Hollow Point Academy / complete curriculum
Learn Options & Futures Trading.
Three tracks. Fourteen playlists. One hundred eleven long-form lessons. Options, futures, risk, market mechanics, gamma, technical analysis and execution—from absolute basics through the full desk.
Options for Beginners
What an option is → calls → puts → the chain → picking a strike → your first trade.
What Is an Option? The Absolute Basics for Beginners
A plain-English guide to the contract that gives you the right — but never the obligation — to buy or sell.
PREVIEW LESSON →02
The Call Option: Your First Bet That a Stock Goes Up
A complete beginner's guide to what a call is, how it pays, where it breaks even, and why it can build you up or wipe you out
PREVIEW LESSON →03
Put Options Explained: How to Bet a Stock Goes Down (Without Owning a Single Share)
A complete beginner's guide to puts — what they are, how they pay off, and how the pros use them as insurance
PREVIEW LESSON →04
Buying vs Selling Options: The Beginner's Map to Which Side of the Trade You Want to Be On
A patient, plain-English guide to long vs short, defined vs undefined risk, and why the safest first step is almost always to BUY
PREVIEW LESSON →05
The Options Chain Isn't a Wall of Numbers — It's a Menu
A complete beginner's guide to reading strikes, expirations, calls, puts, and the four prices that actually matter
PREVIEW LESSON →06
The Strike Price Decision: Where Beginners Make or Break the Trade
A plain-English guide to choosing In-The-Money, At-The-Money, and Out-Of-The-Money — and why the number you pick matters as much as the direction you're right about.
PREVIEW LESSON →07
The Beginner's Guide to Picking an Expiration Date (Without Getting Burned by the Clock)
Why "how much time you buy" quietly decides whether your options trade ever had a chance
PREVIEW LESSON →08
Moneyness Made Simple: In, At, and Out of the Money for People Who Have Never Traded
The three little words that decide whether your option is worth something, worth a little, or worth nothing at all
PREVIEW LESSON →09
What You Actually Pay For: Option Premium and Value, Explained From Zero
The real reason an option costs what it costs — and the quiet way it bleeds value while you're not looking
PREVIEW LESSON →10
Your First Options Trade — A Step-by-Step Beginner Walkthrough
From "I have no idea what a call is" to placing a real order with confidence — the slow, careful way
PREVIEW LESSON →11
Six Ways New Options Traders Blow Up — And How to Sidestep Every One
A complete beginner's field guide to the mistakes that quietly drain accounts, written so you can use it Monday.
PREVIEW LESSON →12
You Don't Learn to Fly in a Real Plane — Practice Options With Fake Money First
The complete beginner's guide to paper trading options so your first real loss isn't your last
PREVIEW LESSON →The Greeks & Gamma for Beginners
Delta, gamma, theta, vega — and how gamma actually moves the market.
The Option Greeks: The Four Little Words That Decide Whether You Win or Lose
A complete beginner's map to Delta, Gamma, Theta, and Vega — no math degree required
PREVIEW LESSON →02
Delta Decoded: The One Number That Tells You How Much Your Option Really Moves
A complete beginner's guide to the most useful number in options — no experience required
PREVIEW LESSON →03
Gamma for Beginners: The Hidden Speed Dial Behind Every Option
Why some options barely move, some go haywire, and how to tell the twitchy ones apart before you ever click "buy"
PREVIEW LESSON →04
The Clock That Ticks Against You: Theta for Complete Beginners
Every option you own is a melting ice cube — here's how to stop losing money to time you didn't understand
PREVIEW LESSON →05
Vega for Beginners: Why Fear Makes Options Cost More
The hidden dial that quietly reprices every option you own — and how to see it before it costs you money
PREVIEW LESSON →06
How Gamma Quietly Steers the Market — And Why Nobody Told You
The invisible hand behind those days when price just... won't... move (and the days it explodes). A complete beginner's guide to dealer gamma, pinning, and GEX — no math degree required.
