands add and subtract standard deviations from a 20-bar average. Learn bandwidth, the squeeze, %B and what closes outside the bands did.
The stochastic measures where the close sits between the highest high and lowest low of the last 14 bars. We cover fast vs slow and how it differs from RSI.
ATR measures how far a single bar usually moves. How it is calculated, and how to use it for stop distance and position size.
Every Ichimoku line is either a midpoint of past highs and lows or a shifted close. How each is calculated, and what Sanyaku Kouten means.
Supertrend shows direction with one trailing line set a multiple of ATR away from price. The rules that move the line, and its weaknesses.
Fibonacci retracements are prices that divide a swing by fixed ratios. How to draw them, where the ratios come from, and their weaknesses.
A volume profile shows volume by price level; VWAP is the volume-weighted average price. How each is calculated, and the limits of reading them.
How single-candlestick patterns are defined, and what price did next, measured directly on historical Binance candles.
How patterns read across two or three candles are defined, what the measured data showed, and why the numbers swing when the sample is small.
Three peaks and a neckline. The pattern is complete only on a close below the neckline, and its measured target is a calculation, not a probability.
A shape read from two highs or two lows that stalled near the same price. Until price closes beyond the line between them, it is only a candidate.
Highs and lows converge as the range narrows. This covers the differences between the three types, the measured target and the convention about the apex.
A small channel or triangle that forms after a steep rise or fall (the flagpole). What defines the shape, how the measured target works, and its limits.
Two lines that slope in the same direction while narrowing. How wedges differ from triangles and channels, and why interpretations of them split.
A rounded U-shaped bottom (the cup) and a shallow pullback (the handle), followed by a move above the rim. Its conditions and its limits on crypto charts.
What it means when the highs and lows of price and RSI point in different directions, and why divergence always shows up a few bars late.
How to read a chart that is rising on the daily but falling on the 1-hour, by stacking timeframes from the top down.
What perpetual futures funding rates, open interest and the three long/short ratios each measure, and the limits of reading them.
Maximum drawdown, costs, look-ahead bias and overfitting: the things to check before you trust the numbers a backtest gives you.
Decide how much you can afford to lose first, then work back from your stop level to the quantity, plus the arithmetic of losing streaks.
Patterns show up even in prices made by flipping coins. The illusions that are easy to fall into when reading charts, and where charts are still useful.
The order book lists orders not yet filled. Learn to read it against chart price levels and avoid being fooled by spoof orders and order walls.
A fill is a trade that actually happened. Read buyer- and seller-initiated fills and trading-value flow with the chart, without overtrusting large trades.
Minute charts show the rhythm inside a day. The character of the open, midday and close, US hours in Korean time, and how they differ from crypto.
An alert watches the chart for you; it does not decide for you. How to base conditions on closed bars and keep the number of alerts down.
ADX measures how clear a trend is regardless of direction, while +DI and −DI show which side is stronger. Wilder's definition and how to read it.
Parabolic SAR marks trend direction and a stop level with dots that close in on price over time. Wilder's calculation and its weaknesses.
The disparity index measures, as a ratio, how far price sits from its moving average. What mean reversion means, and why the reading fails in trends.
OBV adds or subtracts volume by the direction of the close and accumulates it. How it is calculated, how to read its slope and divergences, and pitfalls.
Elliott wave theory says price moves in five impulse waves and three corrective waves. The structure, the three rules and the critique of subjectivity.
A surge is a stretch where price climbs steeply in a short time. Clues to overheating, the risk of chasing, and what fading volume looks like.
A crash is when price collapses steeply in a short time. How panic selling and forced liquidations chain together, how to read bounces, and stop rules.
In the first minutes after a release, ordinary chart reading works poorly. Why the first bar is distorted, how spreads widen, and how to view retracement.
When trading is thin, as on weekends, overnight or over holidays, the order book empties and small orders leave long wicks. How to spot it and read it.
A freshly listed chart has too few bars for indicators to settle and swings widely. How to read it, comparing crypto listings with stock IPOs.
When volatility jumps, the same stop distance and size become a very different risk. How to spot it with ATR and bandwidth and review your response.
Most crypto daily candles close at 9 a.m. Korean time. What changes on the chart in the half hour around the close, and what to check.
The US regular session opens at 10:30 p.m. Korean time in daylight saving, 11:30 p.m. otherwise. A routine for checking indexes, chip stocks and crypto.
Weekends, when stocks rest and only crypto moves, are a good time to wrap up the week. What to check, using the weekly close and last week's notes as anchors.
A trading journal is a record for reviewing decisions, not a profit ledger. What to write, how to keep reasons and results apart, and how to cut hindsight.