In short. The goal of the first month is not profit but a process you can scale later: a demo or a small live account, no more than 1% risk per trade, a stop on every trade, a written plan and a journal with every trade in it. After 30 days you look not at the result in money but at how many trades followed the plan and which mistakes cost the most. Below is a week-by-week plan with links to detailed guides.
Week 1. Platform and demo account
- Choose a platform — almost always MetaTrader 5 to start: «MT4 vs MT5».
- Open a demo account with a broker or right from the terminal: «File» → «Open an Account». The money on a demo is not real — mistakes here are free. Step by step — in «How to use MetaTrader 5».
- Learn to open a trade with a stop loss and take profit right away and to change them: «How to set a stop loss in MT5».
- Understand margin and stop out — before your first real trade: «Margin, leverage, margin call and stop out».
Week 2. Risk and plan
- Risk no more than 1% of the account per trade, 0.5% at the start is fine: «The 1% rule».
- Size from the stop, not by eye: the lot size calculator.
- Write a plan: which instruments, at what hours, which setup, where the stop and target are, when you do not trade. Session hours are in «Forex trading sessions». A template is in «Trading plan: template and checklist».
- Set yourself a limit: for example, at most three trades a day and stop for the day after two losses.
Week 3. A journal for every trade
Record not only entry and exit but why you entered, whether it followed the plan, what you felt and which mistake you made. In a month exactly this shows what gets in the way. You can start with a free Excel template or go straight to an automatic journal — «How to keep a trading journal in MT5».
Week 4. The first review
| What to look at | Why |
|---|---|
| How many trades followed the plan, how many did not | the key number of the first month is discipline, not profit |
| Repeated mistakes and their cost | often one or two repeated mistakes eat most of the result |
| Average win and average loss | shows whether you cut winners short or sit on losers |
| Trades after a loss | a sign of revenge trading — «Tilt and overtrading» |
Profit factor and expectancy mean little on 20–30 trades, but it is worth tracking them from day one — «How to evaluate a trading strategy».
When to move to a live account
- most trades of the month followed the plan and had a stop;
- risk per trade never exceeded the limit;
- after losses you do not double the size or open trades «to get even»;
- the money on the account is money you can afford to lose.
Start with a small account and the same risk in percent: real money changes decisions, and you need to go through that too.
How Davinchu helps — for free
- The journal fills itself. Connect a demo or live MetaTrader account with a read-only EA — trades flow into the journal, you mark the setup, emotions and mistake.
- A plan and a daily checklist in «Strategy», a «Trading plan» with a strategy compliance check.
- «Review» shows what breaking the plan cost, and a tilt alert arrives when too many trades close within an hour or the size grows after losses.
- The Free plan has two accounts, a journal, a trading plan and two AI reviews a month. The T-Manager risk manager, which closes new entries through its panel at the daily limit by itself, comes with Plus at $9 a month.
More on «Davinchu for beginner traders».