Routes through the courseThe fourteen lessons that get you from never having opened a chart to placing a sized trade on a demo account.
From zero in two weeks
Lessons on this route
14 lessons
- 1 · Lesson 1.1
What happens when you press Buy
An order leaves your platform, gets filled at a price, becomes an open position, and ends when you close it. Four steps, and every cost attaches to one of them.
- 2 · Lesson 1.2
Pairs and quotes: what 1.0850 means
A quote is the price of the first currency in the second. The number you see moves in the last decimal place, and that place has a money value.
- 3 · Lesson 1.3
What a pip is worth in money
A pip is the smallest standard price step. What it is worth depends on lot size and the pair, so the same twenty-pip move pays differently on different trades.
- 4 · Lesson 1.4
Lots: standard, mini and micro
A lot is how much of the instrument one trade controls. Standard is 100,000 units, mini is a tenth of that, micro a hundredth.
- 5 · Lesson 1.5
The three costs: spread, commission, swap
You pay the spread on entry, commission on some account types, and swap for every night a position stays open. All three are known before you trade.
- 6 · Lesson 1.7
Leverage and margin: how much of the trade is yours
Leverage sets how large a position your deposit can hold. Margin is the part of your money locked against it while the trade is open.
- 7 · Lesson 1.8
Order types: market, limit, stop
A market order takes the current price. A limit waits for a better one. A stop triggers once price reaches a worse one.
- 8 · Lesson 1.9
Stop loss and take profit
Two instructions you attach to a position: one closes it at a loss you chose in advance, the other at a profit you chose in advance.
- 9 · Lesson 1.10
MT4, MT5 and cTrader: which to pick
The three platforms differ in instruments, order handling and how they report costs. The choice is reversible; the account type behind it is less so.
- 10 · Lesson 1.12
Demo accounts: what they teach and where they lie
A demo teaches the platform and the arithmetic honestly. It cannot teach fills in a fast market, and it cannot teach how losing real money feels.
- 11 · Lesson 1.14
Opening an account and passing verification
What documents a regulated broker has to ask for, why it has to ask, and the checks that hold an application up.
- 12 · Lesson 1.15
Deposits and withdrawals with local methods
Which local payment methods reach a broker, how long each leg takes, and why a withdrawal usually has to go back the way the deposit came.
- 13 · Lesson 3.1
Risk per trade: the 1-2% rule
Deciding the money you can lose on one trade before deciding anything else. Everything downstream — size, stop, target — follows from that number.
- 14 · Lesson 3.2
Working out position size
Risk in money, divided by the stop distance in pips, divided by pip value. Three numbers you already have, in that order.