Get your reps in before the money is real.
CandleLab is trading practice for futures day traders. Learn price action in short lessons, get graded on charts built to test each idea, then trade a simulated NQ or ES account under prop-style rules.
- 86 lessons in 13 modules
- 4 scored drills
- 4 prop-style account presets
- A new ranked market every day
Free during early access. Every chart is simulated: educational practice, not financial advice.
NQ futures / synthetic
5 minute · generated training scenario
Watching isn't practice.
Most people learn from videos, then jump into a live or demo account. Both skip the part where someone checks your read.
Videos
Someone else finds the setup, after the fact. You nod along, and nobody checks whether you would have seen it.
A demo account
Real-time charts with no structure and no grade. A clean setup may show up once a day, and nobody tells you what you missed.
CandleLab
Charts built around the idea you're learning, a grade on every answer, and account rules that end the run when you break them.
One path, from first candle to ranked session.
Every step earns XP toward your level, and a day of practice keeps your streak going.
Learn
The Basics course: 86 short lessons. Watch the idea, name it, then try it.
Drill
Quick scored reps on one skill at a time, until you spot it without thinking.
Simulate
Trade full simulated days with an order ticket and account rules that can end the run.
Compete
One ranked market a day, the same for everyone, scored in R.
A course that makes you do it.
86 short lessons in 13 modules, from what a candle is to a complete trade plan.
- Watch the idea play out on a chart.
- Name it, with a rule you can check.
- Try it yourself on fresh charts, graded.
- Live chart tests in 25 lessons. Candles print in real time: tap the moment you see it, or make the call before the window closes.
- Checkpoints along the way. A Core test after the first three modules, and a final challenge at the end.
- Paper trades in 5 lessons. Set the entry, stop and target yourself, manage the trade, and see the result in R.
Read a candle
Open, high, low and close: what five minutes of price leave behind.
Module 5Catch the sweep
A wick through an old high, a close back below it. Only the close decides.
Module 6Follow the structure
Confirmed highs and lows, and the close that breaks them.
Module 7Spot the gap
Three candles whose wicks don't overlap: a fair value gap, measured to the tick.
See all 13 modules
- 1Understanding candlesticksRead a candle from scratch: what it shows, how it forms, its four prices.
- 2Highs, lows and turning pointsHow price makes peaks and valleys, and when a swing is confirmed.
- 3Understanding trendsHow highs and lows together describe the direction.
- 4Liquidity and important levelsWhy traders watch old highs and lows, and how to mark them.
- 5Liquidity sweeps and breaksTouching, sweeping, breaking and what happens after.
- 6Market structureWhether confirmed structure continues or shows a possible change.
- 7Fair value gapsThe three-candle gap, its direction, its size and what happens next.
- 8Putting everything togetherRead an unfamiliar chart in order, and say what's known.
- 9Time and sessionsThe trading day's rhythm, and the session, daily and weekly highs and lows traders watch.
- 10Timeframes togetherDirection from the bigger charts, timing from the smaller one.
- 11Liquidity II and zonesWhere price is likely heading next, and the zones it may react from on the way.
- 12Risk and trade managementWhat a trade risks, how big to trade, and how to manage it.
- 13Putting it togetherOne complete way of trading, from the plan to paper trades scored in R.
Then train on charts that answer back.
Every market here is simulated, so you can practise as much as you like without risking a dollar.
Built like a prop evaluation.
The simulator's presets are modelled on common 50K evaluations, so you can practise under the kind of rules you may face later.
- Floor
- $48,000
- Start
- $50,000
- Target
- $53,000
Floor trails your best end-of-day balance by $2,000, then locks at $50,000. Breached in real time.
- Profit target
- $3,000 on a 50K account
- Trailing floor
- End of day or intraday, $2,000 below your high
- Daily loss limit
- On some presets: hit it and your day is over
- Consistency
- On some presets: one big day can't carry the pass
- Also
- Minimum days, size limits, flat by the close
A guard against blowing the account
Before each order it checks your stop against the room you have left, stops (or warns about) a trade that could end the account, and suggests a size that fits.
Trade management that works like the real thing
Market, limit and stop orders, brackets, trailing stops, a second target to scale out, and closing part of a position.
NQ / MNQ and ES / MES
Quarter-point ticks, real point values and per-contract fees, on a market built for the pair you pick.
A funded stage after you pass
Keep going on a funded practice account with payout rules. Payouts are counted, never paid.
Stats and a journal
Win rate, average R, profit factor and max drawdown, notes on every trade, and a CSV export.
Same market. Same morning. One shot a day.
The Daily Challenge gives everyone the same simulated New York morning. Your first run is the one that counts.
Daily Challenge
- Market
- Simulated MNQ, 9:30 to 11:30 ET, 24 five-minute candles
- Score
- Total R after fees, so size can't buy a better score. Ties go to the smaller dip.
- Fair play
- Candles come from the server one at a time, and your run is replayed and scored there
- Boards
- Today, this week and all time, for everyone or just your friends
- Practice
- The last 7 days stay open to replay, no account needed
Your progress keeps score too
XP rewards learning and discipline. Trading with a stop counts. Profit doesn't.
| Practise a lesson | +40 XP |
|---|---|
| Pass a checkpoint | +150 XP |
| Finish a live chart test | +30 to +60 XP |
| Simulator trade with a stop | +4 XP |
| Simulator day traded inside the rules | +15 XP |
| Pass a simulator evaluation | +500 XP |
| Pass the final challenge | +400 XP |
XP builds your level. Practise on back-to-back days for a streak, add friends by username, and sign in to keep it all on every device.
Coming next.
Not playable yet. Here's what's being built.
Battles
Take on a friend on the same chart and compare accuracy, speed and the decisions you each made.
Coming soon
Strategy Lab
Mark each step of a written setup as it forms, then trade it. Your decisions get graded, never the outcome.
Coming back once the practice charts behave more like a real market
Free while we build. Pro when it's ready.
Everything that's live today is free during early access. Pro has no price yet; here's what it's planned to add.
Free, live now
Everything on the site today
- The full Basics course: 86 lessons with live chart tests, paper trades, checkpoints and the final challenge
- All 4 drills, with hints that adjust as you improve
- The simulator with every account preset and the funded stage
- The Daily Challenge, leaderboards and friends
- Replay Lab, XP, levels and streaks
Pro, planned, no price yet
More depth for daily practice
- Pick your drill difficulty by hand (open to everyone during early access)
- Deeper analytics on your practice
- Battle history, once Battles arrive
- Unlimited Strategy Lab, once it's back
The plan is for the Basics course to stay free.
Start with your first candle.
Free, in your browser, nothing to install. Simulated charts only.