Trading Basics

What a market is, how orders reach it, and how to read a price chart as a record rather than a forecast.

• 1

  What Is Trading, Really?

  Trading is the act of taking one side of a transaction with someone who disagrees with you about price. Everything else — charts, indicators, strategies — is machinery built on top of that single fact.

  8 min read

• 2

  How Orders Work

  An order is a specific instruction to a venue, and each type makes a different trade-off between certainty of execution and certainty of price. Choosing the wrong one is a silent, recurring cost.

  9 min read

• 3

  Reading a Price Chart

  A candlestick chart is a compressed record of transactions over fixed intervals. Reading it well means knowing exactly what has been thrown away in the compression — and refusing to invent what is not there.

  9 min read

• 4

  Costs of a Round Trip

  A complete trade charges you twice — spread and commission on entry and again on exit, plus whatever slippage the book hands you and any financing on a position held overnight. Price has to move a known distance before you are level.

  8 min read

• 5

  Choosing a Market to Learn On

  No market is the correct place to start. There are seven properties that determine how forgiving a market is to learn in — hours, liquidity, minimum size, volatility, leverage, cost structure and regulation — and this lesson gives you the criteria rather than an answer.

  8 min read

• 6

  Demo Accounts and Paper Trading

  A demo account teaches mechanics and plan-following, which are worth learning. It cannot reproduce fill quality, slippage under stress, or the weight of real money — so a good demo record proves less than it feels like it proves.

  8 min read