What is Trading
The core idea of trading: how the market works and what a beginner needs to know.
Go at your own pace with written lessons and quizzes.
Your progress
0 / 39 lessons completed
13 available on your plan • 0% complete
Next lesson: What is Trading
The core idea of trading: how the market works and what a beginner needs to know.
Forex, cryptocurrencies, stocks, commodities — what features does each one have?
Who trades in the markets? Retail traders, major funds, market makers, and central banks.
Demand, supply, order book: how is price determined in the market?
Why leverage is the biggest source of losses for new traders — with mathematics.
65-80% of retail traders lose money in their first year. Why, and how to avoid it?
Seven habits shared by the 25% who survive.
Market, limit, stop, stop-limit, stop-loss, take-profit, and trailing stop orders: how each one works, where pending orders sit relative to the current price, and when to use which.
Market, limit, and stop orders—when to use each, how the order book works, and why you don't always get the price you expect.
Regulation, fees, execution quality, and account security. How to spot a reliable broker and which red flags you should stay away from immediately.
The true costs of trading: spread, slippage, commission, and swap. Why these costs can eat up all your profits when targeting small price moves.
What margin is, how a margin call works, and why liquidation is a leveraged trader's worst-case scenario—plus the mechanics behind liquidation cascades in crypto.
What the body and wicks of a candlestick show.
Learn what timeframes are, how to choose the right ones for your trading style, and how to combine higher and lower timeframes—using larger ones to spot the trend and smaller ones to time your entry.
How to read a trend through a sequence of highs and lows, the phases a market goes through, and how a break of structure acts as the first warning that a trend may be coming to an end.
How to identify key price levels where the market actually pauses, why broken levels switch roles, and how to avoid falling for false breakouts.
How to draw a trendline correctly using swing points, when it is considered confirmed, how to build a channel, what to do after a breakout and retest, and common mistakes that make a trendline useless.
What volume tells us, how it confirms breakouts or warns of weak moves, what a volume climax is, and why you need to read volume differently in Forex.
Indicators are mathematical formulas based on price and volume, which means they always lag. In this lesson, you'll learn about the two main indicator families, why stacking five of them adds zero value, and why price action always gets the final say.
SMAs vs EMAs, key periods (20, 50, and 200), moving averages as dynamic support, the lag behind golden crosses, and why moving averages fail in sideways markets.
What RSI actually measures, why the 'sell above 70' rule fails in strong trends, how to read divergence, and how to use the 50 level across multiple timeframes.
The MACD line, signal line, and histogram; signal crossovers and zero-line crossovers; the histogram as an early warning of slowing momentum; divergence; and why MACD suffers from a double lag.
How the bands are constructed, what a squeeze is, why price "walks the band" in a strong trend versus returning to the mean in a range, and why touching a band isn't a trade signal on its own.
Flags, pennants, triangles, and rectangles: how to spot a trend pause, where to enter, where to set your stop-loss, and how to project price targets.
Double tops/bottoms and head and shoulders patterns: necklines, retests, price targets, and why every reversal needs a prior trend.
False breakouts, failed patterns as trade signals in their own right, and how to define your invalidation point before entering a position.
Why preserving your account matters more than chasing returns, why recovering from a −50% loss requires +100%, and how the 1–2% rule keeps you in the game.
How to calculate position size using the formula: account balance × risk % ÷ stop-loss distance, complete with crypto and forex examples and handy reference tables.
Where to place your stop-loss using market structure and ATR, why arbitrary percentages fail, how to avoid stop hunting, and why you should never move your stop further away.
R-multiples, breakeven win rate, expectancy calculations, and why a 1:3 risk-reward ratio lets you stay profitable even if you lose 60% of your trades.
Why five crypto positions are often just one big trade in disguise, how to calculate total portfolio risk, and why you should cap it at 5–6%.
How fear and greed affect your trades—cutting profits early, holding losses, FOMO, and revenge trading—how these same emotions move the entire market, and why setting rules before entering a trade is your first line of defense.
Loss aversion, confirmation bias, recency bias, the gambler's fallacy, overconfidence, and anchoring to your entry price: how your brain tricks you in trading and the exact rules that combat each bias.
Why discipline is a system rather than willpower: building a pre-trade checklist, what to record in a trading journal (setup, rationale, emotion, R-multiple, errors), and how to conduct a weekly review.
Why you should judge decisions rather than outcomes, why sample sizes of 20–50 trades matter, how common losing streaks are even with a 50% win rate, and how a daily loss limit protects your account.
The nine components of a written trading plan—from markets to daily loss limits—plus a complete example of a simple setup: a pullback to the 20 EMA with an RSI filter.
How to perform a manual backtest step by step, how many trades you need, which metrics to calculate, how to avoid curve fitting and hindsight bias, and why forward testing on a demo account is a mandatory second stage.
Why and how to keep a trading journal step-by-step: a ready-to-use CSV template, filled-out examples, and a monthly review framework that shows which setups make money and which mistakes cost you the most.
How to tell when you're truly ready to trade live money using objective backtest and demo criteria, how to start with a small account and low risk, how to navigate the psychological transition, and when to scale up or down your position size.
Make a first RealStocks trade of at least 10 USDT and receive 5 USDT.
Affiliate link. MEXC pays us a commission at no extra cost to you. Trading carries a risk of losing your capital.
Start free. Unlock more when you are ready.
Start learning with no commitment.
Free
Always.
Complete training on technical analysis.
AMD 19,000
one-time payment, lifetime access
Systematic approach for the long-term trader.
AMD 59,000
one-time payment, lifetime access
A little studying regularly beats a lot of it occasionally.
Test the ideas you have studied on a demo account, without risk.
The quizzes help lock in what you have read.
Open roles: Trader / Market Analyst and Mentor.
Subscribe and be the first to hear about new material.