Trade Academy

The essentials of chart reading, trading vocabulary and protecting your capital.

Beginner guides

Reading a candlestick chart

Each candle shows open, high, low and close for one period. A green (bullish) candle closed above its open; a red (bearish) candle closed below. Long wicks show rejected prices.

Identifying the trend

An uptrend makes higher highs and higher lows; a downtrend makes lower highs and lower lows. Trade with the trend on your timeframe and check the next higher timeframe for confirmation.

Support and resistance

Support is a price area where buyers repeatedly stepped in; resistance is where sellers did. The more times a level is tested, the more traders watch it — and the bigger the move when it breaks.

Choosing a trading style

Scalping holds trades for minutes on 1–5m charts. Daytrading closes everything before the day ends, often on 15m–1H. Swing trading holds for days to weeks using 4H–Daily charts.

Planning a trade

Before entering, define your entry, stop loss and take profit, and calculate position size from your risk. If you can't explain why the trade should work, skip it.

Glossary

Entry: The price at which you open a position.
Take Profit (TP): A preset price where the trade closes in profit.
Stop Loss (SL): A preset price where the trade closes to cap your loss.
Risk/Reward (R:R): Potential profit divided by potential loss. 1:2 means you aim to make twice what you risk.
Win rate: The share of trades that hit TP before SL.
Trendline: A line connecting swing lows (uptrend) or swing highs (downtrend) that price tends to respect.
Support / Resistance: Price zones where buying or selling pressure has historically stopped price.
Breakout: When price closes decisively beyond a key level or pattern.
Pip: The smallest standard price move in forex, usually 0.0001 (0.01 for JPY pairs).
Lot: Standardized position size in forex. 1 standard lot = 100,000 units.
Leverage: Borrowed exposure. Amplifies both profits and losses.
Spread: The difference between the bid and ask price — a cost on every trade.
Long / Short: Long = buying to profit from a rise. Short = selling to profit from a fall.
Drawdown: The drop from an account's peak to its lowest point.
Liquidity: How easily an asset can be bought or sold without moving the price.
Volatility: How much and how fast price moves. High-impact news increases it.

Safe risk management

Risk only 0.5–2% of your account per trade.
Always set a stop loss before entering — never move it further away.
Aim for at least 1:2 risk/reward so you can be profitable with under 50% wins.
Size positions from your stop distance, not from how confident you feel.
Avoid opening trades right before high-impact news (check the macro calendar).
Use leverage carefully — it magnifies losses as much as gains.
Set a daily loss limit and stop trading when you hit it.
Keep a journal and review your losing trades weekly.
Treat AI analyses as a second opinion, not a guarantee.

AI analyses are for educational purposes only and are not financial advice. Trading involves substantial risk.