Strand II

Frequently Asked Questions

The Field.

You know the room now. The Field is the market itself — the arena you step into the moment you trade. What you are actually trading, who sits across from you, how price is made, and what it quietly costs.

SIMFI 104

What You’re Trading

Someone tells you to trade this. You download the platform. It lights up: green, red, buy, sell, one tap. You never chose the market. You were pointed at it. 104 hands the choice back to you.

What you’ll be able to do

Tell spot, futures, perpetuals, and the rest apart.
Understand leverage in both directions.
Know why the instrument you pick shapes every risk that follows.

Why it matters

Pick the wrong instrument and you can do everything else right and still lose. Most traders never chose — they clicked the one the platform put in front of them.

What you’ll do

You’ll walk the spectrum of what is tradable and see leverage for what it is: a magnifier that does not care which way it points.

Strand: II · The Field
Level: 100 · Foundation
Builds: Market literacy
Prerequisite: 101–103

SIMFI 105

Who You’re Trading Against

Every trade is a hand of poker. The moment you click buy, someone clicks sell — and they are sitting right across from you. 105 names the players at the table.

What you’ll be able to do

Know who actually takes the other side of your trade.
Tell an A-book broker from a B-book one.
Tell a real proprietary desk from a gray-market challenge business.

Why it matters

You can’t read a game without knowing the players. Some counterparties earn the spread. Others win only when you lose.

What you’ll do

You’ll meet market makers, proprietary desks, and brokers — then learn which pass your order to market and which keep the bet on their own books.

Strand: II · The Field
Level: 100 · Foundation
Builds: Counterparty literacy
Prerequisite: 104

SIMFI 106

The Room Behind the Chart

The chart is the lobby. Behind it is the room where price is actually made — a ledger of every order, stacked and waiting. 106 takes you in.

What you’ll be able to do

Read the order book — the real engine behind price.
Understand why depth is not the same as liquidity.
See why a demo fill is a fiction — and a live fill is not.

Why it matters

The price on your screen is the end of a story. The room behind it decides whether your order fills where you expect — or somewhere worse.

What you’ll do

You’ll step into the order book: stacked bids and offers, queue position, liquidity, and the structural gap between perfect demo fills and real execution.

Strand: II · The Field
Level: 100 · Foundation
Builds: Microstructure literacy
Prerequisite: 105

SIMFI 107

The Cost You Can’t See

Costs aren’t the wrecking ball. They’re the termites — silent, until the house comes down. Spread, slippage, financing, and fees: 107 makes the invisible visible.

What you’ll be able to do

See the full cost stack: spread, slippage, commission, and financing.
Calculate what it actually costs to trade round-trip.
Understand why small costs compound into account-killers.

Why it matters

Most traders track wins and losses and miss the third number that beats them: cost. It compounds quietly until the account is gone.

What you’ll do

You’ll add up the full bill and see how a strategy that looks profitable on paper can bleed out through costs no one taught you to count.

Strand: II · The Field
Level: 100 · Foundation
Builds: Cost literacy
Prerequisite: 106