PREVIEW LESSON →07
Implied Volatility Is the Weather Report the Market Sells You
A complete beginner's guide to IV — what it is, why it quietly runs your options trades, and how to read it before you risk a dollar
PREVIEW LESSON →08
The Options Trap That Punishes You For Being Right
Why buying options into earnings usually loses — even when the stock moves your way
PREVIEW LESSON →Futures for Beginners
Contracts, micros, margin, the ES & NQ, and your first futures trade.
What Are Futures? The Basics for Beginners
A promise about the future, priced today — and why brand-new traders must handle it with two hands
PREVIEW LESSON →02
What Is a Futures Contract Actually Worth? The Beginner's Guide to Tick Size, Tick Value, and Point Value
Learn exactly how much money moves when the ES and NQ tick up or down — before you ever risk a dollar.
PREVIEW LESSON →03
The Smallest Door Into the Biggest Markets
Micro futures for people who have never placed a single trade — MES, MNQ, MYM, M2K, and the simple math that lets you learn without blowing up
PREVIEW LESSON →04
Your Broker Just Handed You a $150,000 Rope — Margin Is How You Avoid Hanging Yourself With It
The complete beginner's guide to futures margin: day-trade vs overnight, why leverage cuts both ways, and how to size so you're still here next month
PREVIEW LESSON →05
ES and NQ, Explained Like You've Never Traded a Day in Your Life
The two futures contracts that move the whole market — what they are, why they wiggle, when they trade, and how Hollow Point plays the NQ
PREVIEW LESSON →06
Your First Futures Trade — A Step-by-Step Beginner Walkthrough
From opening the platform to closing the trade — the whole thing, slowly, in plain English.
PREVIEW LESSON →07
The Contract That Expires: Futures Rollover for Complete Beginners
Why your futures position has a shelf life — and the simple habit that keeps you out of the danger zone
PREVIEW LESSON →08
Why Futures Can Empty an Account Before Lunch — And How Beginners Stay Alive
A complete, plain-English guide to the fastest market most people are never taught to respect
PREVIEW LESSON →Picking the Right Trade
Sizing, risk, stops, targets, 1:3, and the skill of NOT trading.
The Number That Matters More Than Your Entry
Why the size of your trade — not your genius — decides whether you survive long enough to win
PREVIEW LESSON →02
Your Money Has a Job to Do: Survive First
The beginner's guide to risk management — why protecting your capital is the only skill that lets every other skill matter
PREVIEW LESSON →03
The Stop Loss: Your Seatbelt Before You Ever Touch the Gas
A complete beginner's guide to deciding — before you buy — exactly where you'll admit you were wrong
PREVIEW LESSON →04
The Exit Is Half the Trade: A Total Beginner's Guide to Setting a Target
How to know where you're getting out before you ever get in — with R-multiples, profit-taking, and scaling out explained from zero
PREVIEW LESSON →05
The 1-in-3 Rule That Lets You Be Wrong and Still Win
How Hollow Point Trading uses reward-to-risk so a losing streak can't sink you — and the tiny bit of math that proves it
PREVIEW LESSON →06
The Best Trade You'll Ever Make Is the One You Don't
A complete beginner's guide to knowing when to sit on your hands — and why standing aside is a skill, not a weakness
PREVIEW LESSON →07
Building Your First Trading Plan — Beginner Edition
The one-page rulebook that turns "I hope this works" into "I know exactly what I'm doing."
PREVIEW LESSON →Reading the Chart for Beginners
Candlesticks, support/resistance, trend, MAs, volume, RSI, VWAP, patterns.
