# Good Trading Guide

> Learn to trade honestly, from scratch


## Pages

- [UK tax on futures (general information)](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/futures/uk-tax-on-futures/): Not tax advice. This is general information about how UK tax usually works, based on HMRC guidance. Your situation may be different and the rules change.
- [Trading futures from the UK: UK vs US brokers](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/futures/trading-futures-from-the-uk/): A UK (FCA-authorised) broker that offers exchange-traded futures. Check it on the FCA Register, including the exact permissions and the trading names.
- [Futures platforms and data: NinjaTrader, Tradovate and Rithmic](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/futures/futures-platforms/): Platform – the software you look at: charts, the order ticket, the DOM.
- [Futures prop rules: trailing drawdown, consistency and contract limits](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/futures/futures-prop-rules/): These are the general types of rule you'll meet at futures prop firms.
- [Futures prop firms explained](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/futures/futures-prop-firms/): A futures prop firm sells you an evaluation (often called a challenge or combine). You trade a simulated futures account using real market prices.
- [Futures position sizing in ticks](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/futures/futures-position-sizing/): Always round down. If you get 2.7, trade 2.
- [Futures volume, the order book and slippage](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/futures/futures-volume-order-book/): Futures trade on a central exchange. Every buy and sell goes through the same order book, so the price and volume you see are the same as everyone else's.
- [US futures market hours in UK time](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/futures/futures-market-hours-uk/): The main US futures – ES, MES, NQ, MNQ, CL, MCL, GC and MGC – trade on CME Globex from Sunday 6:00 pm to Friday 5:00 pm New York time, with a daily break from 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm New York time (CME Group contract specifications, checked 18 October 2026).
- [Expiry and rollover](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/futures/expiry-and-rollover/): A futures contract is for a specific month.
- [Futures margin explained](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/futures/futures-margin/): When you buy a share, you pay for it in full. With futures you don't.
- [Micros vs minis: choosing a contract size](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/futures/micros-vs-minis/): CME Group lists several sizes of the same market.
- [Contract specs and tick values: ES, MES, NQ, MNQ, CL, MCL, GC and MGC](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/futures/contract-specs-tick-values/): Every futures contract has a contract specification ("spec") published by the exchange.
- [What are futures? A plain-English introduction](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/futures/what-are-futures/): A futures contract is a standardised agreement, traded on an exchange, to buy or sell a set amount of something at a set price on a set date in the future.
- [Futures Foundations](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/futures/): Futures are what most prop firm traders use, so this is where Good Trading Guide starts.
- [Home](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/): Plain-English education for UK beginners who want to trade futures and take on futures prop firm challenges: how contracts like the micro E-mini work, tick values and margin, and the drawdown rules that end most challenges.
- [Setting Daily and Weekly Loss Limits](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/daily-loss-limits/): Risk per trade controls how much one trade can cost.
- [Correlation and Over-Exposure: When Three Trades Are One Bet](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/correlation-risk/): You've sized every trade at 1%. You have three trades open. So you're risking 3% across three separate ideas – right? Not necessarily.
- [Drawdown Maths: Why Losses Are Harder to Recover](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/drawdown-maths/): A drawdown is how far your account has fallen from its highest point. Every trader has them.
- [Expectancy: Does Your Method Have an Edge?](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/trading-expectancy/): An "edge" just means a method that, over many trades, makes more than it loses after costs. Expectancy is the number that tells you whether you might have one.
- [Risk-to-Reward and R-Multiples](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/risk-reward-ratio/): "What's your win rate?" is the question most beginners ask about a strategy. On its own, it's nearly meaningless.
- [Pip, Point and Tick Values: What Each Move Is Worth](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/pip-value/): Position sizing only works if you know what one move is worth in pounds for the thing you're trading. With spread bets that's usually easy.
- [Position Sizing Step by Step](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/position-sizing/): You've chosen how much you're willing to lose on a trade (see the 1% rule).
- [The 1% Rule: Risking a Small, Fixed Percentage](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/one-percent-rule/): The "1% rule" is one of the most common pieces of risk guidance you'll come across.
