Education
Learn the industry from first principles.
A free, growing library for novice and experienced prop traders. Written guides on risk, psychology and evaluation strategy, plus a curated stack of the best podcasts, YouTube channels, books and documentaries in the world of trading.
Topic
Fundamentals
Start here. What prop trading is, how firms work, the language of the industry.
Guide · 1 min read
What Is Proprietary Trading?
A plain-English primer on how proprietary trading firms operate, how they make money, and how they differ from hedge funds and brokers.
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Guide · 1 min read
Evaluation Models, Explained
From two-step challenges to instant funding: how modern funded trader programs structure access to capital.
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Guide · 2 min read
The Consistency Rule, Decoded
The most misunderstood rule in prop trading — and the simple math that keeps you compliant.
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Guide · 2 min read
Payout Mechanics: How Prop Firm Money Actually Reaches You
From first request to wire confirmation — what happens behind the scenes, and the rules that delay or deny payouts.
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Topic
Risk & Position Sizing
The math that decides whether you keep the account. Every funded trader rereads these.
Guide · 2 min read
Risk Management: First Principles for Funded Traders
Why risk per trade — not win rate — is the single variable that decides whether you keep your funded account.
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Guide · 2 min read
Position Sizing Math Every Prop Trader Should Know
The formulas that turn a percentage risk rule into the exact number of shares, contracts, or lots to trade.
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Guide · 2 min read
Trailing vs Static Drawdowns: A Complete Guide
The single rule that decides how aggressively you can compound — and the math most traders get wrong.
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Topic
Psychology & Process
Funded trading exposes every mental leak. These build the habits that compound.
Guide · 2 min read
The Psychology of Trading Other People's Money
The mental shifts that separate traders who pass evaluations from those who recycle them.
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Guide · 2 min read
Building a Trading Plan That Survives Contact with the Market
A template for a written plan you will actually use — entries, exits, risk, and the rules you break under pressure.
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Guide · 2 min read
How Top Traders Journal (and Why It Compounds)
The journal entries that actually change behavior, with a simple format you can adopt today.
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Topic
Evaluation Playbook
Tactical guides for passing challenges, choosing firms, and avoiding the traps.
Guide · 2 min read
How to Approach an Evaluation: A Tactical Playbook
A week-by-week framework for passing prop firm challenges without violating consistency or drawdown rules.
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Guide · 2 min read
How to Choose a Prop Firm Without Getting Burned
The questions to ask before you pay an evaluation fee — and the warning signs that should send you elsewhere.
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Guide · 2 min read
10 Red Flags When Evaluating a Prop Firm
A field guide to the warning signs that a firm is closer to a sweepstakes than a trading business.
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Topic
Markets & Microstructure
Asset class primers and order flow basics for traders levelling up.
Guide · 2 min read
Asset Class Primer: Futures for Prop Traders
The contracts, tick values, margin behavior, and session timing that every futures-funded trader needs to know.
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Guide · 2 min read
Asset Class Primer: Equities and Options for Prop Traders
How equity-focused prop firms structure buying power, locates, and overnight exposure — and where options fit.
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Guide · 2 min read
Tape Reading and Order Flow Basics
The Level 2, time and sales, and footprint signals that separate informed entries from random clicks.
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Reference
The prop trading glossary.
Every term, rule and acronym you'll encounter — drawdown types, payout mechanics, evaluation phases, consistency rules, scaling plans. Plain-English definitions cross-linked from every guide on this page.
Listen
The best free trading podcasts.
Hundreds of hours of long-form conversations with working traders. If you commute, walk, or train, this is the highest-leverage education on the list.
Chat With Traders
Open ↗Aaron Fifield
200+ long-form interviews with prop, hedge fund and independent traders. The single best starting library.
The Trader's Podcast
Open ↗Joe Krutsinger & guests
Microstructure, execution, and the buy-side perspective.
Top Traders Unplugged
Open ↗Niels Kaastrup-Larsen
Systematic and trend-following CTAs talking honestly about risk and drawdowns.
Flirting with Models
Open ↗Corey Hoffstein
Deep dives on quantitative research, portfolio construction and the boundary between art and science.
The Acquirers Podcast
Open ↗Tobias Carlisle
Value, deep value and capital allocation — useful for any trader who holds beyond the close.
Trend Following with Michael Covel
Open ↗Michael Covel
Pioneers of trend following on rules-based discipline.
Watch
YouTube channels actually worth your time.
Working traders, real screen recordings, no get-rich-quick. These are the channels professionals point beginners to.
Tom Hougaard — Trader Tom
Open ↗@TraderTom
Equity-index day trading with brutally honest psychology lessons.
Humbled Trader
Open ↗Shay
Day-trading equities, journaling, and the long path from blow-up to consistency.
SMB Capital
Open ↗Mike Bellafiore & team
One of the most respected NYC prop desks. Free trader development content most firms would charge for.
Axia Futures
Open ↗Axia
Order flow, tape reading and screen recordings from working futures traders.
Trader Dale
Open ↗Dale
Volume profile and footprint instruction with concrete setups.
Anton Kreil — Institute of Trading
Open ↗Anton Kreil
Ex-Goldman and Lehman trader on the realities of professional trading careers.
Read
The trading bookshelf.
A short, deliberate reading list. Most professional traders have read all of these — many more than once.
Trading in the Zone
Open ↗Mark Douglas
The classic on probabilistic thinking. Reread once a year.
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
Open ↗Edwin Lefèvre
A century old. Every lesson still holds.
Market Wizards (series)
Open ↗Jack Schwager
Interview collections with the best traders of multiple eras. Pattern recognition for the trader you want to become.
One Good Trade
Open ↗Mike Bellafiore
Inside a working NYC prop desk. The closest a book gets to apprenticeship.
The Daily Trading Coach
Open ↗Brett Steenbarger
101 short lessons on trader psychology and self-coaching from a working performance coach.
Trading Risk
Open ↗Kenneth Grant
Risk management from a hedge fund risk officer. Dense, practical, undervalued.
Documentaries
Films every trader should see.
Context for why modern markets look the way they do, and the people who built them.
Floored (2009)
Open ↗Documentary
Chicago floor traders losing their world to the screens. Required viewing for context.
The Wall Street Code
Open ↗VPRO Documentary
Free, full length. The architecture of modern electronic markets explained by the people who built it.
Quants: The Alchemists of Wall Street
Open ↗VPRO
How models took over markets, and the limits the 2008 crisis exposed.
Inside Job (2010)
Open ↗Charles Ferguson
Macro context on the incentives that shape financial markets.
Original research
Do any prop firms really have no consistency rule?
We reviewed the published rulebooks of 15 major prop firms — futures, FX, and multi-asset — and classified each one using primary sources only. A useful read before picking a program.
Read the full research →