Pivex Guides
Guides and explainers for funded traders:
challenges, risk, payouts, and market literacy.
The Kelly Criterion: How to Size Bets and Trades From Your Edge
Short answer: the Kelly criterion is a formula for the fraction of your bankroll to risk on a bet or trade that has positive expected value. It needs two inputs: your probability of winning and…
What Is Mark to Market and Why Does It Matter to Traders?
Short answer: mark to market means valuing an asset or an open position at its current market price instead of the price you paid. Accountants use it for financial reporting so a balance sheet…
Martingale Strategy: How It Works, Why It Breaks, and What Traders Can Learn From It
Short answer: the martingale strategy is a betting system where you double your stake after every loss. The first win then recovers every earlier loss and adds one unit of profit. It works on…
The Marubozu Candle: Definition, Types, and Trading Rules
Short answer: a marubozu candle is a single candlestick with a long body and no shadow, or only a sliver of one, above or below it. Price opened at one extreme of the period and closed at the…
Megaphone Pattern: How to Read a Broadening Formation and Trade It
Short answer: a megaphone pattern is a broadening formation. Price prints a higher high, then a lower low, then a higher high again, so the two boundary lines diverge instead of converging. It…
Money Flow Index (MFI): How to Calculate and Read It
Short answer: the money flow index is a volume-weighted momentum indicator that runs from 0 to 100. It multiplies each bar's typical price by its trading volume, then sorts that money flow into up…
What Is a Moving Average Crossover and How to Use It in Trading
Short answer: a moving average crossover is a signal that fires when a faster moving average crosses a slower one, or when price crosses a single average. The fast line tracks recent closes and…
Parabolic SAR: How the Stop and Reverse Indicator Works and When to Trust It
Short answer: the parabolic SAR is a trend-following trading indicator that plots one dot per bar, below price in an uptrend and above price in a downtrend. The dot works as a trailing stop that…
PCE Inflation Explained: What It Measures and Why Traders Watch It
Short answer: pce inflation explained in one sentence is the change in the personal consumption expenditures price index, the gauge behind the Federal Reserve's 2 percent goal. The Bureau of…
Piercing Pattern: How to Spot and Trade This Bullish Reversal
Short answer: the piercing pattern is a two candle bullish reversal pattern that forms at the end of a decline. Candle one is a solid bearish bar. Candle two opens below candle one's low, reverses…
PPI Report Explained: What It Measures and Why Traders Watch It
Short answer: ppi report explained means understanding the monthly producer price index release from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tracks the average change in prices that domestic…
What Is Quantitative Easing and How Does It Work?
Short answer: quantitative easing is a monetary policy tool for when rate cuts have run out. A central bank creates new reserves and uses them to purchase government bonds and other assets in…