About Us

The 144-Tick Journal is about the mechanics of short-term trading: how a chart is read, how a position is sized, how a plan survives contact with an event it did not anticipate. It is written for people who want exact parameters rather than encouragement.

The name comes from a tick chart — a chart that prints a bar every fixed number of transactions rather than every fixed interval of time. It is a small choice with a large consequence: the chart speeds up when participation rises and goes quiet when it does not, so the same setup looks different depending on whether anyone is actually trading it. That distinction — between what the clock says and what the tape says — runs through most of what is written here.

What this site covers

• Chart reading with stated parameters — not "use a moving average", but which period, measured against what, invalidated by what
• Risk and position sizing — where the stop actually goes, what the position size follows from, and what the loss is if the assumption is wrong
• Event handling — how scheduled releases, sessions, and rollovers change execution conditions, and what to stop doing during them
• Market structure — spreads, liquidity, session boundaries, and the mechanical reasons a setup behaves differently at different hours
• Build notes — the running record of an actual trading system, described below

The NanoRich build notes

A long series of articles here documents the construction of a working trading system — signal engine, data path, dashboard, and the decisions and reversals along the way. These are written in the first person because they are a record of something that was actually built, not a narrative device. Where a design failed, the article says it failed and why.

They are included because the reader benefits from the same thing the builder did: how a signal travels from the engine to the screen, where latency enters, what breaks when the data source changes shape. The audience is a trader who wants to understand the pipeline, not a developer choosing a framework — questions about app frameworks, monetization, or store submissions belong on a different site and are not covered here.

How claims are handled

Trading writing has an unusually high tolerance for unfalsifiable statements. This site tries not to add to it.

• Rules carry their numbers. A period, a threshold, a ratio, a stop distance, a time window. A rule that cannot be stated numerically is not a rule, and the topic is dropped.
• Setups carry their invalidation. Articles state the conditions under which the framing stops working. A one-directional article is the signature of writing that was never tested against the opposite case. Where an older piece here does not meet that standard, it is being revised or withdrawn.
• Backtest limits are named. Sample period, instrument, and the conditions that were not represented. A result without its boundaries is a marketing number.
• Outcomes are conditional, never predicted. "If X holds, then Y follows" — not "Y will happen." Where the honest answer is that it is not knowable yet, that is what is written.

What you will not find here

No buy or sell recommendations on any specific security, contract, or cryptocurrency. No performance promises, profit claims, or account screenshots. No signal service, no paid group, no course. Tickers appear only as examples of a mechanism, never as suggestions to act on.

Nothing on this site is personalized to your circumstances, and it is not written by a licensed professional acting in that capacity.

Not investment advice

The 144-Tick Journal publishes general educational information about trading mechanics. It is not investment advice, financial advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any instrument, and reading it creates no advisory relationship. Trading carries substantial risk of loss. In some jurisdictions and account types, losses on leveraged positions can exceed the amount deposited; in others, negative balance protection prevents that. Regulator-mandated disclosures from retail brokers consistently report that a majority of retail accounts trading leveraged products lose money. Decisions about your own capital should be made with a licensed financial professional who can see your full situation.

Corrections

If a parameter here is wrong, a mechanism is described inaccurately, or a specification has changed at the exchange or broker level, that is worth reporting. Corrections are made to the article itself. A report that names the article, the specific claim, and the source that contradicts it can be acted on quickly — see the Contact page.

Who writes it

The 144-Tick Journal is written and maintained by M. Kim, an independent trader and developer who builds the systems described in the build notes. The site is independently operated and is not affiliated with any broker, exchange, data vendor, or trading education company. No article is sponsored, and no affiliate or referral arrangements influence what is covered.