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What this strategy library is (and isn’t)
Each page in this library explains one well-known trading approach in plain English: the exact rules, a hypothetical worked example, how to manage risk, the common mistakes, and how to test it yourself before risking a penny.
What you won’t find here: “high win-rate” claims, profit screenshots, signals, or a strategy we say “works”. Every strategy on this list loses money in some market conditions, and most traders who use any strategy still lose. The point of a clear set of rules is that you can test it honestly, find out whether it suits you, and drop it if the evidence says no.
New to trading? Start with the free course first: Learn to trade from scratch. The strategies make far more sense once you understand how a trade makes or loses money and how to size a position.
The strategies
| Strategy | In one line | Style | Typical markets (UK time) |
|---|---|---|---|
| London Breakout | Uses the quiet Asian-session range as a reference, then looks for a break when London opens. | Intraday breakout | GBP/USD, EUR/USD, roughly 07:00–10:00 |
| Opening Range Breakout (ORB) | Marks the high and low of the first 15–30 minutes of the cash session and trades a break of that range. | Intraday breakout | FTSE 100 (08:00), DAX (08:00), US indices (14:30) |
| Moving Average Crossover | Follows trend changes when a faster moving average crosses a slower one, filtered by a 200-period average. | Trend following | Forex majors, indices, gold |
| Moving Average Pullback | Waits for an established trend to pull back to a moving average, then joins it with a defined stop. | Trend pullback | Forex majors, indices |
| Support and Resistance Bounce | Draws clear higher-timeframe zones and trades a rejection from them with a stop just beyond the zone. | Range / reversal | Most liquid markets |
More strategies are on the way, including break and retest, range trading and swing trading on the daily chart.
How to judge any strategy (including ours)
Before you put real money, or a paid prop firm challenge, behind any strategy, check it against these questions:
- Are the rules objective? Could someone else follow your written rules and take exactly the same trades? If entries depend on “feel”, you can’t test them.
- Where is the stop, and why? Every trade needs a planned exit if it goes wrong, set before you enter. No stop means no defined risk.
- What’s the expectancy? Win rate on its own means nothing. A strategy that wins 70% of the time can still lose money if the losses are bigger than the wins. Learn to measure results in R (multiples of what you risked).
- How big is the sample? Twenty trades proves nothing. Aim for 100 or more backtested trades across different market conditions before drawing any conclusions.
- Have you included real costs? Spreads, commissions, overnight financing and slippage can turn a “profitable” backtest into a losing one, especially on short timeframes.
- Does it survive forward testing? Run it on a demo account, in real time, with the same risk rules, before going live. Backtests flatter almost every strategy.
- Does it fit your life? A London-open strategy is no use if you’re on the school run at 08:00. The best strategy for you is one you can actually follow.
- Can you follow it when it’s losing? Every strategy has losing streaks. If you’d abandon it after five losses, read our guides on trading discipline and losing streaks first.
Useful tools and lessons
- Trading indicators explained, plus in-depth guides to ATR (for stop distances) and why fewer indicators is better.
- Chart patterns: why they sometimes work (and often don’t).
- Your first demo trade, step by step: practise any strategy here with nothing real at stake.
- Thinking of a prop firm challenge? Work out the full cost first with our true cost calculator.
- Unsure about a term? See the trading glossary.
A note on risk
No strategy removes risk. Leveraged products can lose you money quickly, gaps and fast markets can move straight past your stop, and past results (backtested or live) never guarantee future ones. Only trade with money you can afford to lose, and if trading has started to affect your money, mood or relationships, please read when trading stops being healthy.
Disclaimer: This page is general education, not financial or investment advice or a personal recommendation, and it doesn’t take your circumstances into account. Examples are hypothetical, for illustration only, and not an invitation to buy or sell. No strategy works all the time, and every strategy has losing runs. Learning a strategy doesn’t guarantee profits. Past performance is not a reliable guide to future results. Futures, spread bets and CFDs are complex and carry a high risk of losing money quickly because of leverage, and most retail traders lose money. With a real futures account, losses can exceed your deposit. Prop firm challenges are paid evaluations: the fee is usually lost, and funded accounts are usually simulated. Only trade with money you can afford to lose, and speak to an independent FCA-authorised adviser if you’re unsure. Read our full risk warning.