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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Left side, right side

Every trading word sits on one side of an equals sign — Pakistan

Definitions alone leave a beginner unable to say why a figure changed. Sorting the same vocabulary by its place in a sum does: three words are typed in, four are fixed before anyone arrives, and the rest are results that had to come out the way they did.

Trading vocabulary looks like a flat list and is not. Each term is an input somebody chooses, a constant written into the contract for a symbol, or an output that a platform computes from those two. Knowing which of the three a word is answers the only question a beginner really has about it — what makes this number move.

Three shelves, and the test that sorts them

Point at the word on your screen and ask: could I change this by typing? If yes, it is an input. If no, ask whether it would read the same for every person trading that symbol today. If yes, it is a contract constant. If neither — if it moved because something else did — it is an output, and its explanation lives in the two shelves above it.

Shelf one: words you type

The wordWhat it isWhat it feeds
Volume, size, lotsHow much of the instrument the order is for, in lotsNearly every output on the screen — this is the master input
Direction (buy / sell)Which way the position gainsThe sign in front of the running result, and which overnight figure applies
Stop-loss, take-profitTwo prices at which the position closes itselfThe worst case and the target — never the reserved amount
Risk per tradeA share of the balance you agree to put at stake, decided before the platform opensThe size, once you divide it by the stop distance

Four words, and only the first of them is a number the platform will argue with. The practice calculator takes the last two and returns the first.

Shelf two: words the contract fixed before you arrived

The wordWhere it is written downWhy it cannot be typed
Contract sizeThe symbol's contract details — one lot of a currency pair is 100,000 units of the first currencyIt defines what «a lot» of that symbol means; changing it would change the instrument
Pip, pointThe smallest step the price is quoted in, such as 1.1000 to 1.1001The quotation belongs to the market, and every screen reads the same step
Minimum step in sizeThe account details — trades on a Standard account stop at 0.01 lotsIt is a floor on the input, not an input itself
Leverage figureThe account detailsIt is a divisor applied to the position, chosen at the account level rather than per ticket
Overnight rate for a symbolQuoted per symbol, visible before the order is placedIt is a rate; what you supply is only how many nights it is multiplied by

Constants are the shelf beginners skip, and the skip is expensive: an output that came out surprising was almost always computed against a constant nobody had read. What a CFD is covers where these details are published.

Shelf three: words the platform computes

The wordMade fromMoves when
Position valueLots × contract size × priceThe size is changed, or the price does
Pip value in moneyThe price step × the units behind the sizeThe size changes, or the symbol does
Reserved marginPosition value ÷ the leverage figureSize, price or leverage change — the margin page works the division out
Spread costThe gap between the two quoted prices × the units behind the sizeThe gap widens or the size grows
Running resultDistance travelled from the opening price × pip value, with the direction's signContinuously, while the position is open
Free amountWhat would be left if all closed now, minus what is reservedEither of those two does
Overnight chargeThe symbol's rate × nights held × sizeA position crosses the daily rollover

Seven outputs, and not one of them has an independent life. Every complaint that begins «why is this number…» ends on shelf one or shelf two.

Words on none of the shelves

A few terms describe the arrangement rather than the arithmetic, and no sum contains them: broker, the company carrying out the orders and holding the balance they run on (its own page); execution, the moment between the click and the opening; verification, the identity check on a funded account; Negative Balance Protection, which caps a loss at the amount deposited. Learn them once — no input reaches them.

CFDs are complex products. Trading is risky and may not be suitable for everyone.

A drill: rebuild one output from its shelves

  1. Pick a computed figure and copy it down

    Any of the seven. On a practice ticket, the reserved amount is the easiest to see change.

  2. Name its inputs before touching anything

    Two or three, never more. If you cannot name them, the word was learned as a definition rather than as a position in a sum.

  3. Change exactly one input

    Double the size. Predict out loud what happens to the figure, then look.

  4. Explain any surprise with a constant, not with the platform

    A figure that refused to double points at a contract detail that was never read. Reading a chart shows where the price half of it comes from.

What this sorting cannot do

It removes one class of confusion — believing a computed figure decided something on its own — and touches nothing else. No shelf says whether a trade is worth taking, where a level belongs, or when to stop for the day. Those are decisions, and decisions are not outputs. Past performance is not an indication of future results.

This site is an independent beginner guide, not a broker: it opens no accounts, holds no money and takes no documents.

Questions about the three shelves

Which single word is on the left of the most sums?

Size. Position value, pip value, spread cost, reserved margin and the overnight charge all multiply it.

Is the spread an input, a constant or an output?

The gap is a constant of the market at that moment; what it costs you is an output, because the size multiplies it.

Two figures moved together after one change. Is one causing the other?

More often both share an input. Doubling the size doubles several outputs at once without any of them touching the rest.

A figure did not move when the size did. What does that mean?

It is not an output of size. The price step and the leverage figure both behave that way — they are shelf two.

Where does the risk-per-trade rule sit?

Shelf one, and it is the only input decided away from the screen. The platform never asks for it.

Why is the stop-loss listed as an input when the market decides whether it is reached?

Because the number is typed. What happens afterwards is an event, not a term in a sum.

Which shelf explains a figure that is different on another symbol?

Shelf two, almost always the contract size. Same lots, different units behind them.

Do these shelves change on a practice account?

No. The arithmetic is identical; only the money behind it is virtual — see the demo account page.

Which word do beginners most often file on the wrong shelf?

Margin. It reads like something spent, which would make it an input; it is a result of the size and a divisor, which makes it an output.

Is any of this worth memorising?

The shelves are. The definitions come back on their own once you know which side of the equals sign a word lives on — more beginner questions, or ask on the Help page.

The sorting proves itself on one open ticket.

A free demo carries live prices and virtual money, with no time limit. Open the order window, change the size box and nothing else, and watch which words move — that is the whole lesson, in about a minute. Demo results don't guarantee real-account results.

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