Ledger & Candle
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Indian markets · Swing · Long-term · Funds · Futures

Ledger & Candle

Learn to trade and invest, properly. A complete course from first principles to your own rule-based framework, built on Zerodha Varsity and worked through on real NSE data.

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17chapters
269charts
210+quiz questions
30 Sep 2026data as of

This course takes you from zero to running your own process for long-term investing (in stocks or in funds), swing trading and, later, positional futures. Intraday trading is deliberately left out. Each chapter explains a concept in plain language, gives the logic behind it, works through the calculation step by step, and then applies it to real charts and company numbers. That includes the examples where the idea failed.

Before you start

This is education, not investment advice. Most retail traders lose money in derivatives: SEBI's studies found about 9 in 10 individual F&O traders made net losses. Learn the material, paper-trade first, start small, and treat futures as the last stage of the journey.

How to use this course

  1. Read in order. Each chapter builds on the ones before it. Chapters are split into short sections of a few minutes each: read one, then press Next (or the → key). Sections you finish are ticked off and your place is remembered in this browser, and the glossary explains any term you meet before its chapter.
  2. Attempt the quizzes before opening the answers. Every chapter ends with exercises and worked solutions.
  3. Run the code. The "Try it yourself" snippets, the data snapshot and the scripts behind every figure live in the course repository. Clone it, install the requirements, and run them from the repository root.
  4. Build your framework. The Python toolkit in framework/ (scanner, scorecard, backtester, risk and tax calculators, fund and allocation tools) comes together in Chapter 17.
  5. Paper-trade for 8–12 weeks with the journal before you commit real capital.

Contents

Part I · Foundations
01Market Foundations60 minExchanges, demat, order types, T+1 settlement, indices, corporate actions, transaction costs and the arithmetic of compounding.
Part II · Technical Analysis
02Charts & Candlesticks55 minChart types and timeframes, every major candlestick pattern with Varsity's rules, and a 10-year test of how well each has actually worked. 03Support, Resistance, Trends & Chart Patterns50 minDrawing S&R, volume, Dow theory, head & shoulders, triangles, flags, gaps, Fibonacci, multi-timeframe analysis. 04Technical Indicators75 minMoving averages, RSI, MACD, Bollinger Bands, ATR, ADX, Supertrend and relative strength, each calculated by hand. 05Swing Trading Playbook55 minTop-down process, four setups with exact rules, real trades walked bar by bar, the end-of-day routine and the journal.
Part III · Fundamental Analysis
06Reading Financial Statements55 minThe annual report, P&L, balance sheet and cash flow statement, read line by line with real company numbers and red flags. 07Ratios, Quality & Sector Analysis55 minROE, ROCE, DuPont, working capital, peer comparisons, Piotroski F-score, moats, governance and sector-specific metrics. 08Valuation70 minA full DCF step by step, reverse DCF, P/E bands, EV/EBITDA, margin of safety and buy-zone prices.
Part IV · Derivatives
09Futures Trading80 minContracts, margins, a real daily MTM ledger, cost-of-carry pricing, open interest, rollover and hedging, all on NSE futures data. 10Options Essentials & Hedging95 minCalls and puts, payoffs, Greeks, reading the option chain, protective puts, covered calls, collars and spreads.
Part V · Risk, Systems & Tax
11Risk Management & Trading Psychology110 minPosition sizing, expectancy, drawdowns, risk of ruin, correlation and VaR, cognitive biases and the trading plan. 12Trading Systems & Backtesting110 minBuild a backtester, test three real systems, avoid look-ahead bias and overfitting, and learn pair trading. 13Costs & Taxation in India75 minEvery charge, STCG and LTCG, F&O as business income, ITR forms, and a full-year worked tax example.
Part VI · Funds & Portfolio
14Mutual Funds & ETFs85 minHow funds and ETFs work: NAV, costs and direct plans, SEBI categories, debt-fund risk, active vs passive on real data, ETF premiums, SIPs and XIRR. 15Taxation of Funds & Tax Harvesting70 minThe three fund tax classes, FIFO on SIP lots, SWP vs IDCW, LTCG and loss harvesting, ELSS and other tax savers, and a full worked year. 16Asset Allocation & Tax-Aware Rebalancing75 minSplitting money across equity, debt, gold and cash; goal planning; rebalancing tested after tax and costs; an investment policy statement and retirement withdrawals.
Part VII · Capstone
17Build Your Own Framework75 minYour personal operating system: investing scorecard, swing scanner, futures rules, backtest evidence, routines and a 12-week roadmap.

The research desk

The research desk applies the course to live names. A small team of agents researches NSE stocks and current IPOs with the course's own tools: the trend and levels from Part II, the statements, quality score and fair value from Part III, position sizing from Chapter 11. Each report ends in one action with the plan behind it, and links every term back to the chapter that teaches it. Read the reports as worked examples to check against what you have learned, not as tips.

Data & sources

Concepts follow Zerodha Varsity, rewritten in our own words with links to the original chapters. Price data comes from NSE via Yahoo Finance; futures and options data from NSE bhavcopies (Aug–Sep 2026); mutual fund NAVs from AMFI via mfapi.in; fundamentals from company filings via screener.in. To refresh the data, see framework/README.md in the course repository.

Begin with Chapter 1 →