Now Enrolling — 15 Places Only

The standard most traders
never get taught.
Now available in a small group.

Twelve weeks. Live sessions with JP. A structured process for identifying, entering, and managing ASX equity trades — built around market behaviour, not market predictions.

General advice only. All information provided through Trade Profitably is general financial product advice only and has been prepared without considering your personal objectives, financial situation or needs. Consider whether it is appropriate for your circumstances before enrolling. John Pontikas is an Authorised Representative (AR 329302) of PGW Financial Services Pty Ltd (AFSL 384713).

12
Weeks live with JP
15
Maximum participants
26
Years in markets
2hr
Per session, weekly
Next intake: Wednesday evenings. Places limited. $3,497 — payment plan available
The problem

Most traders have a structure problem.
Not an information problem.

You've read the books. You've studied the charts. You may have traded for years. And yet the results remain inconsistent — good weeks followed by bad ones, a process that holds until it doesn't, decisions made under pressure that you'd never make in a calm moment.

The issue isn't what you know. It's the absence of a structured, rules-based process that governs what you do — and what you don't do — before, during, and after every session.

01
No market environment filterYou're selecting stocks without first establishing whether the broader market environment supports the trade. Context governs everything — without it, stock selection is guesswork.
02
Entry decisions made in real timeWhen price moves, the process goes out the window. You're improvising at the moment it matters most instead of executing a decision already made.
03
Risk managed by feelPosition sizing changes with your confidence. Stops are moved. Losses are held. Profits are cut early. None of it is governed by a fixed rule — it's all in the moment.
04
The same errors, repeatedlyYou can identify every mistake in hindsight. What's missing is a framework that flags the error before the entry — and a process that holds even when the pressure to deviate is highest.
What changes

Day one versus week twelve.

Day one
Week twelve
Selecting stocks without a market environment filter. Trading in any conditions because the setup looks good.
A structured regime assessment before any stock is considered. The environment governs whether you trade at all.
Entry decisions made in real time as price moves. Improvising under pressure every session.
Entry criteria established before the session opens. The decision is already made before price moves.
Risk sized by feel. Stops moved. Position sizing tied to how you feel about the trade, not a fixed rule.
Position sizing governed by a fixed percentage rule. Stop placement determined by the structure, not by preference.
No record of your process. Errors identified only in hindsight, with no systematic way to correct them.
A trading journal that shows you exactly what your process looks like under real conditions — and where the pattern of errors lies.
Twelve weeks

The curriculum.

Each week builds on the last. The first four weeks establish the structural and environmental foundations. Weeks five through nine cover stock selection, entry methodology, intraday timing, risk, and execution. The final three weeks apply everything in live market conditions and build the trading plan you carry forward independently.

01
How markets work
The structural behaviour that drives liquid markets. How price moves between levels, what creates momentum, and what the market is actually doing underneath the noise. The foundation everything else is built on.
02
Reading market structure
How to identify the current trend on multiple timeframes and establish a directional bias before looking at individual stocks. The language of structure — confirmed versus unconfirmed, continuation versus reversal.
03
Supply, demand and key levels
What constitutes a genuine level of interest and what constitutes noise. How to identify areas where institutional order flow is most likely to be present — and why that determines where entries and stops are placed.
04
Market environment filter
The non-negotiable step before any stock is considered. A structured assessment of the broader ASX environment that governs whether conditions support participation. When the filter says no, there are no trades — and that is a skill, not a failure.
05
Stock selection and watchlist
How to identify ASX securities that are in the right phase of their cycle to offer a favourable risk-to-reward opportunity. Watchlist construction, scanning methodology, and how to reduce the entire ASX to a manageable set of genuine candidates.
06
Entry models, execution and intraday timing
The two primary entry models used in the framework and the exact criteria for each. Once the higher timeframe structure and environment filter are satisfied, intraday price behaviour is used to time entries with precision — identifying the specific moment within a session where the setup is confirmed and the trade is placed. The checklist that must be completed before any entry is placed. This is not intraday trading as a standalone approach — it is the final layer of the framework applied to get you into the right trade at the right time.
07
Risk and position architecture
Position sizing as a fixed rule, not a feeling. R-multiple thinking from the moment of entry. How to calculate maximum loss before the trade is placed, and how that calculation removes emotion from the sizing decision entirely.
08
Trading psychology — the identity layer
Why rule-breaking in trading is not a discipline failure — it is an identity expression. The distinction between a technical trader and a consistent trader. What is actually happening below conscious awareness when you deviate from your own process.
09
Trading psychology — reprogramming
The self-image as the governor of performance. The kill-switch protocol. The shift from a trader who seeks to be right to one who allocates risk across a probabilistic system. Composure as the edge — not sharpness, not intensity.
10
Higher timeframe context
How to build a coherent narrative for the current market cycle and use it to weight the probability of individual setups. How structural alignment between the broader market and individual securities filters entry quality at a level stock selection alone cannot reach.
11
Live market application
Real setups. Real charts. Real-time environment assessment as a group. Students present their watchlists and defend their analysis against the framework criteria. Trade reviews focused on process, not outcome.
12
Your independent trading operation
Each participant produces their own complete trading plan — watchlist methodology, environment filter, entry criteria, risk rules, journalling protocol, and identity commitments. The document they carry forward and execute independently from day one.

