Futures Playbook Research

Futures Playbook Research is an independent research firm for futures markets. We test the claims traders are sold on CME futures data back to 2010, net of costs, and publish every study with its files, failures included. The firm also writes the market briefs and builds FP Terminal.

The studies, with their pre-registrations, results and code, are in the library; how they are run is on the methods page. The market briefs cover index, energy, metals, treasury, FX and agricultural futures through the London, New York and Asia sessions.

Who runs it

Futures Playbook Research is a trade name of The Futures Playbook LLC, a Florida limited liability company (Florida, United States), which also operates FP Terminal. The firm was founded and built by Dr. Alex Djahankhah, DBA, a computer-science professor and U.S. Marine Corps veteran, who writes the research rules, pre-registers the studies and runs them. His background is at alexdjahankhah.com.

Views are my own and do not represent the Department of Defense or the U.S. Marine Corps.

Futures Playbook Research provides general research, not personal account management or brokerage services. Research does not assess your financial circumstances or suitability. No regulatory approval, endorsement or exemption is represented by these disclosures. The firm does not manage accounts, hold client funds or place trades for anyone. Every member receives the same research.

Research policies

• Independence. The firm sells no trade signals, takes no paid placement and is paid by no vendor whose product it tests. A study's verdict is whatever its frozen rule returns.
• Conflicts. The founder may trade futures for his own account. The firm publishes no trade recommendations, and no study, brief or verdict is changed to suit a position. Affiliate links, where they appear, are labelled and have no influence on the research.
• Commissioned work. A study commissioned by a client is designed with the client before it runs and belongs to the client; it is published only with their permission.
• Corrections. If a rerun of a published study gives a different result, the firm checks it and publishes a dated correction on the study page, whichever way it goes. Send a correction.
• Disclosure. The firm's running record of any trading is not published. Studies say how closely they followed the method, including the ones that fell short.

What is graded

The firm does not name trades. Until October 4, 2026, every session edition crowned a pick with a direction and levels, and every pick was graded whether it won or lost. Walked on the tape, the picks showed no edge, so the firm retired them: the editions are now session briefs that describe the market.

• No longer sent to members: the options desk's morning ideas and the desk alerts sent through TradingView. Since October 8, 2026 both are kept as internal research, graded privately, and are not published.
• The pick archive (through October 3, 2026) keeps every result as graded. A pick was walked on the tape: entry only on a confirmed 5-minute close through the trigger, filled at the next 1-minute open; the stop was the published invalidation; the target 1.5 times the risk measured from the fill; a bar that touched both counted as the stop; anything still open when its window closed was marked at the last print. No model was involved in that replay.
• Picks published without captured levels (older editions and watchlist ideas) were graded by a scorecard model reading that session's tape and reported separately, because the two graders disagreed; where the tape graded a pick, its result is the one of record.

Results are stated in R, multiples of the risk taken, and are hypothetical: simulated fills, gross of commissions, fees and slippage.

What is commentary

Almost everything the firm publishes explains the market rather than calling a trade. None of this is graded, and none of it is a recommendation:

• The session briefs — London, New York and Asia, pre-open and midday: what is moving, why, what matters inside the window and the event risk.
• Market-context and geopolitics briefs, and the arbitrage briefs that compare the headlines with what price is doing.
• Economic-calendar previews, release recaps and the plain-English notes on what each release measures.
• The catalyst wire, flow and positioning notes, and the dealer-gamma level maps for index futures.
• The Symbol Select board, which ranks the whole universe each session; it is a shortlist, not a trade.
• Ask the Desk answers, education posts, and posts on Instagram and other social channels.

Questions

Write to customerservice@futuresplaybook.com or use the contact form. The risk disclosure covers hypothetical performance, data limitations and the limits of model research in full.