Risk awareness
Understanding leverage and margin
Leverage amplifies both gains and losses. Learn how margin requirements work and why position sizing matters.
≈ 6 min readRead article
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Foundations
What a currency pair is, how quotes are read, and why the FX market trades around the clock on business days.
≈ 7 min read
The foreign-exchange market is where one currency is exchanged for another. It is a decentralised market: rather than trading on a single exchange, participants — banks, funds, companies and individual traders — deal through a global network of venues and liquidity providers.
Because major financial centres open and close in sequence across time zones, the FX market is active around the clock from Monday morning in Asia-Pacific to Friday evening in New York.
Currencies are quoted in pairs, such as EUR/USD. The first currency is the base, the second is the quote. A price of 1.0824 means one euro is worth 1.0824 US dollars.
Two prices are shown at all times: the bid (the price at which you can sell the base currency) and the ask (the price at which you can buy it). The difference between them is the spread, which is part of the cost of trading.
A pip is the standard unit of price movement for a pair — for most pairs, the fourth decimal place. If EUR/USD moves from 1.0824 to 1.0830, it has moved six pips.
Position size determines how much each pip of movement is worth in money terms, which is why understanding sizing is one of the first practical skills to learn.
Currency prices respond to interest rates, economic data and market sentiment across continuously changing global sessions.
A demo account is a sensible place to become familiar with quotes, orders and platform behaviour before any real capital is involved.
Risk awareness
Leverage amplifies both gains and losses. Learn how margin requirements work and why position sizing matters.
Risk awareness
A practical framework: define risk per trade, always know your exit, and respect the mathematics of drawdown.
Analysis
Candlesticks, trends, support and resistance — the vocabulary of chart-based analysis, without the mysticism.
Next orbit
A demo account turns concepts into muscle memory — with virtual funds and zero commitment.