Start Here

START HERE

BMT Blueprint

Dev Dahiya

You've saved the videos.You still don't know what to do first.

You open YouTube. Two minutes later the bloke is talking about liquidity, order blocks and three different timeframes. So you leave it for next weekend. Again.

This is the order I'd learn it in. What a trade is. How to read a candle. How to read structure. Where price tends to react. How to size risk so one bad day does not end it.

Every chart below is marked up. Read the picture before you read the words under it. That is the skill you are building.

General education only. Trading involves substantial risk of loss. No profit, funding or income outcome is promised.

What a trade is.

Long, short, and the two ways to be wrong

A trade is one decision, made twice. You open a position at one price and you close it at another. The gap between those two prices, minus costs, is your result.

There are two directions.

Going long

You buy first and aim to sell higher. You make money if price goes up. You lose money if price goes down.

Going short

You sell first and aim to buy back lower, using a product that allows it. You make money if price goes down. You lose money if price goes up.

Think of it like this. Long is buying a car you think is under-priced and selling it on. Short is agreeing to hand over a car next month at today's price, then buying it later for less. Both can go wrong, and both cost you something to arrange.

Bullish and bearish describe where the market is going. Long and short describe what you are holding. They are related, and they are not the same thing. You can be long in a bearish market. That is usually what being wrong looks like.

Day trading: Opening and closing inside the same trading day. Nothing held overnight.
Swing trading: Holding for a few days to a few weeks, for a larger move.
Position trading: Holding for months. Slower, with wider targets and wider losses.

Most beginners drift into day trading because it feels active. That is not a reason to choose it. Choose the one that fits the hours you can give it.

Day trading can produce substantial losses. Keep essential living money out of it, and stay in observation or simulation until you can explain what you are looking at.

Source: Investor.gov: Thinking of Day Trading? Know the Risks.

Where you can trade.

Five markets, one product decision

Market	What it refers to	How it behaves
Shares	Ownership in a company.	Moves on company news and earnings. Set exchange hours.
Forex	One currency priced against another.	Runs 24 hours, five days a week. Majors are slower and more technical.
Indices	Benchmarks tracking groups of shares.	Most active around the US session.
Commodities	Markets for things such as gold and oil.	Reacts to supply, geopolitics and inventory data.
Crypto	Digital assets such as Bitcoin.	Runs 24/7. No closing bell, which is why people burn out on it.

Futures are a type of contract. They set terms to buy or sell an underlying asset at an agreed price for a specified future date, and they can be based on indices, currencies or commodities. The product you choose changes the fees, the rules and the risk.

Source: CME Group: Definition of a Futures Contract

Pick one market. Learn what its symbol represents, its trading hours, and how a price move changes the value of a position. Everything after this is easier once one chart is familiar.

The broker, leverage, and what a trade costs.

The part most beginner guides skip

Broker: The company that gives you access to the market. You do not trade with the market directly. Your order goes through a broker, who also holds your funds.
Exchange: Where the buying and selling happens. Shares and futures trade on regulated exchanges. Most retail forex goes through a broker acting as the other side of your trade.
Margin: The money the broker holds against a leveraged position. If your balance drops too low to cover it you get a margin call, and if you do not act the broker closes the position for you.

Leverage lets you control a position larger than your balance. At 30:1, one thousand dollars of your money can control thirty thousand dollars of exposure. A one percent move against that position is a thirty percent loss on your money.

Leverage moves losses in the same direction it moves gains. In Australia, ASIC caps retail leverage at 30:1 on major currency pairs and 2:1 on crypto. An offshore broker offering 500:1 is not doing you a favour.

What it costs to be in a trade

Spread: The gap between the buy price and the sell price. The moment you open a trade you are down by the spread.
Commission: A flat fee per trade, charged separately from the spread. Compare the total, not one number.
Swap or overnight fee: An interest charge for holding a position overnight. Small per night, and it adds up across a swing trade.

Short timeframes make costs bigger relative to the move. If you are aiming for five pips on a pair with a one pip spread, twenty percent of the target is gone before price has moved.

Choose a broker on regulation and execution. Not on bonuses, not on a promotion, not on who advertised at you.

Read the candle.

The smallest unit on the chart

A candlestick is a record of price over one period. One candle on a 5 minute chart covers five minutes. Change the timeframe and the period changes, the structure of the candle does not.

Every candle holds four prices. The open, the close, the high and the low. The thick body runs between the open and close. The thin wicks reach out to the high and the low.