The Candle Never Lies: How to Read a Single Bar of Price
A complete beginner's guide to candlesticks — open, high, low, close, bodies, wicks, and the three patterns worth learning first
PREVIEW LESSON →02
The Floor and the Ceiling: Support & Resistance for Absolute Beginners
The two lines that explain why price stops, turns, and moves — and how to trade the bounce instead of guessing it
PREVIEW LESSON →03
The Trend Is Your Friend: A Complete Beginner's Guide to Reading Market Direction
Learn to see which way price is really moving — and why trading with it is the first edge you'll ever earn
PREVIEW LESSON →04
The Moving Average: Your First Line on the Chart
A complete beginner's guide to the one tool that turns a wall of candles into a story you can actually read
PREVIEW LESSON →05
Volume: The Fuel Behind Every Move a Stock Makes
A complete beginner's guide to reading the one number that tells you whether a price move is real
PREVIEW LESSON →06
RSI: The Momentum Gauge That Tells You When a Move Is Running Out of Breath
A complete beginner's guide to reading the market's speedometer — without getting fooled by it
PREVIEW LESSON →07
VWAP for Beginners: The One Line the Big Money Actually Watches
A plain-English guide to the volume-weighted average price — what it is, why institutions live by it, and how you can use it as a fair-value line on your very first Monday.
PREVIEW LESSON →08
The Shapes the Market Draws Before It Moves
A complete beginner's guide to chart patterns — flags, triangles, double tops and bottoms, head & shoulders, the measured move, and the volume story underneath them all
PREVIEW LESSON →Options Strategies for Beginners
Covered calls, cash-secured puts, the wheel, spreads, 0DTE, and avoiding naked.
Getting Paid to Own Your Stock: The Beginner's Guide to Covered Calls
The calmest way to earn income from shares you already hold — explained from zero, no experience needed
PREVIEW LESSON →02
Getting Paid to Wait for the Stock You Already Wanted
The beginner's guide to cash-secured puts — earning income while you patiently wait to buy at your price
PREVIEW LESSON →03
The Wheel Strategy: How Beginners Get Paid to Wait
A slow, boring, rules-first way to earn income from stocks you'd actually want to own — explained from zero
PREVIEW LESSON →04
The Safety Net Trade: How Beginners Buy Direction Without Betting the House
Vertical spreads let you say "I think it goes up" — and know your worst day before you ever click buy
PREVIEW LESSON →05
Paying vs. Getting Paid: The Beginner's Guide to Debit and Credit Spreads
Two ways to trade options with a seatbelt on — and a simple rule for choosing between them
PREVIEW LESSON →06
The Lottery Ticket That Expires at 4 O'Clock: A Beginner's Guide to 0DTE Options
Why zero-days-to-expiration options are the fastest way to lose money in the market — and the ironclad rules if you ever touch them
PREVIEW LESSON →07
Naked Options: The Trade That Can Take More Than You Put In
A beginner's plain-English guide to why "naked" options are the fastest way to blow up an account — and the safer trades to use instead
PREVIEW LESSON →The Complete Guides
Definitive references — candlesticks, Fibonacci, chart patterns, TradingView, brokerages, options funding.
Candlesticks Are Just Fear and Greed With Timestamps
The complete Hollow Point reference to every candle that matters — structure, psychology, and the confluence that makes them tradeable
PREVIEW LESSON →02
The Complete Guide to Fibonacci Trading
The sequence, the ratios, the golden pocket — and how to draw them so they actually work
PREVIEW LESSON →03
The Complete Guide to Chart Patterns
Every reversal and continuation setup on the tape — structure, target, volume, entry, invalidation, failure rate, and the HPT sequence that turns a shape into a trade
PREVIEW LESSON →04
The Complete TradingView Tutorial: From Zero to Pro
Everything the platform can do, how a trader actually uses it, and the top-down workflow Hollow Point runs on it
PREVIEW LESSON →05
The Complete Brokerage Guide — Choosing and Using Your Broker
Your broker is the only thing standing between your idea and the market. Pick it like your P&L depends on it — because it does.
PREVIEW LESSON →06
Someone Else's Money, Your Trigger Finger: The Complete Guide to Funded Options Trading
How prop firms hand options traders six-figure buying power — and the rulebook that decides whether you keep a dime of it
PREVIEW LESSON →The Technical Toolkit
Read the chart: the indicators, patterns and structure behind a setup.
