# How to Start Trading: What You Need and Costs · DT Academy > What you need before a first live trade: broker, platform, charts, a journal and money you can afford to lose, plus the easy to miss costs. [Back to The DT Intensive](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy/courses/dt-intensive) Day 1What you need to start, and the costs Chapters done # What you need to start, and the costs Day 01 of 26 · 7 min read · By DT Terminal Before a first live trade you need a broker account, a trading platform, charts, a way to record every trade and money you can afford to lose. This lesson covers what each one is and what it costs, from spreads and commissions to overnight swaps, and the costs that are easy to miss. Chapter 1 of 7 ## Five things before your first trade You need five things: **charts** to plan the trade, a **broker account** to place it, a **record** of every trade, a **device with a stable connection**, and **time** plus **money you can afford to lose**. The setup: plan, place, record, repeat TradingView 01 Charts TradingView Read price and plan the trade. Free to start place 02 Broker MT5 account Place the trade, on a free demo first sync 03 Record DT Terminal Every trade comes in from the broker, never typed Broker-Verified review, then plan the next trade You can also chart inside MT5 itself, so a separate charting account is a choice, not a requirement. A live account syncs as Broker-Verified; a demo syncs too, but never counts as verified. They work as a loop: plan on the chart, place at the broker, record the trade, review it, then plan the next one. **Nothing here needs money on day one.** Charts, MT5, a demo account and DT Terminal are all free to start. **A live deposit waits until you have practised**. Chapter 2 of 7 ## Charts, and a record you can verify **Charts.** Most traders learn on TradingView, and **the free plan is enough to start**. A planned trade has three prices on the chart: the entry, the stop and the target. DT Terminal Charts EURUSD · H1 A long on EURUSD with its entry, stop and target. Example 01 below sizes this trade. **A record.** Write down every trade. **The strongest record is one the broker writes**: sync the account and every trade comes in as it happened, with nothing left out or edited later. Your record, from your word to proof 1. Step 1 Unverified You type the trades in 2. Step 2 Demo · Synced A demo account syncs, nothing at stake 3. Step 3 Broker-Verified A live account syncs its real fills 4. Step 4 Payout-Verified A payout, confirmed by a person The step names are the ones DT Terminal shows on a record. A demo account syncs real trades with nothing at stake, so it never counts as verified. DT Terminal is free to start, and this course needs nothing more. [See plans and prices](https://www.thedtterminal.com/pricing). **Go deeper** TradingView's paid plans start from roughly $15 a month, less if you pay yearly. They add more indicators per chart, more charts per layout and more alerts. You only need one when the free limits get in your way. A spreadsheet can hold the same columns, and that is its weakness: every cell can be changed after the fact, and a trade you would rather forget can simply never be entered. A synced record has no such gap, which is what lets it prove, to you, a prop firm or anyone else, that you followed your plan. Chapter 3 of 7 ## A broker account, demo first A **broker** holds your money and fills your orders through a free platform, usually **MetaTrader 5** (MT5). Open a **demo account** first: live prices, virtual money, nothing at risk. A live account can fill a little worse than a demo, especially around news. [Day 7](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy/placing-your-first-trade) walks through a first demo trade. What each trade costs you Paid on every trade Spread, paid on every trade Every trade Near 1 pip or less on EURUSD Commission Per lot Compare it with the spread, never alone Swap Held overnight A small cost, sometimes a credit, past the daily rollover Money in and out Deposits and withdrawals Deposit, withdrawal and currency conversion fees Choose one that is **licensed** by a regulator such as the FCA, ASIC or CySEC, is on that regulator's register, and runs MT5 on desktop, in a browser and on your phone. **Go deeper** **Check the register yourself** rather than trusting a logo on the broker's site: search the firm's name and licence number on the regulator's own website, and make sure the web address listed there is the one you are on. In the US, retail forex is regulated by the CFTC and the NFA and CFDs are not offered to retail traders, so the choice there is narrower. Spread, commission and swap are worked through with numbers in [Day 4](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy/how-to-choose-your-risk#costs). The costs that catch new traders out are the smaller ones: an **inactivity fee** on an account left unused for months, a **withdrawal fee**, and a **currency conversion** on every deposit when your bank's currency is not the account's. Every one of them is on the broker's fee and terms pages. A demo has no real order to fill, so around news and in quiet markets a live account can fill a little worse than the demo did. That gap is called **slippage**. Chapter 4 of 7 ## A device, a connection and time **A device.** MT5 runs on Windows, Mac, the web and your phone. **A connection.** Home broadband is enough, with the broker's app on your phone as a backup. A stop loss and take profit set in MT5 sit on the broker's server, so they keep working if you go offline. **A trailing stop does not**: it runs in your terminal. **Time.