The psychology is not
an afterthought.

Most trading courses bolt psychology on at the end, if they include it at all. In this cohort it sits at the midpoint — after students have enough technical grounding to understand what the material is describing, and before live trading at full size begins.

The reason is simple: technical failure and identity expression are not the same thing. A trader who knows the rule and breaks it anyway is not making a knowledge error. Something is operating below the level of conscious decision-making.

Why deviation from your own rules is not a willpower problem — and why adding more rules does not fix it
The automated responses that operate below conscious awareness — and how to interrupt them before the off-plan trade is placed
The identity shift that separates consistent execution from technical knowledge — and how to build it deliberately
Composure as the real edge — not intensity, not sharpness, not conviction in the individual trade

The market is the most unforgiving mirror available. The patterns that show up in your trading — the early entries, the held losers, the oversized positions — are not random. They are expressions of something that predates the trading account.

JP — Week 8 session framework
What's included

Everything needed to build the system.

12 weeks live with JP
Two hours per week, every week. Not recorded lectures — live sessions where JP teaches, responds to the group, and adjusts in real time. Sessions run on a fixed day and time throughout the twelve weeks.
Complete course materials
Reference guides, student workbooks, execution checklists, and self-assessments for every week of the programme. All materials are yours to keep and reference independently after the cohort concludes.
Four dedicated 1-on-1 sessions
Scheduled at Weeks 3, 6, 9, and 12. Your charts, your application of the framework, your specific pattern of errors. Direct feedback on how you are executing the process in real conditions — not generic coaching.
Small group — 15 maximum
The cap is structural, not a marketing claim. A group of 15 is small enough that your questions are answered, your charts are reviewed, and the environment reflects a genuine peer group rather than a passive audience.
Cohort community access
A dedicated community environment active throughout the twelve weeks. Watchlist discussion, real-time feedback on framework application, and a peer group going through the same process at the same time.
Graduate community eligibility
On completion you are eligible to join the ongoing community — continued access to JP, peer environment, and framework development beyond the cohort. Details are provided to graduates directly on completion.
Credentials
26 yearsFinancial markets experience
Institutional backgroundABN AMRO Morgans / RBS Morgans
AR 329302PGW Financial Services Pty Ltd — AFSL 384713
JMP Strategic InvestmentsABN 20 161 825 667 — Founded 2011
Adelaide, South AustraliaSessions delivered ACST

John Pontikas.

Twenty-six years in financial markets. The early part of that career was institutional — ABN AMRO Morgans, then RBS Morgans — where the standard for process, documentation, and professional accountability was set by the environment, not by personal preference.

In 2011, JP left institutional employment to found JMP Strategic Investments. What followed was a decade of building and refining a framework that could be applied consistently across real market conditions — not conditions carefully selected to support a system, but the full cycle. The dot-com collapse, September 11, the GFC, the European debt crisis, COVID. Each of those environments exposed every flaw in a process that wasn't genuinely robust.

The framework taught in this cohort is the result of that refinement. It is rule-based, documentable, and applicable to ASX-listed securities within a licensed, regulated context. Everything taught is delivered within JP's authorisation as AR 329302 under AFSL 384713. There is real professional accountability behind what is taught here — not because it is required by law, but because that standard was the starting point, not an afterthought.

The cohort is deliberately small. Fifteen people maximum. JP responds to every enrolment enquiry personally. There is no automated funnel, no sales call, no team. If you have a question, JP answers it.

Investment

One payment. Twelve weeks.

Payment plan
$1,300
Per month — three payments. $3,900 total.
Spread across three months. Same access, same inclusions, same cohort. First payment confirms your place.
  • Everything included in the full payment option
  • First payment due on enrolment confirmation
  • Subsequent payments at 30-day intervals
Enquire about payment plan
How to enrol

Simple. Direct. No sales call.

1
Send an email
Use the Reserve your place button. The subject line is pre-filled. Takes thirty seconds.
2
JP responds personally
Within 24 hours. Confirmation of your place, any questions answered, and what to expect before the intake begins.
3
Place confirmed
Payment processed, place locked. You'll receive a pre-intake document and community access one week before Week 1.
4
Week one begins
Two hours. Live with JP and a cohort of no more than 15. You're in the room.
This is general advice only. It has been prepared without considering your objectives, financial situation or needs. You should consider whether it is appropriate for you before acting on it. John Pontikas is an Authorised Representative (AR 329302) of PGW Financial Services Pty Ltd (AFSL 384713). JMP Strategic Investments Pty Ltd — ABN 20 161 825 667. Trading involves significant risk of loss. Past performance is not indicative of future results.