The Golden Pocket Is Where the Market Shows Its Hand
A trader's complete field guide to Fibonacci — the ratios, the one zone that does the heavy lifting, and the discipline that turns a 13th-century number pattern into an edge
PREVIEW LESSON →02
The Candle Is a Confession: The Complete Candlestick Playbook
Every bar is a fight between buyers and sellers. Here's how to read who won, who's lying, and where the next move is hiding.
PREVIEW LESSON →03
The Line That Bends but Doesn't Lie: A Trader's Complete Guide to Moving Averages & EMAs
Every average explained, why the EMA reacts faster, and how to turn a squiggly line into a decision you can act on Monday morning
PREVIEW LESSON →04
RSI Deconstructed: The Momentum Gauge Everyone Misreads
The oscillator on every trader's screen is misunderstood by most of them. Here's how to actually read the momentum — regime, divergence, and the levels that make it a real edge.
PREVIEW LESSON →05
MACD, Properly
The most-used momentum indicator on Earth, and the one most traders read completely backwards
PREVIEW LESSON →06
Bollinger Bands Aren't Telling You Where — They're Telling You When
The volatility tool everyone plots and almost nobody reads correctly. Here's how to actually use it — construction, regime, the squeeze, and the confluence stack, with real numbers on every read.
PREVIEW LESSON →07
VWAP: The Line the Whole Floor Is Watching
Why the volume-weighted average price is the one level institutions actually trade around — and how to read it like they do
PREVIEW LESSON →08
The Map of Where Money Actually Traded
Price tells you where a market has *been*. Volume Profile tells you where it *fought* — and hands you the exact prices it will fight over again.
PREVIEW LESSON →09
30 Indicators Every Trader Should Actually Know
The master reference — what each one measures, the one signal that matters, when to use it, and how to stop drowning your chart in redundant noise
PREVIEW LESSON →Options & Derivatives
Calls/puts, the Greeks, dealer gamma, strategies, futures.
Options 101: The Right, Not the Obligation
Everything a complete beginner needs to understand what an option actually is — and the mechanics that quietly decide whether you win — before you ever risk a dollar.
PREVIEW LESSON →02
The Two Trades That Run the Whole Options Market
Long calls and long puts, taught properly — what you're betting, what it costs you, how the Greeks move against you, and how to stop donating premium to people who understand this better than you do
PREVIEW LESSON →03
The Greeks Aren't Math Class — They're Your Risk X-Ray
Delta, Gamma, Theta, Vega, Rho — what every option is really doing under the hood, made intuitive, worked, and battle-tested
PREVIEW LESSON →04
The Invisible Hand on the Tape: How Gamma Exposure Moves Price
Why the market pins, why it rips, and how to trade the levels the dealers are forced to defend
PREVIEW LESSON →05
The Complete Options Strategy Playbook
Twenty-two ways to express a view — and the discipline to know which one fits
PREVIEW LESSON →06
Futures Explained: The Leverage Instrument the Pros Actually Trade
Standardized contracts, near-24-hour access, and enough leverage to make or unmake an account before lunch — here's exactly how the machine works, and how a disciplined trader turns it into an edge.
PREVIEW LESSON →The HPT Method
How the desk decides: top-down, risk, building the trade.
The Method That Beats a Pretty Chart
Why the best traders barely look at the chart until they've read everything holding it up
PREVIEW LESSON →02
Risk Management & Position Sizing: The Only Thing That Keeps You Alive
Entries get the glory. Risk pays the rent. Master this or the market ends your career for you.
PREVIEW LESSON →03
How to Actually Build a Trade
The whole series in one setup: from the macro tape down to the strike, the size, the trim, and the exit that gets you paid
PREVIEW LESSON →Market Mechanics
Internals, order flow, the plumbing, sector rotation.
The Market Under the Market
Why the index lies, how breadth tells the truth before price does, and how to trade what you find there
PREVIEW LESSON →02
The Market Is a Conversation. The Tape Is Where You Hear It.
Every candle you stare at is a summary of a fight that already happened. Order flow is the fight itself — live, transaction by transaction. This is the complete guide to hearing it.
