AI trading in 2026.
Do yourself a favor.
- Learn to read a chart before using a bot
- Understand what a perp is and how funding works
- Learn risk management before strategies
- Define how much you’ll lose per trade, in numbers
- Keep a journal of every trade
- Learn just enough Python to read data
- Connect an exchange API, read-only first
- Get real historical data
- Backtest, and be skeptical of the results
- Include fees and slippage in the backtest
- Use an LLM to summarize news, not predict prices
- Set up alerts, not automated orders
- Move on to paper trading
- Then use a little real money
- Automate just one thing
- Set a stop the bot can’t bypass
- Review the logs every week
- Measure drawdown, not just profits
- Keep your collateral where you’re going to trade
- Turn off the bot when the market changes
- Go back to your journal
Stop looking for the bot that will make you rich.
Build the system that keeps you from losing too much.
Save this.
Do yourself a favor.
- Learn to read a chart before using a bot
- Understand what a perp is and how funding works
- Learn risk management before strategies
- Define how much you’ll lose per trade, in numbers
- Keep a journal of every trade
- Learn just enough Python to read data
- Connect an exchange API, read-only first
- Get real historical data
- Backtest, and be skeptical of the results
- Include fees and slippage in the backtest
- Use an LLM to summarize news, not predict prices
- Set up alerts, not automated orders
- Move on to paper trading
- Then use a little real money
- Automate just one thing
- Set a stop the bot can’t bypass
- Review the logs every week
- Measure drawdown, not just profits
- Keep your collateral where you’re going to trade
- Turn off the bot when the market changes
- Go back to your journal
Stop looking for the bot that will make you rich.
Build the system that keeps you from losing too much.
Save this.