Where you stand

I want to beat the market

If that is you, here is what this situation usually involves, in the order it usually comes up: the things worth checking, what each one is, and where the arithmetic for it lives. None of it says what to do.

1. The base rate: most professionals with data and staff trail the index over ten years after costs, and retail traders as a group trail it too.
2. The edges an individual reliably has are costs, taxes, patience, and behavior, and the fee calculator shows what the first of those is worth in dollars.
3. An edge that is not written down before the outcome, with exact rules and tested with costs, cannot be told from luck; that is what a pre registered rule is for.
4. Every trade has someone on the other side who is paid in some way; who that is and how they are paid is where a trader's losses go.
5. Position size is what decides whether being wrong is educational or ruinous; the stress calculator shows a position at any size against a bad year.

Read these

Spreading it out and betting big: what each one protects you from
What a one percent fee costs over a working life
Options from the beginning: calls, puts, and the Greeks in plain words