PREVIEW LESSON →03
Where Your Order Really Goes: Market Makers, Dark Pools, and the Plumbing Behind Every Fill
The hidden machinery between your "buy" button and the print — and how to trade the flow instead of fearing it.
PREVIEW LESSON →04
The Money Is Already Moving — Here's How to See It Before the Index Does
Sector rotation, the business cycle, and reading relative strength to stand where the flow is going, not where it's been
PREVIEW LESSON →05
The Line in the Sand: Support, Resistance & Supply/Demand Zones
Price doesn't move at random. It travels from level to level — and once you can see the levels, you stop guessing and start reacting.
PREVIEW LESSON →06
Chart Patterns That Actually Work
Most of them fail. Here's how to trade the handful that don't — and how HPT stacks the odds in your favor before the breakout candle ever prints.
PREVIEW LESSON →07
The Only Question That Matters Before You Touch a Single Indicator
Market structure is the grammar of price. Learn to read it and you'll never stare at a chart wondering "what now?" again.
PREVIEW LESSON →Frameworks & Events
Ichimoku, Elliott/Wyckoff, the calendar, intermarket, volatility.
The Cloud That Reads the Whole Market at a Glance
Ichimoku is five lines doing the work of a dozen indicators — here's how to run it, grade it, and trade it without drowning your chart
PREVIEW LESSON →02
The Two Maps of the Crowd: Elliott Wave & Wyckoff, Decoded
Every chart is a fight between fear and greed. These are the two frameworks that let you read the fight — without pretending you can predict the winner.
PREVIEW LESSON →03
The Economic Calendar: The Data That Moves Everything
Why the same chart that ignored you all week suddenly gaps 2% at 8:30am — and how to be on the right side of it
PREVIEW LESSON →04
The Whole Machine: How Rates and the Dollar Really Drive Stocks
Stop staring at one chart. Learn to read the plumbing underneath the market — bonds, the dollar, credit, gold and oil — the way the desks that move real size actually read it.
PREVIEW LESSON →05
Fear Has a Ticker: How to Read the VIX and Trade Volatility Itself
The market's built-in fear gauge, fully decoded — what it measures, why the ETPs bleed, how the term structure front-runs the tape, and how vol regimes secretly set the size of every trade you take
PREVIEW LESSON →Instruments & Tactics
Earnings, ETFs, shorting, crypto, the open, 0DTE, auction theory.
Earnings Is a Volatility Trade Wearing a Directional Costume
Why your right call still loses money — and how to actually play the print without handing your premium to the house
PREVIEW LESSON →02
You Don't Own the Stocks. You Own a Claim Check.
An ETF is a wrapper, not a thing — here's what's actually inside, how it's built, how it breaks, and how to trade the whole market with one ticker.
PREVIEW LESSON →03
The Trade Where You Can Lose More Than Everything
Short selling is the only bet on Wall Street with capped upside and unlimited downside — here's how the machine actually works, how a squeeze turns that math into a wildfire, and how a disciplined trader plays it without becoming the fuel.
PREVIEW LESSON →04
The Edge Between Your Ears
Why the trader who wins isn't the one who predicts best — he's the one who bleeds least when he's wrong.
PREVIEW LESSON →05
Your Trading Plan Is the Setup. Everything Else Is Just Clicking Buttons.
How to build a written plan, define your A+ trade, and keep the journal that turns losing months into a permanent edge.
PREVIEW LESSON →06
Your Setup Doesn't Have an Edge Until the Math Says So
How to prove a strategy actually makes money before you risk real size — win rate, reward-to-risk, expectancy, sample size, and the backtesting traps that quietly bankrupt disciplined-looking traders
PREVIEW LESSON →07
Crypto Doesn't Sleep, So Your Risk Rules Can't Either
A trader's field guide to BTC, ETH, perps, funding, on-chain flows, and the debasement trade — built to use Monday morning.
