Lessons › AI tools for traders › Asking good questions

World 8 · AI tools for traders · lesson 2 · level 2

Asking good questions

The clearer your question, the more useful the answer, so say what you have, what you want and how you want it.

In one line

Two traders ask an AI about the same chart: one gets mush, the other a clean table. What did the second one type?

Explained simply

Asking an AI is like ordering at a food counter. 'Give me food' gets you anything, but 'one veg sandwich, no onions, cut in half' gets exactly what you want. A good prompt says what you have, what you want, what to avoid and how to lay out the answer.

The lesson

A prompt is the message you give an AI assistant. A strong prompt has four parts: context (the market, timeframe and what the chart shows), a task (such as listing key levels), limits (such as 'do not predict price') and a format (such as a short table). Asking it to explain its reasoning and to say when it is unsure makes mistakes easier to spot. Short follow-up questions often work better than one giant request.

A worked example

Illustrative example: Prompt A is 'Is this chart good?' and has none of the 4 recipe parts. Prompt B says: 'Daily chart of a large stock, last 6 months. List support and resistance with prices. No predictions; say if unsure. Format: a table.' The answer to B lists support at 1,180 (3 touches) and resistance at 1,260 (2 touches). You check both on the chart. The range is 1,260 - 1,180 = 80 points wide, and the close at 1,220 sits 1,220 - 1,180 = 40 points above support, which is 40 x 100 / 80 = 50% of the way up the range.

The same idea at four levels

1. Beginner. A prompt is the question or instruction you type to an AI.
2. Foundation. Vague prompts like 'is this good?' get vague answers, so give context and a clear task.
3. Intermediate. Use the recipe: context, task, limits, format, for example 'Daily chart of a large stock: list support and resistance with prices, no predictions, as a table.'
4. Advanced. Ask for reasons and confidence, such as 'say which levels you are unsure about', because an answer that shows its reasons is much easier to check against the chart.
5. Expert. Keep a small set of tested prompts for jobs you repeat, change one part at a time to see what improves the answer, and never paste private account details into any prompt.

Mistakes to avoid

• Asking vague questions like 'is this good?' with no market, timeframe or task.
• Asking for predictions instead of analysis you can check on the chart.
• Cramming ten questions into one giant prompt instead of asking short follow-ups.

Goal of this lesson: Write clear prompts that give an AI assistant context, a task, limits and an output format.