Advanced track

Futures, options, sizing maths, expectancy, backtesting and validation, multi-timeframe analysis, and building and forward-testing a personal strategy.

1. Futures basicsA future is a promise to buy or sell something later at a price agreed today, and gains and losses are settled every day.
2. Rollover, basis, contango and backwardationA future's price is not the same as today's price, and that gap can cost or earn money when you roll to the next contract.
3. Options basics: calls and putsAn option is a ticket that gives the right, but not the duty, to buy or sell at a set price on or before a set date.
4. Option payoff diagramsOption buyers can lose only what they paid, but option sellers can lose far more than they collect.
5. Position sizing across instrumentsEvery market has a 'money per point' number, and once you know it the same sizing formula works everywhere.
6. Expectancy: what a trade is worth on averageExpectancy tells you how much you make or lose per trade on average, and only a number that stays positive after costs is worth trading.
7. Manual backtestingBefore trusting an idea, test it on lots of old charts with fixed rules and write down every result.
8. Multi-timeframe analysisLook at the big map first, then zoom in to choose your step.
9. Options: time decay and implied volatilityAn option is like melting ice: it loses value as time passes, and its price also changes with how wild people expect the market to be.
10. Fixed fraction versus optimal-growth sizingA formula can tell you the bet size that grows money fastest, but real traders bet much less because their numbers might be wrong.
11. Backtest traps: bias, overfitting and costsA backtest is easy to fool, so check it for peeking, missing losers, too many tweaks and missing costs.
12. Out-of-sample, walk-forward and Monte CarloTest your idea on data it has never seen, and shuffle its trades to see how bad the bad luck could get.
13. When timeframes disagreeWhen the big chart says up and the small chart says down, wait, trade smaller, or follow the timeframe your plan is built on.
14. Build your personal strategyA strategy is a recipe: which market, which setup, when to enter, where to exit, how much to risk and when not to trade.
15. Forward test, review and improveTrade your strategy in practice on new data, measure it honestly, and change only what the evidence tells you to change.