What to look atOn these charts a bullish candle is blue and a bearish candle is grey. Bullish closed above where it opened. Bearish closed below. Most platforms ship with green and red instead. The colour is a setting, the meaning is not.

A candle tells you who won the period

A strong body close is a large body with little or no wick on the closing side. One side held control for the whole period.

What to look atBody dominates, wicks are short. Compare that to the next image, where the wick is doing all the work.

A rejection candle is a long wick with a small body. The wick shows where price tried to go and got pushed back before the close. A long upper wick means buyers pushed up and sellers took it back. A long lower wick means sellers pushed down and buyers absorbed it.

What to look atThe close, not the wick. A wick is an attempt. A close is the result. Rejection candles turn up often at the point a move runs out.

Source: Fidelity: How to read a chart (chart mechanics)

Structure is just highs and lows.

The pattern the market leaves behind

A high is a turning peak, a candle with lower candles either side of it. A low is a turning trough, with higher candles either side. Mark enough of them and the direction stops being a matter of opinion.

What to look atA high forms where a bullish candle is followed by a bearish one. A low forms where a bearish candle is followed by a bullish one. Nothing more complicated than that.

From there the market is always doing one of three things.

UptrendHigher highs and higher lows. Each push up goes further than the last, each dip stops higher than the last.

DowntrendLower highs and lower lows. Each drop goes further down, each bounce stops lower.

RangeSideways, between a level it keeps failing to break above and one it keeps failing to break below. Those repeated touches are marked here as equal highs and equal lows, and they matter again in section 10. Markets range far more often than they trend.

Extensions and pullbacks

An extension is the move in the direction of the trend. A pullback is the temporary move against it. A pullback is not a reversal. It is the trend resting.

On the chartGrey boxes are extensions. Blue boxes are pullbacks.

The same thing drawnSchematic on top, real candles below. Each pullback tops out at a lower high.

Break of structure.

The continuation signal

A break of structure, shortened to BOS, happens when price moves past a previous high or low and closes beyond it. It says the trend is continuing in the direction it was already going.

In an uptrend, a BOS is a close above the most recent significant high. In a downtrend, a close below the most recent significant low.

Uptrend BOSTwo yellow levels, two breaks, both closed through. The trend is doing what it was already doing.

Downtrend BOSSame idea pointing down. Price closes below the prior low, then does it again.

The key word is closes. A wick poking through a level is an attempt. A close beyond it, on the timeframe you are reading, is the confirmation.

A BOS on a higher timeframe carries more weight than one on a lower timeframe. When they point the same way, the read is cleaner.

Change of character.

The first warning, not the confirmation

A change of character, shortened to CHoCH, is the moment the market breaks the level that was holding its current direction. It is a warning that the trend may be ending. It is not proof that it has.

Every trend has a protected level. In an uptrend it is the last higher low. In a downtrend it is the last lower high. That level is what the trend is standing on.

Bearish CHoCHPrice makes a BOS upward, pulls back, and the low it left behind becomes the protected level. When price closes below that orange line, the uptrend has lost the thing it was standing on.

Bullish CHoCHThe mirror image. A downtrend, a protected high, and a close above it much later on the right hand side.

Name the current trend.
Higher highs and higher lows, or lower highs and lower lows. If you cannot name it, it is a range and there is nothing to break.
Mark the protected level.
Last higher low in an uptrend. Last lower high in a downtrend. Draw it before price gets near it.
Wait for a close through it.
Not a wick. A body close on the timeframe you are reading.
Look for what follows.
A CHoCH becomes a lot more convincing once it is followed by a BOS in the new direction.

BOS

Continuation. Price broke the level in front of the trend.

CHoCH

Possible reversal. Price broke the level behind the trend.

Internal and external.

Why your reversal keeps turning out to be a pullback

External structure is the big picture. The major highs and lows that set the overall direction. Internal structure is everything happening inside that, between the last external high and the protected low.

Think of it like this. External is the road you are on. Internal is the lane changes. A dramatic reversal on the 5 minute chart is often one lane change inside a road that has not turned.

Read the bottom half firstEvery break between the last external high and the protected low counts as internal. The protected low only updates once an external BOS has happened. This is the rule most people get wrong.

Same rule, pointing downInternal breaks stack up inside the move. The external CHoCH on the real chart underneath is the one that changed the direction.

Internal inside bullishAn internal CHoCH fires while the external structure is still intact.

Internal inside bearishSame again in the other direction, with the external low marked at the bottom.

