Guides, plainly.
Practical guides to pressure-testing your own reasoning — the bull case, the bear case, and the risk you never wrote down.
How do I challenge my reasoning?
Start with the trade stress-test guide for an overview, or jump to bias and opposing cases. Read in any order.
How to stress-test a trade idea
A step-by-step method to stress-test a trade idea before you risk capital: decompose it, source every claim, build the bear case, check crowding and set invalidation conditions.
Guide · Confirmation bias · 7 min readConfirmation bias in trading: how to catch it in your own research
How confirmation bias shows up in trading research — the eight signs to look for in your own notes, why it gets worse once you hold a position, and practical ways to reduce it.
Guide · Bull vs bear case · 7 min readBull vs bear case examples: four worked examples and a template
Worked bull and bear case examples for a stock, gold, Treasuries and the yen — with the variable that decides each one, what both sides miss, and a template to write your own.
What could break this trade?
Start with crowded trades to check shared risks, or jump to invalidation and pre-trade checks. Read in any order.
What is a crowded trade? How to tell if yours is one
What makes a trade crowded, why crowded trades unwind so violently, and the signals to check — positioning data, consensus, price behaviour and pricing — before you add to one.
Guide · Invalidation point · 6 min readHow to set an invalidation point: know when you're wrong before you trade
What an invalidation point is, how it differs from a stop-loss, and how to set price, trade and time invalidation before you enter — with examples for stocks, FX, commodities and rates.
Guide · Pre-trade checklist · 6 min readPre-trade checklist: 27 questions to answer before every trade
A pre-trade checklist for equities, FX, rates and commodities: 27 questions on the trade, the evidence, the other side, market context, risk and execution — plus a one-minute version.