Market Traders Institute
Swing trading, position trading and buy-and-hold investing — with exact rules for entries, stops, targets and when to stay out.
Each strategy works on a different time horizon. You'll learn all three, then use the one that suits your schedule, your account and your temperament.
Catch the next leg of a move. You'll find setups with a scanner, then plan the entry, the stop and a measured Fibonacci target before you place the trade.
Ride the big trends. You'll read the macro backdrop, identify which markets are in a trend worth owning, and manage the trade as it develops.
Build long-term positions on purpose. You'll value an asset before buying it and use long-cycle risk gauges to decide when to add and when to wait.
Every lesson ends with a rule you can apply to the chart in front of you.
Use a multi-asset scanner to shortlist stocks, forex, crypto and commodities that match your rules, ranked by reward-to-risk.
Mark the A-B-C swing, then set your entry, stop-loss and 1.272 or 1.618 Fibonacci target before you commit.
Understand how interest rates, inflation and the economic cycle push whole asset classes up or down.
Know when a pullback is normal and when the trend has actually broken, so you exit for a reason rather than out of fear.
Judge whether an asset is cheap or expensive relative to its history, so you're not buying at the top of the excitement.
Use long-term cycle and risk gauges, including the 18.6-year property cycle, to decide when to add and when to hold cash.
Calculate how much to risk on each trade so a losing streak stays a setback, not the end of your account.
Combine the three strategies into one written plan that matches the time you have and the risk you can live with.
Patterson-UTI (PTEN), hourly chart, as the platform drew it on 19 September 2026. You are not asked to spot any of this by eye — the software marks it, and the course teaches you why each line is where it is.
The low at 8.50 and the high at 12.47 are 3.97 apart. Every other number on this chart is that 3.97 multiplied by a fixed Fibonacci ratio — so two prices produce the entire plan.
Price fell back to 11.05, which is 35.8% of the move. Shallow. A shallow pullback means the buyers never really left, and it is what selects the far target instead of a near one.
You do not buy because it looks ready. You buy when momentum confirms it — RSI turning up at point C. Until that happens there is no trade, however good the chart looks.
The stop sits at 8.50, below the low that started the whole move. If price goes there, the reason for the trade no longer exists, and you are out for a known amount decided before you entered.
Risking 2.87 a share to make 7.52 is 1:2.6 — the figure on the target tag. The platform's own risk panel puts the same trade at −$100 against +$218. Either way you know both numbers before you commit, and trades that do not clear your minimum ratio are simply not taken — which is most of them.
Read this honestly: this setup was live when the screenshot was taken, not finished. Point D is where the rules say the target is, not a result that has been banked. It is here to show you how a plan is built and what it costs you to be wrong — nothing on this page claims this particular trade paid.
Most courses show you a screenshot. This one hands you the broker's own Strategy Tester reports — all 217 of them, openable one by one, losers included — and tells you exactly how to run them yourself.
The signals are real and reproducible. An independent MetaTrader build, on two brokers' tick data, fires the same setups as the platform — same entries, same stops, same targets. That part is settled.
Where you hold a position decides what you keep. The same signals returned +68.2% before costs and +40.4% once real trading costs came out — because shares are held outright and currencies are carried on margin. Get that wrong and the whole edge goes to financing.
Identical signals. The only thing that changes is what the trading costs. $10,000, 0.25% risk per trade, 2021–2026.
| How the account is held | $10,000 becomes | Per year | Worst drawdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| Before any costs What the platform’s own backtester reports. No spread, no commission, no financing. | $16,818 | +11.2% | −12.7% |
| Traded the way people actually trade Currencies on MetaTrader at the broker’s real swap rates; shares, ETFs and crypto held outright in a funded account. 1,114 of the 1,544 signals — the rest skipped because the account could not fund them. | $14,040 | +7.2% | −8.7% |
All four are before costs, so they can be compared with each other. Apply the venue table above to any of them.
| Test | Risk / trade | $10,000 becomes | Per year | Worst drawdown |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Swing — what the course teaches | 0.25% | $16,818 | +11.2% | −12.7% |
| Swing at half risk | 0.5% | $27,935 | +23.3% | −23.9% |
| Swing at full risk | 1.0% | $74,257 | +50.5% | −42.3% |
1,544 swing trades, profit factor 1.30. Simulated results on historical hourly data, 2021–2026. The platform’s backtester excludes spread, commission and swap; the MetaTrader reports include all three — which is the whole reason the venue table above exists. The New Zealand dollar pairs and the VIX are excluded because five years of testing said they do not work. Every price series here is the broker’s own five-year hourly history, pulled from the platform that produced the Strategy Tester reports below — not a third-party feed, and not stitched together from different sources.
The course teaches three strategies, and the most valuable thing in it is knowing which one an instrument deserves. Below are 143 instruments over an identical five years — shares, ETFs, indices, metals, energy and crypto — comparing what buying and holding would have done against trading the swing rules. Currencies are left out: buy and hold is not a currency strategy, and swing trading is where FX earns its place.
| Instrument class | Tested | Trading the rules | Buy & hold | Buy & hold won |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shares | 109 | +0.9% | +89.5% | 75 of 109 |
| ETFs | 9 | +2.4% | +102.1% | 9 of 9 |
| Indices | 11 | +1.9% | +50.6% | 11 of 11 |
| Metals | 4 | +9.0% | +100.9% | 3 of 4 |
| Energy | 3 | +2.6% | +6.7% | 2 of 3 |
| Crypto | 7 | −0.4% | −10.7% | 2 of 7 |
Average return per instrument, September 2021 to September 2026 — every instrument over the identical window, on the same broker price series, so the columns are comparable in both directions. Buy & hold is the first bar to the last, unleveraged, no costs on either side.
