What to learn first
How much capital do you actually need? (arithmetic, not a promise)
Most advertising says "start with ten dollars." The arithmetic says otherwise. The agreed rule is to risk no more than 1% of the account per trade, and the smallest size most brokers offer is 0.01 lot — which loses about $3 on a 30-pip stop. Together those two numbers define the smallest account that permits discipline at all:
| Capital | 1% risk | Size at a 30-pip stop | Practical verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| $100 | $1 | Below the minimum | Cannot follow the 1% rule at all |
| $300 | $3 | 0.01 lot | The smallest account that barely allows it |
| $1,000 | $10 | 0.03 lot | Reasonable room to learn |
| $5,000 | $50 | 0.16 lot | Flexibility in instrument choice |
The conclusion you will not find in advertising: a very small account fails not because its owner is bad, but because it mathematically does not permit disciplined risk management. A $100 account risks 3% per trade whether its owner likes it or not, because the minimum size forces it. Always compute your size with the position size calculator before entering.
The right order of steps
The order of the steps matters as much as the steps. Anyone who opens a live account before writing a plan learns in the most expensive way available:
- Terminology first — then currency pairs and how to read a quote.
- Market mechanics — who moves it and when it is active.
- A regulated broker — review the selection criteria in how to choose a broker before depositing, not after.
- A demo funded with your intended real capital — a demo with a fake $100,000 teaches you nothing about the account you will actually open.
- A one-page plan — which instrument, which session, entry condition, stop placement, target, and risk percentage.
- Repeated execution at a calculated size — the goal is mastering execution, not posting numbers on a demo.
- Assess readiness against criteria (next section) rather than by feel.
- A small live account, then a written weekly review.
When to move from demo to live
This is the question most guides skip, settling for "practise until you feel ready" — and feeling is the worst possible measure. Use measurable criteria instead, and move when all of them hold, not some:
| Criterion | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| 30–50 trades executed on one written plan | A large enough sample to separate skill from chance |
| You never once breached your risk size | One breach on demo becomes a habit on a live account |
| Every trade logged: reason, stop, target, result | Without a journal there is no review and no improvement |
| You sat through a losing streak without changing the rules | This is precisely what breaks live accounts |
| You compute spread and overnight cost before each entry | Costs consume the targets of short trades |
| The money you will deposit is not needed elsewhere | Money you need forces bad decisions |
An honest note about demo accounts: execution there is usually idealised with no real slippage, and more importantly the psychological pressure is entirely absent. Expect your performance to drop on the transition — start at the smallest possible size for exactly that reason, not because you are "not confident."
Beginner mistakes that end accounts
- Hunting for an "always-winning" strategy instead of mastering one. Switching after every loss prevents building any evaluable sample.
- Doubling size to recover. The fastest route from an ordinary loss to a liquidated account.
- Trading without a stop-loss, relying on "I will close manually" — a decision rarely taken in the difficult moment.
- Opening several correlated pairs believing it is diversification, when it multiplies the same exposure.
- Going live after one good demo week. A single week cannot separate skill from luck.
- Ignoring trading costs, then wondering why the account erodes despite near-breakeven trades.
What these mistakes share is that they are all emotional rather than analytical decisions. The only remedy is rules written in advance and risk management that is not renegotiated mid-trade.