A worksheet, not a lesson

Four lines to write down before you open anything (Pakistan)

This page asks four questions and does not answer any of them. The answers are yours, they take about five minutes, and every later decision on this site turns out to depend on them.

Write four lines on paper: the symbol you mean to trade, the number of nights you mean to hold it, the amount you could lose entirely, and the sentence you would send to support if something looked wrong. Nothing here needs a screen, a deposit or an account — and skipping it is why people open an account that changes nothing for them.

Line one — the symbol, exactly as it is spelled

Write: the instrument you actually intend to trade, in the form a platform would print it.

What it decides later: nearly everything, because this is the unit that questions about eligibility are asked in. A category is not an answer to that question and a screenshot is not either.

You are done when: the line has one symbol on it, not a list and not a theme.

Line two — the number of nights

Write: how long a typical position of yours is meant to stay open, in nights.

What it decides later: whether the subject of this whole site applies to you at all. Zero nights is a legitimate answer and it means the rest is background reading.

You are done when: the number came from what you actually do, not from what you would like to do.

Line three — the amount

Write: a sum you could watch disappear without your month changing.

What it decides later: the size of every position, which decides the size of every loss. No account setting touches this line.

You are done when: the figure was set away from a screen and has not moved since.

Line four — the sentence you would send

Write: one sentence naming what happened, on which account, and what you expected instead.

What it decides later: how many round trips a question costs. A sentence written before anything goes wrong is far better shaped than one written afterwards.

You are done when: it is one sentence with one question in it.

What the four lines do together

Read as a group they say whether an account setting is worth arranging, and what it would have to do to earn its place. Line two says whether anything is being charged nightly in the first place. Line one says where an answer about eligibility would have to be sought. Line three says what the stakes are regardless. Line four says how you will find out when something disagrees with all of that.

People who skip the worksheet usually arrive at the same conclusions eventually — after opening an account, sending money and reading a statement that behaved as it was always going to.

The line this worksheet leaves blank

Whether trading is permissible for you is not one of the four, and it is not a question this handbook has any standing to put on a list. It is personal and scholarly, and many traders take it to a qualified scholar. A broker supplies a product option and no ruling.

CFDs are complex instruments, trading is risky and may not be suitable for everyone; many people lose money when they start.

Questions about the worksheet itself

Line two came out as zero nights. Should I stop reading?

Not stop — just read differently. The subject stops being a decision and becomes background.

Can the four lines be filled in after opening an account?

They can, and often are. The cost of doing it in that order is that one of the choices on the form has no undo.

Does anybody need to see these answers?

Only line one and line four ever leave your notes, and only if you ask the broker something.

What if line one changes next month?

Then the eligibility question is new as well. That is the honest reason it is a line rather than an assumption.

Keep going

Line two, taken seriously

What a hold across the night actually collects.

Line three, turned into a size

Three fields and a carry sheet.

Work it out

Line four, sent to the right place

Three kinds of question, three answerers.

Route it

Line two can be tested rather than guessed

A free demo runs on virtual money with no time limit — a fortnight of it says more about how long you really hold positions than any estimate. The button is a partner link to the official exness.com sign-up page.

Open a free demo at Exness