- [Why Risk Management Matters More Than Your Strategy](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/why-risk-management-matters/): Most beginners spend their time looking for a better entry: a new indicator, a new pattern, a new strategy video.
- [Building a Realistic Prop Challenge Plan](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/prop-challenge-prep/prop-challenge-plan/): Risk: Prop challenges, including futures prop firms, are paid tests: most people don't pass, the fee is usually lost, and funded accounts are usually simulated.
- [Risk Per Trade for a Prop Challenge: Sizing Around the Limits](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/prop-challenge-prep/prop-challenge-risk-per-trade/): Risk: Prop challenges, including futures prop firms, are paid tests: most people don't pass, the fee is usually lost, and funded accounts are usually simulated.
- [The True Odds and Costs of a Prop Challenge](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/prop-challenge-prep/prop-challenge-odds-and-costs/): Risk: Prop challenges, including futures prop firms, are paid tests: most people don't pass, the fee is usually lost, and funded accounts are usually simulated.
- [How Prop Firm Challenges Work: Fees, Phases and the Rules That End Most Attempts](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/prop-challenge-prep/how-prop-challenges-work/): Risk: Prop challenges, including futures prop firms, are paid tests: most people don't pass, the fee is usually lost, and funded accounts are usually simulated.
- [Trading Scams to Avoid](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/trading-scams-uk/): Trading attracts scammers because it promises what people want to hear: fast money, from home, with "no experience needed".
- [Opening a Demo Account (and Why to Stay on It Longer Than You Think)](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/open-a-demo-account/): A demo account lets you trade real market prices with pretend money. It costs nothing, and it's where every lesson in this course expects you to practise.
- [Choosing a Trading Platform: MT4, MT5, cTrader, TradingView and Broker Platforms](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/trading-platforms-compared/): The platform is the software you use to see prices, read charts and place orders.
- [UK Leverage Limits and Margin Rules for Retail Traders](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/uk-leverage-limits/): Leverage lets you control a large position with a small deposit, called margin.
- [Client Money, FSCS Protection and Negative Balance Protection](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/fscs-and-client-money/): There are two very different ways to lose money in trading. The first – by far the most common – is that your trades lose.
- [Futures vs Spread Betting vs CFDs vs Share Dealing](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/spread-betting-vs-cfds/): In the UK you can get exposure to the same market – say, the FTSE 100 – in several different ways.
- [How to Check a Firm Is FCA Authorised (and Spot Clone Firms)](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/check-fca-register/): Almost every firm offering spread bets, CFDs or share dealing to people in the UK must be authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
- [What a Broker Does and How Brokers Make Money](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/how-brokers-make-money/): To trade spread bets or CFDs in the UK, you need an account with a broker (often called a "provider").
- [Four Ways to Analyse a Market](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/types-of-market-analysis/): Ask ten traders why a market moved and you might get ten answers: "It bounced off support", "Inflation came in hot", "Everyone was already long", "It does this 60% of the time on Fridays".
- [Currency Correlations: Why Some Pairs Move Together](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/currency-correlations/): Open charts of EUR/USD and GBP/USD side by side and you'll often see them rise and fall at the same time. That's not a coincidence.
- [Currency Pairs: Majors, Minors and Crosses](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/currency-pairs/): In forex you never buy "the pound" on its own. You always trade one currency against another, so prices are quoted in pairs, such as GBP/USD or EUR/GBP.
- [How the Forex Market Works and Who Trades It](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/forex-market-explained/): The foreign exchange market – "forex" or "FX" – is where one currency is swapped for another.
- [Retail Positioning Data and Its Limits](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/retail-sentiment/): Many trading platforms and broker websites show a simple gauge: "72% of clients are long GBP/USD, 28% are short."
- [Market Sentiment and the COT Report](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/cot-report/): Technical analysis looks at price. Fundamental analysis looks at the economy.