** Expect **a few hours a day** early on, replaying sessions in the backtester and watching the session you trade. [Day 5](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy/market-sessions) covers when each one runs. Chapter 5 of 7 ## How much money you need There is no single right amount. One line decides it: account size × risk % = dollars risked per trade. While you learn, **risk about 1% a trade and rarely more than 2%**. [Day 4](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy/how-to-choose-your-risk#risk-percentage) shows why. | Account size | At 0.5% | At 1% | At 2% | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | $500 | $2.50 | $5 | $10 | | $1,000 | $5 | $10 | $20 | | $5,000 | $25 | $50 | $100 | | $10,000 | $50 | $100 | $200 | Dollars risked on one trade that hits its stop. Small accounts trade small: $500 at 1% is $5 a trade, and while you learn that is the point. **Use only money you could lose completely**: not rent, not savings you need, **never borrowed money**. Start from Account size ($) Risk per trade Risked on each trade $10 10 losses in a row -$100 A losing run of 10 costs 10% of the starting balance at this risk. **What $5 a trade buys** On `EURUSD` the smallest size, 0.01 lots, is worth $0.10 a pip, so $5 covers a stop of up to 50 pips. With a 20 pip stop, $5 ÷ (20 × $10) is 0.025 lots, which rounds down to 0.02 and risks $4. Real money, real fills, and small. Chapter 6 of 7 ## Work back from the dollars Most people start from a dollar figure. Turn the line round: dollars per trade ÷ risk % = account needed. Example 01 ### What $25 a trade takes | Risk per trade | Account needed | | --- | --- | | 1% | 25 ÷ 0.01 = $2,500 | | 2% | 25 ÷ 0.02 = $1,250 | Same lot size either way: 0.10 lots on a 25 pip stop. But ten losses in a row, $250, is 10% of the first account and 20% of the second. Short of the account you need? **Risk fewer dollars on the one you have**, or look at a prop firm evaluation ([Day 25](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy/prop-firms-and-brokers)). Check the arithmetic in Calculators In the Position Size calculator, enter a $2,500 balance, 1% risk, entry 1.08500 and stop 1.08250 on `EURUSD`. It should land on 0.10 lots. **A bigger example, and prop firms** Example 02 ### A trader who wants $100 a trade | Risk per trade | Account needed | | --- | --- | | 0.5% | $20,000 | | 1% | $10,000 | | 2% | $5,000 | On a `EURUSD` trade with a 20 pip stop, from 1.08500 down to 1.08300, $100 ÷ (20 × $10) is 0.50 lots. In a prop firm evaluation you pay a fee to trade the firm's account under its rules, such as a daily loss limit and a maximum drawdown. Pass, and you trade its capital for a share of the profit. On a $10,000 evaluation, 1% is $100 a trade. The fee is gone if you break a rule, and many traders do, so it is **a cost to weigh rather than a shortcut**. Chapter 7 of 7 ## Your first month and a starter checklist Example 03 ### A first month on the free tiers | Item | Choice | Cost, month one | | --- | --- | --- | | Charts | TradingView free plan | $0 | | Record | A free DT Terminal account | $0 | | Broker | Demo account | $0 | | Platform | MT5, free from the broker | $0 | | Device and internet | The ones you already have | $0 | | **Total** | | **$0** | A paid TradingView plan makes it roughly $15. A live deposit is **capital**, not a cost: it stays yours unless you lose it. Work through the list in order. Most of it takes an evening. Starter checklist 0 of 8 ready Quick review ## Check yourself Quick review · 0 of 0 [All lessons in The DT Intensive](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy/courses/dt-intensive) [Back to](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy) ## DT Academy [Next in Learn to trade](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy/how-to-read-candlesticks) ## How to read candlesticks Day 02 · 7 min read ## Try it on your own account Connect a broker and DT Terminal verifies every trade against it. Free to start. [Start free](https://www.thedtterminal.com/login?signup=true&from=academy&entry=closing_card&redirect=%2Fjournal%2Facademy) [Back to DT Academy](https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy) DT Academy is education, not financial advice. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell any instrument. Trading carries a high risk of losing money, and past results, examples and backtests do not guarantee future results. [Risk disclosure](https://www.thedtterminal.com/risk-disclosure) --- Risk disclosure: Futures, forex and options trading contains substantial risk and is not for every investor. An investor could potentially lose all or more than the initial investment. Risk capital is money that can be lost without jeopardizing one's financial security or lifestyle. Only risk capital should be used for trading and only those with sufficient risk capital should consider trading. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. [Read the full risk disclosure](https://www.thedtterminal.com/legal/risk-disclosure). This is the Markdown version of https://www.thedtterminal.com/academy/what-you-need-to-start. [Home](https://www.thedtterminal.com/) · [Verification](https://www.thedtterminal.com/verification) · [Pricing](https://www.thedtterminal.com/pricing) · [Supported brokers](https://www.thedtterminal.com/supported-brokers) · [Rankings](https://www.thedtterminal.com/rankings) · [About](https://www.thedtterminal.com/about) · [llms.txt](https://www.thedtterminal.com/llms.txt)