Trading IQ: what it measures and how it moves

What is your Trading IQ, and why does it move? After this guide, you can read your number and its range, know what counts and raise it honestly.

What is Trading IQ?

Trading IQ is one number for what you know and how you trade. In the app's words, it is "what you know, weighted by how hard each question is, plus how you trade, per unit of risk over many trades." In plain words: hard questions count more, and a trade counts by what it made against what you planned to risk.

It does not go up just because you finish levels. What counts is your first answer to each question, and some closed paper trades, listed below.

It shows after 12 first-try answers in any lessons. Until then it reads Forming, with your count, such as 7 of 12. Other members see it on your profile. Ranks shows your own number, but no board ranks players by it.

Easy to mix up: Trading IQ and your battle rating. Battle results move your battle rating, but battles never change Trading IQ.

How the scale works

The scale runs from 55 to 205, and 100 means about half of all the Academy's questions right on your first try. Your number is 100 plus two parts: Knowledge, from lessons, and Trading, from paper trades.

Lessons alone can lift your number only so far. This knowledge limit rises as you go deeper:

Beginner lessons count up to 115.
About 200 right answers from intermediate lessons or later lift it to 125.
About 400 right advanced answers lift it to 140, and 1,200 to 160.

Misses take some of those right answers away, so guessing adds nothing. On the Crypto road, the Academy's path of lessons, sections 1 to 9 are beginner, 10 to 19 intermediate and 20 on advanced.

Trading adds between minus 20 and plus 30, and stays at zero until you close trades that count.

What counts

From lessons:

Your first answer to each graded question, in a level or a jump test, a short test that skips you ahead. On a phone, a Library lesson's Quick quiz counts too; the Library holds the app's books. Retries and reviews of finished levels never count.
A first try after a hint counts half.
Each question has its own difficulty, rated again every night from members' first tries. A right answer to a hard question lifts you more.
Older answers count less: one 90 days older than your newest counts half, and none counts under a tenth.

Your answers also fill eight skills, such as Risk and sizing and Reading price. Each shows a number after 12 first-try answers in it.

From paper trades:

Perp closes, liquidations, and selling all of a coin you hold. A perp, short for perpetual contract, follows a price with no end date. A liquidation is the app closing one because its losses used up its margin, the cash behind it. Stock, option and Forex tab trades do not count.
Each trade counts as its result per unit of planned risk. For a perp, that risk is the loss at your stop, the exit price you set to cap a loss. The stop counts only if set within 10 minutes of opening; otherwise the risk is the whole margin. For a coin, it is the whole cost.

Say your account holds $10,000 and you open a paper perp with $500 of margin and a stop that would lose $100. That risk is 1% of your account, inside the 2% that helps. If it closes $200 up, it counts as 2 times its risk. With no stop, the risk is the whole $500, so the same $200 counts as 0.4.

Results are capped at 4 times the risk, win or lose. A few trades count only a little, and results count more as trades add up. A trade whose margin or cost is under 0.5% of your account is ignored.

Reckless trades cost points. Any of these makes a trade reckless:

risk over 10% of your account (for a coin, a cost over 10%)
a loss that ran past its first stop because you moved or removed the stop
a liquidation
risk over 2% while your account is more than 20% below its highest point of the last 90 days

A fall of more than half your account within 90 days costs up to 6 points.

Why is 140 and up so hard?

Above 139 there are gates, at 140, 150, 160, 175 and 190. Your number waits one point below a gate until you meet everything it asks. Every gate asks for trades, so lessons alone stop at 139. To pass 140, you need:

300 advanced answers, right or wrong, with 40 of them in each of two skills
a Knowledge part of at least +28
40 counted trades in 6 different weeks
trades that beat the market's own move over many weeks, often enough that it is not luck
fewer than 1 in 7 trades reckless
6 weeks of learning and trading

The 190 gate asks for 3,000 advanced answers, 500 counted trades in 80 different weeks and two years of learning and trading. Knowledge always stays under 60 points and Trading at most 30, so your number stays under 190 and the top of the scale out of reach.

What do the range and the question mark mean?

Your number comes with a range that shows how sure the app is, such as likely 108 to 117. Few answers, answers in few skills and your trades' own uncertainty widen it. More answers narrow it.

A question mark after the number means it is still settling: the range is wider than 30 points, or you have fewer than 40 first-try answers.

Where to find your Trading IQ

On a computer:

Profile: the row of figures at the top shows your number, such as 118 IQ, or Answer new lesson questions with your count.
Profile, then Stats, then Courses: the Trading IQ card. It shows the range, the change since last week, your Knowledge and Trading lines, a Next line naming the step that would raise it, and the eight skills.
Ranks, then Leaderboard: Your boards lists your Trading IQ out of 205, or Not scored.

On a phone:

The You tab shows your number, or Forming with your count. View stats, then Courses, shows the number with its range, your two parts, a Next line and the eight skills.
On the Hub, open Your week. If the app saved your number last week, a line reads like "Trading IQ 118, up 3 from last week."

What raises it, and what lowers it

Right first tries lift it, most on hard questions, and deeper lessons lift its limit. Small, planned risk and results that hold up over many weeks lift the Trading part. Wrong first tries, reckless trades and deep falls pull it down.

It fades when you stop. After 30 days with no new lesson answers, Knowledge starts to fade, halving over a year. After 14 days with no counted trades, Trading fades, halving over 90 days.

The card says so: "Fading: no lessons for 40 days. One lesson stops it." A gate you passed above 139 holds only while you trade: stop for more than 14 days, and your number slides back toward 139.

To raise it honestly, answer each new question yourself, and give each paper perp trade a stop that risks 2% of your account or less. One lucky trade or a big profit barely moves it.