This is the module people will remember. Four real instruments from the test — on two of them holding was the only sane choice, and on two of them holding would have destroyed the account.
Every stop-out was a ticket off a train that kept going. You gave up 1,338 points to avoid a 59% fall.
A strong trend punishes active trading. The worst fall along the way was 68% — and almost nobody sits through that without being told to expect it.
Holding took 92% of the money. The rules took two percent and got out. This is what the stop is for.
Holding took nine-tenths of the money. The rules took two percent and left. Crypto behaved the same way — it is the one class where holding lost and trading lost less.
There is no free lunch in the mix — holding more earns more and costs you a deeper fall, in a straight line. What the blend does give you is a dial: the same two sleeves set to whatever drawdown you can actually live with. That choice is the course.
| How the account is split | Five-year return | Per year | Worst drawdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| All traded, nothing held | +36.7% | +6.5% | −7.9% |
| 30% held · 70% traded | +48.2% | +8.2% | −10.0% |
| 50% held · 50% traded | +55.9% | +9.3% | −15.4% |
| All held, nothing traded | +75.2% | +11.9% | −28.8% |
The held sleeve is an equal-weight basket of 146 instruments bought on day one and never touched. The traded sleeve is the swing strategy after real trading costs. Same five years, same account.
This is not a forecast. It applies the return the tested period actually produced to the amount you enter — the drawdown you would have sat through, and what was left after the broker took its costs.
The course teaches 0.25%. Higher settings are shown because the tested data covers them — not because we suggest trading that way.
Simulated past performance on historical data. It is not a prediction, not a promise, and not financial advice. Trading carries risk and you can lose money. Figures assume every signal was taken, at the stated risk, with no withdrawals — none of which describes a real year of anybody’s trading.
Nine modules, in the order a trader actually needs them: read the market’s weather first, then the setup, then the platform, then the automation, and finally the two things that decide whether any of it works — your position size and your own head.
What the platform is and is not allowed to tell you, and why every signal is worded as an observation — “Bullish Setup Confirmed” — and never as an instruction to buy.
ABCD swings, true five-bar fractals, Fibonacci retracement and extension, the 144 and 377 exponential moving averages, and sub-waves — each one shown on a live chart rather than a diagram.
The risk gauge, the 18.6-year cycle, the Fed’s posture and the yield curve — and how they combine into one rule that refused 68% of otherwise valid setups over five years. Includes worked examples of trades deliberately not taken.
Swing and Position in full: trend, then swing, then arm, then fire, then target and stop. The exact state machine the platform runs — including why a setup you liked did not signal.
Scanner, charts, daily briefing, risk calculator and Options Lab — one scenario followed end to end, from the morning briefing to the closed trade.
The backtests with the macro filter applied, the live forward test, and step-by-step instructions for reproducing every number on this page — in the platform’s own backtester and in MetaTrader 4 and 5.
The Expert Advisor on MT4 and MT5: installation, the settings that matter, the minimum-lot trap, how the take-profit follows the platform’s target, and the reward-to-risk floor. Shares are covered on MT5.
Risk per trade, the account-size table, and the arithmetic behind the number on this page: why the same trades make 296% at 1% and are untradable, and 43% at 0.25% and are survivable.
Built around the platform’s own guardrails. The waiting states are not a delay — they are the discipline, enforced for you, on the days you would not have enforced it yourself.
TK
Tian started as a markets analyst and instructor in South Africa in the early 2000s, went on to trade futures and options, and spent nearly a decade at Market Traders Institute as an analyst, instructor and Senior Currency Strategist.
He founded KriekTrade to put the rules he teaches into software: a scanner, chart targets and macro risk gauges built for traders who want a process instead of predictions. This course is those rules, laid out strategy by strategy.
Anyone who wants a written process instead of guesswork — whether you're placing your first trade or you've been trading for years without a consistent set of rules. You'll learn all three strategies and then pick the one that fits the time you actually have.
That depends on which strategy you choose to run. Swing trading needs a short daily check, position trading a weekly review, and buy-and-hold a monthly check-in. The course itself is structured so you can work through one strategy at a time.
No experience is assumed — the rules are taught from the ground up. You'll need charting software you're comfortable with. The course teaches the method, not one particular platform, so the rules carry over to whatever you already use.
The same rules are applied across stocks, forex, crypto and commodities. The point of a rules-based approach is that the process doesn't change when the market does.
No. This is educational material about trading and investing methods. It is not financial advice, not a recommendation to buy or sell any instrument, and it isn't tailored to your personal circumstances. Trading and investing carry a substantial risk of loss — you should consider whether they are appropriate for you, and seek independent advice if you are unsure.
You'll get the course by email at the address you enter. You'll also receive related emails from KriekTrade, and you can unsubscribe from those at any time using the link in any message.
Three strategies, clear rules, and a 25+ year market veteran showing you exactly how he applies them.
Send me the courseEducational material only, not financial advice. Trading and investing involve a substantial risk of loss.