Every trader, no matter how advanced, came through these fundamentals. Get them right and the rest of trading becomes much easier.
Order types
Market orders fill at the best available price right now. Limit orders only fill at a specified price or better. Stop orders trigger market orders once a level is hit. Trailing stops follow price by a set distance.
Leverage and margin
Leverage lets you control a position larger than your cash balance. Margin is the cash set aside to support that position. Leverage cuts both ways: it amplifies gains and losses equally.
Reading a candlestick chart
Each candle shows the open, high, low, and close of a period. Bullish candles close above their open; bearish ones close below. Patterns of candles tell you about the balance between buyers and sellers.
Pips, lots, and contract size
A pip is the smallest standard price move (0.0001 in most FX pairs). A standard lot is 100,000 units of the base currency. Most brokers also support mini (0.1) and micro (0.01) lots.