CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. Excess volatility increases risk further. Be cautious. Past performance is not an indication of future results.
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A first sitting

Start here: half an hour that ends with your own figures on paper — Pakistan

Reading about trading arithmetic produces nothing you can use. Sitting with a practice screen for thirty minutes and writing seven things down produces a sheet you will re-use every time you open a ticket. This page is that sitting, in order.

Two of the seven you decide, away from any screen: the money one trade may cost, and how far the exit will sit. Five you read off the platform: the account currency, the leverage figure, units in a lot for your symbol, the smallest size it accepts, and the spread showing right now. Nothing on the list is a forecast, and nothing on it requires a deposit.

Minute by minute

  1. Before opening anything: write two lines

    «One trade may cost me ___» in money, and «I will be at a screen for ___ hours». Both are facts about you, not about markets, and both are far easier to write honestly before a chart is in front of you.

  2. Open a practice account and find two windows

    Account details, and the symbol specification for one instrument. Between them sit all five lookups. Copy them exactly — including the currency and the decimals — rather than paraphrasing.

  3. Type the smallest size the ticket accepts

    Do not confirm. Read what the ticket says will be held aside, and write it next to your lookups. That single figure ties four of them together and is the fastest way to notice one of them is wrong.

  4. Double the size, then read the same figure again

    It should double exactly. If it does not, stop and re-read the lookups — an amount that fails to scale means one of them is not what you think it is.

  5. Subtract the two quotes

    Their difference is the spread, in the same units your stop distance will be measured in. Write it down with the time — it moves during the session, and knowing roughly where it sits at the hours you keep is worth more than any average.

  6. Close the platform and finish on paper

    With line 1 and a distance you would actually use, run the division on the calculator and compare it with the smallest size the ticket accepts. Whatever gap appears is the real starting point of everything else.

Two decisions, five lookups — and why the difference matters

Beginners usually treat all seven as facts to be discovered, then feel stuck when two of them cannot be found anywhere. They cannot be found because nobody else has them: the amount at stake and the exit distance are yours, and every figure a platform prints downstream simply obeys them.

Line on the sheetYours or the platform's?Changes how often
Money one trade may costYoursRarely — it follows your budget
Distance to the exitYoursEvery idea
Account currencyPlatformAlmost never
Leverage figurePlatformOnly if the account changes
Units in one lotContractPer symbol
Smallest size and stepPlatformPer symbol
Spread right nowMarketContinuously

Read the right-hand column before the middle one. Four lines are written once and re-used for months; two change with every idea; one is never worth writing down without a timestamp beside it.

What to deliberately leave blank

There is no line on this sheet for what to trade, when to trade it, or how much it might return. Those are not lookups and not decisions the arithmetic can support — leaving them off is what keeps the sheet honest. A sheet that quietly grows a «target» column has stopped being a record of inputs and started being a forecast.

What a finished sheet does not buy

  • A profitable month. Trading carries a high risk of losing money, and nobody can promise otherwise.
  • A correct exit level. The distance is yours; a poor one produces a perfectly calculated poor size.
  • Certainty about the fill. Fast conditions can settle a position past the level it was placed at.
  • Permanence. Lookups belong to one account and one symbol; both change, and the sheet has to follow.
Can the whole sitting be done without depositing?

Yes. Every one of the five lookups reads the same on a free practice account, and no order has to be confirmed.

What if I have no idea what to write on line 1?

Write the largest amount you could hand over today without your month changing, then halve it. It is a budget question, not a trading one.

Which lookup is most often copied wrong?

Units in one lot — usually taken from a currency pair and applied to a different instrument class.

Why write the spread down with a time?

Because it moves through the session. A figure without a timestamp cannot be compared with anything later.

The reserved amount did not double when I doubled the size. Now what?

Re-read the leverage figure and units per lot before going further — one of them is not the number you wrote down.

How long before the sheet needs redoing?

When the symbol or the account changes. Your two decision lines outlive both.

Is thirty minutes really enough?

For the sheet, yes. Becoming quick at using it takes longer, and costs nothing extra on a practice account.

What should the sitting end with?

Seven written lines and one gap: the difference between the size your division wants and the smallest size the ticket accepts.

One page per line

The two decisions

Turning an accepted amount into a size, and rounding the answer.

The five lookups

Which window each one lives in, and who publishes it.

See the collection sheet

The gap at the end

What to do when the wanted size is smaller than the smallest allowed.

Run the calculator

Do the whole sitting on virtual money.

A free demo carries the same windows, the same quotes and the same reserved amounts, with nothing to send and no time limit.

Open a free demo at Exness