Start with the fundamentals, then put them to work with the free calculators.
FxPro offers gold with competitive spreads, MT4/MT5 and -friendly funding for traders in Australia.
Trade gold on FxPro →Start with the mechanics before the market view: what a lot is, how a pip is counted, and how margin works. Gold is 100 oz per standard lot with a pip of 0.01, so the numbers are large and mistakes are expensive. Learn position sizing and risk per trade first, then study what moves XAU/USD.
There is no universal figure, but the risk you take should be small enough that a run of losses does not change your decisions. What it depends on is your account size, the distance to your stop and your tolerance for drawdown. Decide the dollar risk first, then use the position size calculator to derive the lot size.
A demo account is useful for learning the platform and practising order types, but it does not reproduce the pressure of real money. Use it to rehearse entries, stops and position sizing until the mechanics are automatic. Then move to a small live size so your risk is real but survivable while you learn.
Learn that leverage is a cap on borrowing, not a target. At 1:200, a 0.10-lot gold position needs about $85.50 margin, but margin is not your risk; the stop distance and lot size decide that. Use the margin calculator to see the requirement, then size the trade from your risk budget instead.
Record the reason for the trade, the entry, the stop, the target and the outcome, then review the entries weekly rather than daily. What makes a journal useful is comparing your plan against what you did, not counting wins. Patterns in your own mistakes show up faster than any new indicator.
