[Basics] [Start here] How to read the Guides (10-minute overview)

If you're new to automated and copy trading, a flood of unfamiliar words hits you at once: MT5, CFD, broker, prop firm… Here's how they fit together.

• You place orders with a program called MT5
• MT5 sends your orders to a broker (a company like a stock brokerage), which fills them in the market
• If MT5 places orders by rules instead of you clicking, that's automated trading (an EA)
• If your account mirrors a skilled trader's trades, that's copy trading
• If you pass an evaluation to trade the company's money instead of yours, that's a prop firm

Basics (recommended order)

1. What is MT5 (MetaTrader 5)?
2. What is a broker? How to pick a good one
3. What is a CFD? Investing in gold without buying gold
4. What are CME futures? How they differ from CFDs
5. Lots, leverage, margin and stop-out in one go
6. Hidden costs: spread, commission, swap, slippage
7. What is an EA (trading bot)?
8. What is copy trading?
9. What is a prop firm?
10. Regulated vs offshore brokers: how to check a license

How-to

• Your first 3 months roadmap
• 7 steps to choose a trader to copy
• Copy settings in practice: splitting money and when to stop
• First 30 days running an EA: a checklist
• Passing a prop firm challenge with numbers
• Gold (XAUUSD) session map: when it moves and when to stay out
• Scam checklist

Use the Basics or How-to tags at the top of the Guides board to see only those posts. If you hit a word you don't know, just ask in Q&A.