Academy · a beginner’s roadmap

Start here

One route across the site in 6 stages, from what is traded to keeping a record. Every stage is a short run of pages that already exist: lessons, tools and labs, in the order they are best met. It is an order to read and practise in, not advice and not a promise of any result.

Begin at stage one Who this is for

Who this site is for

Three readers, one route.

New to markets
You have not placed a trade, or have placed a few without being sure what happened. Take the stages in order. Each assumes the one before it.
Stage one
Trading already
You know the words and want the parts you passed over. Stage three is a sensible place to begin, and a journal after it.
Risk before reward
Looking at GIO4X
You are deciding whether to open an account, here or anywhere. Stage five is the checklist, and it says plainly what this site has not published.
Choosing knowingly

It is not for someone looking for signals, a system that wins or a figure for what trading earns. This site publishes none of those. What it has is explanation, arithmetic and places to practise, and a plain account of what trading on margin can cost.

1
Stage 1 of 6
Understand what is traded
Before any order, the nouns: what a currency pair, an index or a barrel of oil is as an instrument, when each trades and what tends to move it. Most early mistakes are mistakes about what the thing on the screen is.
Before moving onYou should be able to say, in your own words: what a pair, a pip and a lot are, which markets are open when, and what kind of contract a CFD is.
2
Stage 2 of 6
See how a trade works, and what it costs
An order has parts: a direction, a size, an entry, and usually a stop and a target. Every trade also starts behind by its cost. Leverage and margin belong here, because they decide how much of the account one trade answers for.
Before moving onYou should be able to say, in your own words: what each part of an order does, what a trade costs from opening to closing, and what a position ties up as margin.
3
Stage 3 of 6
Put risk before reward
The size of a position is not chosen first. It follows from what the account can lose on one trade and where the trade is wrong. This stage comes before practice on purpose: practising without it trains the wrong habit.
Before moving onYou should be able to say, in your own words: how a size is worked out from a risk and a stop, why a loss needs a larger gain to recover, and what the legal risk warning says.
4
Stage 4 of 6
Practise without money
Reading about an order and placing one are different skills. Everything in this stage runs on invented prices or virtual funds, so a mistake costs nothing and can be repeated until it is understood.
Before moving onYou should be able to say, in your own words: how to build an order with a stop and a target, how to find what is wrong with a ticket, and how easily one good test result misleads.
5
Stage 5 of 6
Choose an account and a platform knowingly
Only now does the choice of a firm, an account and a platform come up, because only now are the questions clear. The checklist here is neutral: it can be held against any broker, and against GIO4X exactly as against the others.
Before moving onYou should be able to say, in your own words: how to check any firm on a regulator’s register, what a trade costs on each kind of account, and what GIO4X has and has not published.
6
Stage 6 of 6
Keep learning, and keep a record
There is no last stage. What changes is the source: less from pages and more from a written record of one’s own decisions, read back honestly. The rest of the Academy is here for whenever a question comes up.
And thenNothing is finished here. A journal with trades in it, read over some weeks, is where the next questions come from.

How to use the route

Take it in order the first time. The stages are short on purpose: a stage is finished when you can say what it was about without looking, not when every page in it has been opened.

Nothing is recorded for this page. The rows marked “On the desk’s path” are the eight steps of the path on My desk, where the browser’s own records, such as a completed lesson or a trade written in the journal, show a step as done. That page stores nothing new either.

The route describes and does not recommend. It does not say that anyone should trade, and finishing it says nothing about results. Educational information, not investment advice or a recommendation to trade.

The same steps, with ticks

A path through it, on My desk

8 of the pages above as one optional exercise. A step is ticked only from what your browser already holds, and nothing is sent anywhere.

My desk

Trading foreign exchange on margin carries a high level of risk, and may not be suitable for all investors. The high degree of leverage can work against you as well as for you. Before deciding to trade foreign exchange you should carefully consider your investment objectives, level of experience, and risk appetite. The possibility exists that you could sustain a loss of some or all of your initial investment and therefore you should not invest money that you cannot afford to lose.

Continue

Fetching the page

Three readers, one route.

New to markets

Trading already

Looking at GIO4X

Understand what is traded

See how a trade works, and what it costs

Put risk before reward

Practise without money

Choose an account and a platform knowingly

Keep learning, and keep a record

How to use the route

Three readers, one route.

New to markets

Trading already

Looking at GIO4X

Understand what is traded

See how a trade works, and what it costs

Put risk before reward

Practise without money

Choose an account and a platform knowingly

Keep learning, and keep a record

How to use the route