What to learn next
Lesson 29 · about 6 min
You now understand the machinery: who is on the other side, how quotes and books work, what each order type does, what each asset class actually is, how brokers get paid, why prices move, which style fits which life, and how to spend your first 90 days without harm. That is a real foundation, and it is more than most people who are actively trading have. Here is what to build on it, in order.
1. Risk management, immediately
Everything in this course pointed at one dependency: how much to risk, how to size, how to survive the losing streaks that every strategy has. That is its own course, and it is the one to take next, before any strategy course: Risk Management.
It covers position sizing in depth, risk of ruin, expectancy, drawdowns and recovery math, correlation between positions, and the rules that separate traders who get a second year from traders who do not. If you take only one more course, take that one.
2. Finish the 90 days
Do not skip to strategy hunting. The plan from this module, in one place:
| Weeks | Activity | Output |
|---|---|---|
| 1-2 | Set up the paper account at real size; write the one-page process and the rules list | A process document, a journal template |
| 3-10 | Paper trade one style in one market; journal every trade with realistic fills and costs | 30-50+ logged trades, weekly reviews |
| 11-12 | Review the full sample; decide whether the process is followable and roughly break-even | A written verdict |
| 13+ | If yes: tiny real size (0.25-0.5% risk). If no: adjust one thing, repeat | A live journal |
The output of the 90 days is not a profit figure. It is a process you can follow, a journal that shows you followed it, and a personal list of the mistakes you are prone to.
3. Then, one of these, depending on your style
- Technical analysis basics: support and resistance, trend, volume, and a small number of chart patterns, learned skeptically. Most of what is sold as technical analysis is noise; the useful core is small and mostly about where other people's orders are likely to sit.
- Fundamentals, if you swing or position trade stocks: how to read earnings, what moves a sector, how valuations work at a basic level. Not to become an analyst, but to know what the professionals on the other side are looking at.
- Market structure for your specific market: the futures trader should learn the contract calendar and order-flow tools; the options trader needs a proper options course, with the Greeks, spreads and assignment; the forex trader needs macro and central banks; the crypto trader needs custody, on-chain basics and how perps and funding actually work.
- Trading psychology: not motivational content, but the practical study of the specific biases (loss aversion, recency, overconfidence, sunk cost) that your journal will already be showing you.
4. What to be skeptical of
- Any course, signal service or "mentor" that shows returns and not a process. Ask for a verified track record over years, not screenshots.
- Indicators sold as edges. An indicator is arithmetic on past prices. It can organize what you see; it cannot know the future.
- Anything with "guaranteed", "passive", or "daily" in the pitch.
- Communities where nobody posts losses. Real trading communities post losses. That is how you know they are real.
- Your own results after a good month. One good month is not a track record; it is a sample of one.
5. A note on this community
GetProfitable exists because most trading education is either an upsell or a fantasy. The courses here are free and will stay free; the forums are where you can post a journal, ask why a fill was bad, or get told plainly that a plan has a hole in it. Use them for that. Post the losing trades. Ask the boring questions. The people who get better are the ones who do.
Key idea: Next is risk management, then finishing the 90-day plan, then the specific knowledge your chosen market and style demand. Strategies come last, and only get evaluated against a journal.
A closing thought
The markets will be there next year. The single biggest advantage you have as a retail trader is that nobody is forcing you to trade today. Use it. Take the Risk Management course, run the 90 days properly, and come back to this course whenever a quote screen or an order ticket confuses you. Everything in it will still be true.
Try it: Open the Risk Management course and read its first lesson today. Then set a calendar reminder for the end of your 90 days to reread Module 7's lesson on realistic expectations and compare it with your journal. That comparison is where your second 90 days begins.
Recap
- Take the Risk Management course next, before any strategy course.
- Finish the 90-day plan: process document, 30-50+ journaled paper trades, weekly reviews, then tiny real size.
- After that, learn the specific structure of your chosen market and a skeptical core of technical or fundamental analysis.
- Be skeptical of anyone selling returns without a process, and of your own results after one good month.
- Your biggest edge is not being forced to trade; use the community to post losses and ask the boring questions.
See it drawn
Original diagrams for the ideas on this page. Illustrative, not real market data.