- [Intermarket Links: Bonds, the Dollar, Gold, Oil and Indices](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/intermarket-correlations/): Markets don't move in isolation. A change in US bond yields can move the dollar, which can move gold, which can move mining shares in the FTSE 100.
- [Risk-On vs Risk-Off: How Market Mood Moves Money](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/risk-on-risk-off/): Some days, almost everything seems to move together: stock indices fall, the Japanese yen rises, gold climbs and the Australian dollar drops – all at once, with no single piece of news for each one.
- [Central Banks and Interest Rates: the Bank of England, Fed and ECB](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/central-banks-interest-rates/): If one thing drives currencies over months and years, it's interest rates – and interest rates are set by central banks.
- [Economic Data That Moves Markets: CPI, Jobs, GDP and PMIs](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/economic-indicators/): Even if you only ever trade from a chart, economic data still affects you.
- [Your First Demo Trade, Step by Step](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/your-first-demo-trade/): You've learned what trading is, how a trade makes or loses money and the language you'll meet. Now it's time to place a trade – with pretend money.
- [Fibonacci Retracements and Extensions](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/fibonacci/): Fibonacci tools are on every platform and in countless trading videos.
- [Continuation Patterns: Flags, Pennants and Triangles](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/continuation-chart-patterns/): Trends rarely move in a straight line. They surge, pause, and sometimes surge again. Continuation patterns are names for those pauses.
- [Reversal Patterns: Head and Shoulders, Double Tops and Double Bottoms](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/reversal-chart-patterns/): Reversal patterns are shapes that traders read as a sign a trend may be running out of steam.
- [Chart Patterns: Why They Sometimes Work (and Often Don't)](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/chart-patterns/): Head and shoulders, double tops, flags, triangles: chart patterns are some of the first things new traders learn, and some of the most oversold.
- [Trading Glossary: A–Z of Trading and Prop Firm Terms](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/glossary/): Every trading term used on Good Trading Guide, explained in plain English – from ask to whipsaw, including UK-specific terms (spread betting, CGT, FCA, FSCS, leverage limits) and prop firm rules (drawdown, daily loss limits, profit splits, payouts).
- [Why Fewer Indicators Is Better](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/indicator-overload/): By now you've met eight indicators. The natural next thought is: if each one helps a bit, all of them together must help a lot.
- [Divergence: When Price and Momentum Disagree](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/divergence/): Divergence is one of the most talked-about ideas in technical analysis – and one of the easiest to see in hindsight.
- [Keltner Channels Explained](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/keltner-channels/): Keltner Channels look a lot like Bollinger Bands: a middle line with a band above and below. The difference is in how the bands are measured.
- [Stochastic and CCI: Two More Momentum Oscillators](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/stochastic-cci/): You've met RSI in Lesson 6B.2. The Stochastic oscillator and the Commodity Channel Index (CCI) are two more momentum indicators you'll see on most platforms.
- [VWAP (Volume-Weighted Average Price) Explained](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/vwap/): Most indicators in this module are built only from price.
- [ATR (Average True Range) in Depth](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/atr/): If you only learn one indicator properly, ATR is a strong candidate. It doesn't tell you which way to trade, and it doesn't claim to.
- [Bollinger Bands Explained](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/bollinger-bands/): Bollinger Bands are the three lines you've probably seen hugging price on someone's screenshot – a middle line with an upper and lower band that widen and narrow as the market gets busier or quieter.
- [MACD Explained: Moving Average Convergence Divergence](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/macd/): MACD (usually said "mac-dee") looks complicated: two lines, a histogram and a zero line.
- [RSI (Relative Strength Index) Explained](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/rsi/): The Relative Strength Index, or RSI, is probably the most widely used momentum indicator.
- [Trading Indicators Explained: Trend, Momentum, Volatility and Volume](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/trading-indicators/): Open almost any trading platform and you'll find a menu with over a hundred indicators. Social media is full of people claiming one of them is the "secret".
- [When Trading Stops Being Healthy: Signs and Support](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/psychology/when-trading-stops-being-healthy/): If you're in immediate danger or thinking about harming yourself, call 999 now, or call Samaritans free on 116 123, any time.
