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Foundations

The mechanics of how markets work — what's being traded, who's trading it, and how orders become fills.

Difficulty beginner

Reading order

  1. What Is Trading — definitions, timeframes, strategy archetypes
  2. Market Structure — exchanges, ECNs, venues
  3. Market Participants — retail, institutional, market makers, HFT
  4. Order Types — market, limit, stop, IOC, FOK, iceberg
  5. Bid-Ask Spread — quoted, effective, realized
  6. Liquidity and Market Depth — book shape, slippage
  7. Trading Glossary — reference of terms used across the guide

What you should walk away with

  • The vocabulary to read any market commentary without getting lost.
  • A mental model for how an order travels from your terminal to a fill.
  • An intuition for why spreads and depth determine execution quality.

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Mathematics →