How to Place and Close a Trade

You've learned what stocks and currencies are, and how markets work underneath. Now let's walk through the actual screen in front of you — exactly what each button and field does when you place a real trade.

The trade ticket — what you'll actually see

Every broker's app looks slightly different, but almost all of them show you the same core fields before you confirm a trade. Here's a typical layout:

Each field, explained

Buy or Sell — Buy means you expect the price to rise; Sell (sometimes called "short") means you expect it to fall. Beginners typically start with Buy only.

Order Type — Market or Limit, covered back in your Beginner lessons: Market executes immediately at the current price; Limit waits for your chosen price.

Quantity — how many shares (or how large a forex lot, from your Forex Beginner lessons) you're trading.

Stop Loss — the price at which the trade automatically closes to limit your loss if the market moves against you. This is not optional for responsible trading — always set one.

Take Profit — the price at which the trade automatically closes to lock in a gain, so you don't need to watch the screen constantly.

Closing a trade

A trade closes in one of three ways: it hits your Stop Loss automatically, it hits your Take Profit automatically, or you manually close it yourself at any time by selecting "Close Position" on that trade — useful if your thinking has genuinely changed, not just because of a nervous moment.

Once closed, the difference between your entry price and exit price — multiplied by your quantity — is your actual profit or loss on that trade.