- [Prop Firm Challenge Pressure: Trading Calmly Around Daily Drawdown Limits](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/psychology/prop-firm-challenge-pressure/): On a demo account, you trade your plan. On a prop firm challenge, something changes.
- [How to Handle a Losing Streak (Without Making It Worse)](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/psychology/losing-streaks/): Five losses in a row. Your stomach drops every time you open the platform.
- [Revenge Trading and Tilt: How to Spot It and Stop It](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/psychology/revenge-trading/): You take a loss. It stings.
- [Trading Discipline: How to Actually Follow Your Rules](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/psychology/trading-discipline/): Almost every trader knows their rules. Far fewer follow them when it matters.
- [Process Over Profits: Judge Your Trading by Your Rules, Not Your P&L](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/psychology/process-over-profits/): Imagine two traders on the same Tuesday morning.
- [Support and Resistance Bounce Strategy](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/strategies/support-resistance-strategy/): Education only. Hypothetical example, not a recommendation.
- [Opening Range Breakout (ORB) Strategy for US Index Futures](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/strategies/opening-range-breakout-strategy/): Education only. Hypothetical example, not a recommendation.
- [Moving Average Pullback Strategy](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/strategies/moving-average-pullback-strategy/): Education only. Hypothetical example, not a recommendation.
- [Moving Average Crossover Strategy](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/strategies/moving-average-crossover-strategy/): Education only. Hypothetical example, not a recommendation.
- [London Breakout Strategy](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/strategies/london-breakout-strategy/): Education only. Hypothetical example, not a recommendation.
- [Trading Jargon in Plain English](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/trading-jargon/): Trading has its own language, and a lot of it sounds more complicated than it is.
- [How Much Time and Money Do You Really Need?](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/time-and-money-to-start-trading/): "How much do I need to start?" is one of the first questions beginners ask.
- [Why Most Traders Lose Money](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/why-most-traders-lose/): In Lesson 1.1 we showed you the figures UK providers publish: most retail spread betting and CFD accounts lose money. This lesson goes a step further.
- [How a Trade Makes or Loses Money](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/how-a-trade-makes-or-loses-money/): Now that you know what trading is and which markets you can trade, it's time for the mechanics.
- [The Markets You Can Trade](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/markets-explained/): In Lesson 1.1 we looked at what trading is. Now let's look at what people trade.
- [What Is Trading? An Honest Introduction](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/what-is-trading/): If you've seen adverts or social media posts about trading, you've probably seen people with laptops on a beach, screenshots of big wins and promises of "financial freedom".
- [UK Tax on Trading and Prop Firm Payouts: A Plain-English Guide](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/uk-prop-firm-tax/): Not tax advice. This guide is general information about UK tax rules as we understand them on 17 October 2026, with links to official HMRC and GOV.UK sources.
- [Prop Firm True Cost Calculator](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/true-cost-calculator/): Risk: Prop challenges, including futures prop firms, are paid tests: most people don't pass, the fee is usually lost, and funded accounts are usually simulated.
- [Getting Ready for a Prop Challenge (Futures and CFD Firms)](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/prop-challenge-prep/): Risk: Prop challenges, including futures prop firms, are paid tests: most people don't pass, the fee is usually lost, and funded accounts are usually simulated.
- [Trading Psychology: Process Over Profits](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/psychology/): Most trading education focuses on what to trade: setups, indicators, strategies.
- [Strategies](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/strategies/): How this site makes money: This page contains no affiliate links. If we add any in future, each one will be marked (Ad). How we make money.
- [About Good Trading Guide](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/about/): Good Trading Guide is a free, independent trading education site for UK beginners.
- [Learn](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/learn/): How this site makes money: This course page contains no affiliate links. Good Trading Guide doesn't use affiliate links yet.
- [Risk Warning](https://goodtradingguide.co.uk/risk-warning/): In short: Futures, spread bets and CFDs are complex, leveraged products with a high risk of losing money quickly, and most retail traders lose money.
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