If you only read internal structure, you will keep taking positions against the larger move. The bigger picture wins more often than the smaller one.

One chart, two timeframes.

Direction from above, timing from below

A timeframe is how much time each candle covers. The same price data looks like a different market depending on which one you open.

4 hourFour clean legs. Two highs, two lows, one direction.

The same period on 15 minutesThe same move, the same days. Now there are a dozen swings inside it. Nothing changed except the lens.

The simplest way to combine them is direction from the higher timeframe and timing from the lower one. A common day trading set is 4 hour for direction, 1 hour for the setup, 5 or 15 minute for timing. When the two disagree, the higher timeframe usually wins.

Sessions

Asian, roughly 9am to 6pm AEST: Tokyo and Sydney. Typically the quietest, with tighter ranges. Yen pairs are the most active.
London, roughly 6pm to 3am AEST: The largest forex hub by volume. Real movement, especially on EUR, GBP and CHF.
New York, roughly 11pm to 8am AEST: Overlaps London for several hours. That overlap, around 11pm to 3am AEST, is the busiest window of the day for USD pairs and indices.

Sessions help you structure a day. They do not make a chart readable on their own. A clear setup is clear whichever session it appears in.

Liquidity, and why price runs at obvious levels.

The part that makes the chart make sense

Liquidity is the volume of orders sitting in the market at a price. A buyer needs a seller. The more orders resting at a level, the easier it is for a large participant to fill there.

A fund that wants to buy fifty million of something cannot click buy and expect it to fill at one price. There are not enough sellers there. Price has to go to where the orders are.

Orders cluster in places you can see:

Above obvious highs and below obvious lows: Someone who bought near a low usually puts their stop just under it. Enough people do that and the area under the low becomes a pool of sell orders waiting to trigger.
At equal highs and equal lows: Price touching the same level repeatedly without breaking it stacks orders there. Go back and look at the range chart in section 05.
At round numbers: 1.1000, 50,000. People place orders at round numbers because they are round numbers.

Liquidity sweeps

A liquidity sweep is price pushing through one of those levels, triggering the orders sitting there, then turning back. Anyone who entered on the break is now offside, and the participant who needed the fill has it.

Sweep of a lowThe purple line marks the level. Price dips under it, then leaves. The candles that follow go the other way.

Sweep of a highA long wick pushes above the level, and the close comes back under it. Everyone who bought the breakout is now holding the wrong side.

Two ideas side by sideA marked zone on top, a sweep of a high underneath. Section 12 covers the zone.

Large participants are not hunting your individual stop. They do not know it exists. They know where retail orders cluster as a group, and they fill where the liquidity is. The effect looks personal and the mechanism is not.

Fair value gaps.

Where price moved too fast to trade properly

A fair value gap, shortened to FVG, is a range that price skipped through. Three candles, with a strong middle candle that moves so hard the first and third candles never overlap. Very little trading happened in that band, and price often comes back to it.

Bullish FVGThe shaded band sits between the high of candle one and the low of candle three. The lower line in this image is labelled candle one low, which is a labelling slip in the drawing. The band itself is drawn correctly.

Bearish FVGMirror image. The band sits between the low of candle one and the high of candle three.

Both, then severalBullish and bearish gaps together on top. Underneath, three bearish gaps stacked inside one fast move. Fast moves leave several.

Why they matter

They mark unfinished business: An unfilled gap above price is a place the market has reason to revisit.
They show one side took control: A gap only forms when a move is one-sided enough to leave a hole behind it.
They pair with a break of structure: The move that causes a BOS frequently leaves a gap behind. Price returning to that gap is one of the more watched patterns on the chart.

The sequenceCHoCH on the left, BOS above it, a gap left by the move, then price returning into the gap before continuing. Read it left to right.

Stacked gapsThree bullish gaps left by one climb. Price does not have to return to any of them, and it often returns to the nearest one first.

Order blocks.

The candle that came before the move

An order block, shortened to OB, is the last opposing candle before a strong move in the other direction. A bullish OB is the last bearish candle before a push up. A bearish OB is the last bullish candle before a drop.

Bullish OBThe shaded zone is drawn on the last bearish candles, immediately before the move up starts.

Bearish OBSame logic reversed. Last bullish candle, then the drop.

The reason people mark them is that the zone gives a definable point of failure. If price comes back and moves cleanly through the block instead of reacting at it, the idea that built on it is finished.

BOS then returnBOS marked in yellow on the left. The zone underneath is the block the move came from. Price comes back to it on the far right, many candles later.

