Learn the Markets

The foreign-exchange market — trading one currency against another (e.g. EUR/USD). It's the largest, most liquid market in the world, open 24 hours a day, five days a week.

You trade currency PAIRS: buying one currency while selling the other. Prices move in tiny increments (pips). It's traded almost entirely with leverage through brokers, mostly via CFDs or spot FX — you never take delivery of the currency.

Shares of ownership in a public company. Owning a share means owning a small piece of that business.

Bought and sold on exchanges (NYSE, Nasdaq, LSE) during market hours. You can own shares outright (and may receive dividends), or trade their price movement with CFDs/derivatives. Prop-firm and retail traders often trade the most liquid large-caps and ETFs.

Physical raw materials — metals, energy, and agricultural goods. Split into 'hard' (mined/extracted, like gold and oil) and 'soft' (grown, like wheat and coffee).

Traded mainly through futures contracts (an agreement to buy/sell at a set price and date), plus CFDs and ETFs that track the price. Most speculators close out before delivery — they trade the price, not the barrels.

A basket that measures the performance of a group of stocks — a single number representing a whole market or sector. Trading an index is a bet on the broad market rather than one company.

You can't buy an index directly; you trade it via index futures, CFDs, or index-tracking ETFs. Popular with traders because one instrument gives broad exposure and deep liquidity.

Digital assets that run on blockchain networks, traded 24/7 with no central exchange. Highly volatile.

Bought/sold on crypto exchanges (spot), or traded with leverage via CFDs and perpetual futures. Volatility is far higher than traditional markets — risk management matters more, not less.

Debt instruments — a loan to a government or company that pays interest. Government-bond yields underpin the price of almost everything else.

Traded directly or, for most speculators, via futures and ETFs on bond prices or interest-rate expectations. Often used to gauge risk sentiment ('risk-on' vs 'risk-off').