How to start trading in 2026: 7 steps on a real exchange
Most people start trading by asking how much they can make. A better question is: how not to lose money before you learn to read the market. In a large study of day traders in Brazil (Chague et al., 2020), 97% of people who traded for more than 300 days lost money. Not because trading is impossible, but because they started with a deposit rather than a process.
Below are seven steps I would go through myself if I were starting from zero today. I trade Dow Jones futures on CME and show it live every day, so I describe the steps on this market. The principles are the same for everyone.
| Step | What you do | How long |
|---|---|---|
| 1–2 | choosing a market and learning its contract specifications | 1–2 weeks |
| 3–4 | one market, observation and the basics of reading the market | 1–2 months |
| 5–6 | simulation, journal, risk rules | at least 1–3 months |
| 7 | learning live the whole time | ongoing |
1. Choose a real market, not a broker's product
The first decision shapes everything else. A CFD is a contract with a broker who sets the price and is often the other side of your trade. A futures contract is an exchange-traded instrument: one central order book on CME in Chicago, real volume and clearing through a clearing house.
I explain the difference in the article Exchange or CFD broker. The EU regulator ESMA requires CFD brokers to disclose how many clients lose money: typically 74–89%.
2. Understand exactly what you are trading
Before you open a chart, you need to know the contract specifications: how much a point is worth, what the margin is, when the contract expires and how you roll to the next one. On the Micro E-mini Dow (MYM) 1 point is worth USD 0.50, and a typical regular trading hours (RTH) session has a range of several hundred points.
Further reading: futures contract, margin and leverage, contract rollover. A warning against extremes: 1:1000 leverage.
3. One market, one session
Beginners jump between gold, Bitcoin, currencies and stocks. Every market has different hours, different liquidity and a different character. Choose one instrument and one time of day, then watch it every day.
On the Dow Jones most of the action happens at the open: in 82.1% of sessions the high or low of the day formed in the first hour (9:30–10:30 AM New York, 3:30–4:30 PM Warsaw). Hours in Poland: trading hours.
4. Learn to read the market before you try to predict it
The market is an auction: buyers and sellers search for a price at which trade will happen. The basics are sessions and their ranges, VWAP, volume profile, and then order flow: who was aggressive and who absorbed their orders.
You can read the first lesson of the course for free: the market as an auction. Numbers instead of myths are in the Dow Jones statistics.
5. Simulation and a journal on real data
Before you risk money, practise on a simulator with real exchange data and write down every decision. Without a journal, after a month you remember a few emotional trades, not the patterns that decide your results.
How to do it: trading journal and training on replays.
6. Risk rules in writing, before the session
You write the rules when you are calm, not in the middle of a trade. How much you can lose at most on one trade, in a day and in a week, when you stop for the day, what you never do (e.g. adding to a losing position). You set the numbers yourself, depending on your capital and experience.
I have collected the most common thinking traps in the Atlas of mistakes and in the 65 mistakes card (PDF).
7. Learn from someone who shows their work live
A chart with a perfect entry drawn after the fact teaches nothing. What teaches is watching how an experienced trader reads the market in real time: what they plan before the session, when they stay out of a trade, how they react to data and how they review the day after the close.
That is why every day I run a Dow Jones live stream: free in a limited version, with the full toolset in the Club.
What to avoid at the start
- ready-made trade calls on Telegram and “guaranteed profits” – an example: paid gold trading groups
- trading real money without written risk rules
- jumping between strategies every week
- judging yourself by a few days' results instead of by your process
How long it takes
The honest answer: months, not days. It is worth treating the first three months as learning: fundamentals, market context and process. Only when you have applied your rules in simulation for several weeks and have it recorded in your journal does a small, real position make sense. More on getting started in day trading: Day trading: how to start sensibly.
Frequently asked questions
Where should a beginner start trading?
By choosing a real, regulated market and learning its contract specifications, then by watching one instrument every day and practising in simulation with a journal. Funding an account is the last step, not the first.
How much money do you need to start trading?
Learning and simulation require no trading capital. On a real market, small micro contracts (e.g. on the Dow Jones, USD 0.50 per point) let you start with less risk than full-size contracts, but you need to check the required margin and risk with your broker.
Can you learn trading on your own?
The basics, yes, but that is the slowest way. You learn fastest by combining knowledge with watching an experienced trader work live and with your own journal.
CFDs or futures to start with?
Futures on a regulated exchange: one order book, real volume and a price the broker does not set. A CFD is a contract with a broker.
Educational material, not investment advice. Trading futures involves a high risk of losing capital.