Fair value gaps, order blocks and liquidity sweeps are tools for describing a chart. They are not a strategy. A strategy also states what invalidates the idea, how much is at risk, and what you do when it fails. Marking zones on a chart is the easy half.

Reading one chart from the top down.

A worked read, not a recommendation

Everything so far stacks into one order of operations. This is a hypothetical read on a hypothetical chart, written to show the sequence. It is not a setup to copy and it is not a signal.

Direction from the higher timeframe.
Open the 4 hour. Name the structure out loud. Higher highs and higher lows, or lower highs and lower lows, or neither.
Find the most recent break.
Was it a BOS or a CHoCH? A BOS says the direction is holding. A CHoCH says wait.
Drop down and mark the zones.
On the lower timeframe, mark the gap and the block left behind by the move that caused the break.
Write the whole thing down before price arrives.
Where the idea is confirmed, where it is dead, and what the planned loss is in dollars. Written first, while nothing is at stake.
Let it resolve without touching it.
It reaches the zone and reacts, or it does not. Both are information. Neither requires you to intervene.

Step 1 and 2, on the 4 hourHigher highs and higher lows, then a close above the prior high. Direction named, break identified.

Step 3, on the 15 minuteSame market, lower timeframe. A gap left behind lower down, a block above. Two areas price could react at, marked in advance rather than decided in the moment.

Notice what is not in this: a prediction, a target you are certain about, or a reason to sit and watch every candle. Reading well looks boring from the outside.

You can win 7 out of 10 and still lose money.

The maths that decides whether you last

Win rate on its own tells you nothing. What matters is the size of the wins against the size of the losses.

Result	Working	Total
7 wins	7 x $20	+$140
3 losses	3 x $60	-$180
Total	10 trades	-$40

Seventy percent right, and the account is down. Reverse the sizes and the same win rate is comfortably profitable. This is why the first question is what you lose when you are wrong.

Position sizing

Position size is how much you risk on one trade. The common rule for someone starting out is no more than 1 to 2 percent of the account on any single position. On a $1,000 account that is $10 to $20. Not $100, and not whatever feels right on the day.

1-2%

The maximum any single position should risk

Widely used sizing rule, including by funded prop firms

At 2 percent per trade, ten losses in a row leaves you with about 80 percent of the account. At 10 percent per trade, the same ten losses leave you with about 35 percent. You will have a run of losses at some point. The only question is whether the account is still there afterwards.

Risk to reward

Risk to reward compares what you stand to lose against what you stand to gain. 1:2 means risking one to make two. At 1:2 you can be right 40 percent of the time and still come out ahead. Below 1:2 the maths starts working against you and the win rate has to carry everything.

Where the stop goes

Your entry is where the position opens. Your stop loss is an order intended to close it if price reaches your chosen loss level. It belongs at the point where you would say the read was wrong. Not at the distance that makes the dollar figure comfortable.

Beyond a structural high or low: For a long, under the most recent significant low. For a short, above the most recent significant high.
Beyond an order block: If price closes through the block, the reason for the position has gone.
Beyond the protected level: If the idea came from a CHoCH, the broken high or low is the invalidation point.

Moving a stop to break even means shifting it to your entry price once the position has moved in your favour, so the worst case becomes zero rather than a loss.

What to look atRed band is what was at risk. Green band is the distance to target. The line marks the stop moved up to entry after the position moved. It removes the loss. It does not remove the cost of being wrong about direction.

The same move, tighter inA few candles after entry, the stop sits at entry. From here the position closes at zero or better.

The limits that keep you in the game

Daily and weekly loss limits: Set them before the session. When you hit one, close the platform and walk away. Trading to make back a loss is the most common way accounts end.
High impact news: Rate decisions, employment data and central bank speeches move price in ways that ignore levels. Check an economic calendar before the session.
Correlation: Two markets that move together are one position taken twice. If both go wrong, so does double the risk you thought you had.
A written journal: Every position: the market, the entry, the stop, the target, the reason, the outcome, and what you would do differently. One trade tells you nothing. A hundred tells you whether the process holds up.

100

Practice trades logged before real money is on the line

Below that, a win rate is too small a sample to mean anything

Source: Investor.gov: Types of Orders

Source: CME Group: Glossary (stop orders)

Most retail traders lose money.

And the reasons are boringly consistent

Regulated brokers in Australia, the UK and Europe have to publish the share of their retail clients who lose money on CFD trading. The figures are public and they sit in the same band year after year.

