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. Level 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. Level 2

   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. Level 3

   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. Level 4

   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. Level 5

   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. Level 6

   6. 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. Level 7

   7. 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. Level 8

   8. 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. Level 9

   9. 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. Level 10

    10. 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. Level 11

    11. 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. Level 12

    12. 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. Level 13

    13. 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. Level 14

    14. 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.