Trading Basics
No trading experience required to use QARI. But understanding the basics will help you make better decisions about your capital allocation, risk settings, and what to do when markets get volatile.
What is spot trading?
Explains the difference between spot trading (buying and owning the actual asset) and derivatives trading (contracts on price movements). Covers why spot trading is considered lower risk.
What is an API key and is it safe to give one to QARI?
A plain-language explanation of what an API key is, what permissions mean, and why QARI only requests spot trading and read permissions.
Understanding stop-loss orders
What a stop-loss order is, how it works on a spot exchange, and why QARI makes them mandatory on every position.
Reading your QARI dashboard
A guided tour of the QARI dashboard: open positions, trade history, R-tracker, portfolio value, exchange connection status, and settings.
Key Terms Glossary
Terms QARI uses in alerts, the dashboard, and these articles, all defined plainly.
Spot Trading
Buying the actual asset (e.g. BTC) and holding it in your wallet. You own what you buy.
Order Block (OB)
The last opposing candle before a strong impulsive move. A supply/demand zone where institutional orders were placed.
Break of Structure (BOS)
When price breaks beyond a previous swing high (bullish BOS) or swing low (bearish BOS), confirming the current trend direction.
CHoCH
Change of Character, when price breaks the most recent Lower High in a downtrend, suggesting a potential direction change.
SFP
Swing Failure Pattern, a candlestick wick that pokes beyond a key level and closes back inside, indicating liquidity has been taken and direction may reverse.
Golden Pocket
The 61.8%–65% Fibonacci retracement zone. Considered the highest-probability reversal area on a retracement before the next leg up.
FVG
Fair Value Gap, an imbalanced price area created by a rapid move. Price often returns to fill FVGs before continuing in the original direction.
CVD
Cumulative Volume Delta, tracks the difference between aggressive buying and selling volume. Used to detect divergence from price action.
VWAP
Volume Weighted Average Price, the average price weighted by volume. Institutional traders often use VWAP as a reference for fair value.
R-Multiple
A measure of profit or loss relative to the initial risk. If you risk $10 and gain $25, the outcome is +2.5R.
ATR
Average True Range, a measure of market volatility. QARI uses 4H ATR to determine if the market has sufficient range for a valid entry.
Kill Switch
QARI's automatic halt mechanism. After losing −2R in a day or −5R in a week, no new trades are entered until the next period.
Smart Money Concepts. How QARI Thinks
QARI's signal layers are built on Smart Money Concepts. Here is what that means in practice.
Smart Money Concepts (SMC)
Smart Money Concepts is a trading methodology based on how institutional traders (banks, hedge funds, market makers) think about markets. Rather than following retail indicators, SMC focuses on identifying where large orders were placed and predicting where price will go to fill them.
QARI relevance
QARI is built on SMC principles, every layer of its analysis (order blocks, BOS, SFP, liquidity) comes from this framework.
Order Blocks & Breakers
An order block is the last opposing candle before a strong institutional move. It represents where large orders were placed. When price returns to this zone, it often respects it as support or resistance, because institutions defend their positions. A breaker block is a former order block that has been broken through, which then reverses its role (support becomes resistance, and vice versa).
QARI relevance
QARI grades order blocks by quality: how strong the move was after the OB formed, how clean the zone is, and whether it is still active.
Swing Failure Patterns
SFPs occur when price pokes beyond a key level (a swing high or low, equal highs, round number) and then closes back inside it on the same candle. This pattern suggests liquidity above/below the level has been taken and the move beyond the level failed, a strong reversal signal.
QARI relevance
QARI scores SFPs based on wick depth, reaction candle strength, and the volume present during the spike.
Fibonacci Retracements
Fibonacci retracements are levels derived from the Fibonacci sequence (0.382, 0.500, 0.618, 0.650, etc.) that predict where price may retrace to before continuing in the original direction. The Golden Pocket (0.618–0.650) is the most powerful zone and serves as QARI's primary entry area when it aligns with other signals.
QARI relevance
Fibonacci alone is not sufficient for a QARI entry, but Fibonacci aligned with an order block and SFP satisfies the three-point confluence rule.