70-80%

of retail CFD accounts lose money

ASIC, FCA and ESMA broker disclosures

Out of ten people who download a platform and fund an account, seven or eight end up with less than they started with. The reasons repeat, and almost none of them are knowledge problems.

Hesitating: The setup is there, you do not take it, price goes without you. Next time you swear you will. You do not.
Closing winners early: The position is up, it pulls back slightly, you close for a small gain. The original target gets hit an hour later.
Chasing: You missed the move, so you enter late at a worse price with no plan.
Moving the target: The plan said exit. You extend it. Price turns and you come out at nothing, or worse.
Trading to get it back: You took a loss and you are angry. You take a position you would normally skip, at twice the size.
Getting confident: Three wins, so you size up and loosen the rules. The fourth one costs more than the three made.

Every trader feels all of these. The difference between the people who last and the people who do not is not that they feel them less. It is that they do not act on them.

Risk the same percentage every time. Then no single loss is big enough to make you want revenge on the market.

Every term on this page.

In plain language

AOIArea of interest. Any zone where price is likely to react. Order blocks, fair value gaps, significant highs and lows.

BullishPrice expected to go up. A bullish trend is going up.

BearishPrice expected to go down. A bearish trend is going down.

BOSBreak of structure. A close beyond the previous high or low, in the direction the trend was already going.

CHoCHChange of character. A close through the protected level, warning the trend may be turning.

FVGFair value gap. A band price moved through too fast to trade properly, often revisited.

HHHigher high. A peak above the previous peak. The signature of an uptrend.

HLHigher low. A trough above the previous trough. The protected level in an uptrend.

LHLower high. A peak below the previous peak. The protected level in a downtrend.

LLLower low. A trough below the previous trough. The signature of a downtrend.

HTFHigher timeframe. Used for direction.

LTFLower timeframe. Used for timing.

LongA position that profits if price goes up. You are long once you have bought.

ShortA position that profits if price goes down. You are short once you have sold.

LSLiquidity sweep. A push through a level to trigger the orders sitting there, usually followed by a turn.

OBOrder block. The last opposing candle before a strong move the other way.

PAPrice action. The movement of price read directly, without indicators.

PHProtected high. The high that, if broken, changes the structure.

PLProtected low. The low that, if broken, changes the structure.

RRRisk to reward. What you stand to lose against what you stand to gain.

SLStop loss. An order intended to close a position at your chosen loss level.

TPTake profit. An order that closes a position at your target.

SpreadThe gap between the buy price and the sell price. A cost you pay on entry.

MarginThe money held by the broker against a leveraged position.

Your first five practice sessions.

Observation and simulation only

A charting platform displays prices. A broker handles real orders. Paper trading simulates positions with virtual money. Some platforms do all three, so check which mode you are in before you click anything.

Choose one thing to watch.
One market, one time window that fits your life. Learn the symbol, the product and the trading hours. Stay in observation or simulation.
Read five completed candles.
Mark open, high, low and close on each one. Say what the body and the wicks show. Do not guess what comes next.
Mark the turning points.
Find the recent highs and lows on one chart. Name the structure. Save one example you found confusing.
Mark a break and a protected level.
Find one BOS and one protected level. Draw the level before price gets to it, then watch what happens when it arrives.
Review what you can explain.
Go back through your screenshots. Correct your labels. Write down one question you still have, and work on that question next session.

Keep one note per session. What I saw. My screenshot. One thing I could not explain.

Nothing on this page is a recommendation to take any position. Practise in simulation until you can explain a chart to someone else without hedging.

Want me to help you work through it?

One call, no pitch deck

If you have read this far, you have more structure than most people get in their first year. What a guide cannot give you is someone looking at your chart, your notes and your habits and telling you which part is broken.

You can name the structure but you freeze when it is time to act.
You have read about gaps and blocks for months and still cannot follow one plan for a week.
You keep changing approach every time a run of losses shows up.
You are working full time and cannot afford another year of going in circles.

Let's talk it through.

Book a call and we will go through where you are and what to work on next.

Book Your Discovery Call

Mentorship does not remove trading risk or guarantee profitability. Build the basics before putting real money at risk.

General information only. Nothing on this page takes into account your objectives, financial situation or needs, and nothing on it is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any product. Trading derivatives and foreign exchange involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone. Past performance is not an indicator of future results. Consider whether the information is appropriate for your circumstances and seek advice from a licensed financial adviser before acting on it. BMT Trading Group Pty Ltd accepts no liability for losses arising from the use of this material.