How to Trade Made Simple – Understanding The Daily Trend
This is not the full course. It’s just the syllabus—the simple framework I use every day to understand the market. We keep it easy on purpose, because simple things, done well, tend to work better than complicated things done poorly.
Everything starts with direction. Before anything else, I ask a basic question: is the S&P going up, going down, or moving sideways? That answer shapes everything that follows. If you get direction right, most of the hard work is already done.
Once I have a sense of direction, I check a couple of key lines. The 50-day moving average shows the shorter path, while the 200-day moving average gives a longer-term view. I’m not trying to be perfect here—I just want to know where price sits in relation to those lines.
From there, I look at levels. Support is where price tends to hold. Resistance is where it tends to stall. These are just landmarks, like hills and valleys. They don’t predict the future, but they help you understand where you are.
Now think of it like blackjack.
In blackjack, you don’t play every hand the same way. If you understand game theory and a little card counting, you start to see when the odds lean your way. You don’t need to know the exact outcome—you just need to know when the deck is in your favor.
Trading is the same.
If the trendline is pointing down, price is below the 50 and the 200, it’s staying there, and support levels are breaking, then the “count” is negative. The odds favor the downside. You don’t have to force anything—you just recognize the table you’re sitting at.
That doesn’t mean every move will be lower. There will be bounces. There will be noise. But if the count stays the same, you don’t suddenly start playing it like a winning hand.
Sometimes I move through this process in order. Sometimes I skip around. But I always come back to one idea: direction first, levels second. That keeps me grounded and keeps me from overthinking.
This isn’t everything. There’s more depth, more nuance, and more to learn over time. But if you can start here—if you can learn to see direction clearly—you’re already ahead of most.
This is the syllabus, not the course.
Levels and ladders, beggars and tricks,
ups and downs, arrows, lines and dots…
I think not.
— The Mainer Montan
There’s a lot of market wisdom in my simple little poem and we’ll unpack it all later.