PREVIEW LESSON →08
The First 30 Minutes Own the Whole Day
How to read premarket, decode the gap, trade the opening range, and walk into the bell with a plan instead of a reaction
PREVIEW LESSON →09
The Two-Hour Lottery: How 0DTE Options Really Work — And How Not to Get Killed by Them
Zero days to expiration is the most concentrated bet in the market. Here's the machinery underneath, who's on the other side of it, and the exact discipline that keeps you alive.
PREVIEW LESSON →10
The Market Is an Auction. Once You See That, Nothing Is Random.
Liquidity and auction theory — how price actually gets made, why the "random" spike that gutted your account was the most predictable move on the chart, and how to sit on the other side of it.
PREVIEW LESSON →Brokers & Platforms
Robinhood → tastytrade, the options chain, order types, Level 2, naked options.
Robinhood: The Front Door to the Market — and the Trapdoors Built Into It
The app that onboarded a generation. Here's how to work it like a trader instead of a tourist.
PREVIEW LESSON →02
Webull Is a Bloomberg Terminal Cosplaying as a Free App
The charting-forward broker that hands active technical traders a real workstation — if they know where everything lives
PREVIEW LESSON →03
thinkorswim by Schwab: The Cockpit Serious Options Traders Actually Fly
Charles Schwab now owns the deepest retail trading platform ever built — here's how to sit down, strap in, and run it like a professional instead of drowning in its switches.
PREVIEW LESSON →04
Fidelity & Active Trader Pro: The Broker That Actually Fights for Your Fill
The full-service giant where thirty-year retirement money and a Tuesday-morning breakout scalp live under one login — why its execution is genuinely elite, why its options tooling makes you work for every read, and how to run the whole machine like a professional
PREVIEW LESSON →05
Interactive Brokers: The Institution in Your Pocket
The broker the pros use, demystified for the trader who's ready to graduate
PREVIEW LESSON →06
The Options Trader's Toolbox: A Complete Guide to E\*TRADE & Power E\*TRADE
Morgan Stanley's retail arm hides one of the best options cockpits in the business — here's how to actually drive it, not just log into it.
PREVIEW LESSON →07
The Sell-Side Cockpit: How to Actually Use tastytrade
The one platform built by premium-sellers, for premium-sellers — set it up, read the ticket, size to buying power, and manage it like the market-makers who designed it
PREVIEW LESSON →08
TradingView: The Room Where the Whole Market Reads the Tape
The charting hub the entire market runs on — how to set it up, wire it to a broker, and read top-down the way Hollow Point does
PREVIEW LESSON →09
The Funded Trader's Field Manual: Tradovate, NinjaTrader & the Rithmic/CQG Backbone
How prop-firm evaluations really work, the platforms that feed them, and the trailing-drawdown discipline that decides who keeps the account
PREVIEW LESSON →10
The Options Chain Is a Cockpit, Not a Menu
Every price, every probability, every trap — laid out in one grid. Here's how to actually fly it.
PREVIEW LESSON →11
The Order Ticket Is Where Good Trades Go to Die
Every order type, what it actually does, when to reach for it, and the ones that quietly bleed beginners dry — the complete Hollow Point way.
PREVIEW LESSON →12
The Ladder Doesn't Lie — But It Sure Knows How to Bluff
Level 2 and the tape: reading the order book like a poker table where half the chips are fake, half the players are robots, and the pot is real money
PREVIEW LESSON →13
The Reps That Actually Count: Paper Trading Without Fooling Yourself
How to practice trading so the skill survives contact with real money — the Hollow Point way
PREVIEW LESSON →14
Your Broker Is a Casino Cage, Not a Bank Vault — Learn the Plumbing Before It Costs You a Trade
Margin, PDT, settlement, options tiers, and portfolio margin: the boring machinery that quietly decides what you're actually allowed to do — and what it costs you when you don't know it
PREVIEW LESSON →15
The Trade That Pays You to Be Wrong Until It Isn't
Selling naked calls and puts — the honest anatomy of options' highest-risk position, and the disciplined way to harvest its edge without ever blowing up
PREVIEW LESSON →