Our Beginner's Trading section provides you with all the information you need to start trading currencies and CFDs with confidence. This should be your first stop to discover how the currency pair market works, market analysis and CFD tools.
What is currency
Learn about currency pairs in the global market and how a trade is performed. Here you will also see some general concepts of online currency trading, such as order types, rollovers and hedging.
MetaTrader is a platform provided by MetaQuotes Software, on which you can trade CFDs, futures and currency markets online. AvaTrade has licensed this software for you. In today's trading world, there are two well-known types of platforms, namely MT4 and MT5.
Price fluctuations in currency trading are measured in pips (points) or pipettes (one tenth of a point). What is this? Pip and pipettes are the smallest units of exchange rate fluctuations. A pip is a change in the fourth decimal place, while a pipette is one-tenth of a pip.
Learn about different types of price charts – line charts, bar charts and candlestick charts, and better understand the information presented by various charts. Analyze charts to directly draw conclusions about the status of asset markets, such as buying/selling pressures, price highs and lows during a specific period. Understand important graphical analysis patterns and their meanings to become a better trader.
AvaTrade offers a variety of trading platforms to its clients, both in-house and from third parties. Read reviews and features of available trading platforms to choose the best currency trading platform that best suits your needs. Compare the industry standard Metatrader 4 to AvaTrade's platform. Learn about the features of other manual and automated trading solutions available to our clients, including Zulu Trade, Mirror Trader, Robox and Duplitrade, among others.
In this section, we will take a closer look at how different currencies interact with each other in currency pairs – the basics of currency trading. You will also learn the difference between major, minor and exotic currency pairs.
How to trade the stock market?
Online CFD trading is becoming more and more popular, making it easier and more convenient to trade the rise and fall of global giants such as Apple, Google and Alibaba. In this section, you can read an overview of how CFD stock trading works and learn more about the factors to consider when trading stocks.
Whether you are trading currency pairs, commodities, stocks or indices, technical analysis is an important factor in making informed trading decisions. Find out more about the tools and techniques you need to understand and analyze live charts to get the best possible chance of success in the markets.
Contracts for Difference – better known as CFDs – are an important financial instrument that allows traders to trade the rise and fall of the value of currencies, stock indices, commodities and shares without actually owning the assets. Here you can learn more about the various functions of CFDs and how they work.
Short selling means that you borrow an asset from a broker, sell it in a bear market, and then buy it back and return it to the broker when the trend reverses. The price difference in the process becomes your profit. Click the link for more information and trading examples.
Both new and experienced traders can benefit from copy trading. In copy trading, trades are executed by professional traders with top-notch track records. AvaTrade offers a unique copy trading platform that allows traders to take advantage of this unique service.
Paper trading is also known as demo account trading. Through simulated trading, novice traders in the currency and CFD markets can trade for free in a practice account before real trading begins. "Paper trading" is invaluable in helping traders gain skills and confidence in trading.
What are options?
Options are contracts that give traders the right to buy or sell a specified amount of a financial instrument at a specific price within a pre-set time. When trading options, traders have the power to control not only the financial instrument and the amount of the trade, but also the time and price of the trade. Options can be traded for a day, a week, a few months, or even a year.
Leveraged trading, also known as margin trading, describes a process in which a trader opens a position using only a small portion of the position price and then borrows money from the broker to make up the rest. Leverage is expressed as the ratio between the total position value and the trader's investment (for example, 200:1), while margin is expressed as a percentage of the total position value and the trader's investment (in the previous example, expressed as a percentage, 0.5%). Leveraged trading can magnify a trader's profits, but it also increases the accompanying risks.
Are you a day trader, swing trader, or scalper? Explore your trading style. In this section, we look at the different trading styles in the market today. Discover the trading style that best suits your risk tolerance and your knowledge of the trading markets.
Learn what derivatives are and the role they can play in your trading, as well as how their value is determined by the various market movements of real assets. Get a comprehensive look at the most common derivatives, including futures, forwards, options, CFDs, and swaps.
Every trader is different, so there is no perfect trading plan. But there are some universal rules and elements to consider when building a detailed trading plan that works for you. Want to know what your trading plan should include?
Money Management
Probably the first principle to learn before entering the markets, especially the currency markets, is to know how to manage money. Here you will find valuable information on basic terminology, explanations on how to best manage your money, and more.
What is stock trading? What are the primary and secondary markets? How are stocks issued, bought, and sold? Want to learn more about the medium in which stocks are traded? Here you will find information on the structure of the stock market, the major regional stock exchanges, the different life cycles of issued stocks, and ways to profit from them.
Learn how to trade currency pairs online. AvaTrade provides all the basic information and step-by-step trading guidance for novice traders.
Keep Learning
Gain a deeper understanding of trading concepts and analysis using our trading platform and its free educational videos.
As you begin your currency trading education, you will come across a lot of new terms. You can also check out our glossary to find helpful definitions of all the new terms.
Sign up for a demo account and put what you learn to risk-free trading.
