# The Forex Daily Playbook A personal operating manual for trading the 7 major currency pairs for daily income. Written 2026-09-23. Plain English, no hype. --- ## 1. The truth up front Read this first, because everything else in this document only works if you accept it. There is no set of moves, amounts, or timestamps that guarantees a daily profit in forex. Not from me, not from anyone. The market does not run on a schedule. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. Most retail day traders lose money. That is not a scare line, it is the documented base rate, and the number-one reason is not bad strategy. It is bad risk management: too much size, no stop, no daily loss limit, revenge trading after a loss. Your edge is not prediction. Your edge is process plus risk control: - The same routine every morning. - Every trade written down before you take it: pair, direction, why, where you enter, where you are wrong, how much you risk. - Risk per trade so small that ten losing trades in a row is an annoyance, not a disaster. - A hard daily stop: when you hit your loss limit, you are done for the day. No exceptions. If you follow this playbook for a month on a demo account and you are not green, you do not trade real money. That rule is not negotiable. --- ## 2. How spot forex actually works **Pairs.** You always trade one currency against another. EUR/USD = how many US dollars one euro buys. The first currency is the base, the second is the quote. If EUR/USD rises, the euro is strengthening (or the dollar is weakening). **Long and short.** Going long EUR/USD means buying euros and selling dollars, betting the pair rises. Going short means the reverse. Unlike stocks, shorting is built in and costs nothing extra. Roughly half your trades will be shorts. Get comfortable with that. **Pips.** A pip is the standard unit of price movement. For most pairs it is the fourth decimal place (0.0001). For yen pairs it is the second decimal place (0.01). If EUR/USD moves from 1.1393 to 1.1493, that is 100 pips. **Lots and pip values.** A standard lot is 100,000 units of the base currency. A mini lot is 10,000. A micro lot is 1,000. Most beginners should live in micro lots. Pip value per standard lot, at roughly today's prices: - EUR/USD, GBP/USD, AUD/USD, NZD/USD (dollar is the quote currency): 1 pip = $10 per standard lot, $1 per mini, $0.10 per micro. - USD/JPY at 158.27: 1 pip = 1,000 yen = about $6.30 per standard lot, about $0.63 per mini, about $0.06 per micro. - USD/CHF at 0.8247: 1 pip = 10 francs = about $12.10 per standard lot, about $1.21 per mini, about $0.12 per micro. - USD/CAD at 1.4099: 1 pip = 10 Canadian dollars = about $7.10 per standard lot, about $0.71 per mini, about $0.07 per micro. Your broker's platform shows the exact pip value per trade. Always check it before sizing. **Leverage and margin.** A broker offering 50:1 leverage lets you control a $50,000 position with $1,000 of margin. That sounds like free money. It is the number-one account killer in retail forex. At 50:1, a 2% move against you wipes the account. Professionals think in risk per trade, not leverage used. Keep your effective leverage low: if your account is $1,000, your total open positions should rarely exceed $10,000–$20,000 in notional value (10–20:1 at most, and far less is fine). **Spread.** The difference between the buy price and the sell price. It is your cost of doing business, paid on every trade. Majors typically cost 1–3 pips in spread during liquid hours and much more during news spikes and thin Asian hours. Never trade in the seconds around a major news release: spreads widen and stops get slipped. **How retail trades.** You open an account with a regulated forex broker (in the US that means CFTC/NFA registered). You trade spot forex or CFDs on their platform. You are not buying physical currency; you are taking a leveraged position on the price. If you hold past 5pm ET, the broker credits or debits a rollover/swap based on the interest-rate differential between the two currencies. That is the carry trade in miniature, covered in section 5. --- ## 3. The 7 majors we track: what actually moves each one Our pipeline tracks seven pairs every day. Here is what drives each, with policy rates verified 2026-09-23. **EUR/USD — 1.1393.** The most liquid pair on earth. Driver: the Fed vs ECB policy gap. Right now the Fed funds rate is 3.75–4.00% (hiked Sept 16, 2026) and the ECB deposit rate is 2.50% (hiked Sept 10, 2026). That 1.375-point gap favors the dollar, all else equal. Watch: US CPI/jobs, eurozone inflation, ECB and Fed speakers. **GBP/USD — 1.3256.** "Cable." Driver: Bank of England vs Fed. BoE held at 3.75% on Sept 17 (6–3 vote, three members wanted a hike to 4%). The spread vs the dollar is nearly flat (+0.125pp to the dollar), so this pair trades more on data surprises and risk sentiment than on carry. Watch: UK CPI, wage data, BoE votes. **USD/JPY — 158.269.** The trend pair. Driver: the US–Japan rate gap, currently 2.625 points in the dollar's favor (Fed 3.875% midpoint vs BoJ 1.25%). The BoJ hiked to 1.25% on Sept 18 (7–2 vote, a 31-year high) and the yen still fell, because two dissenters sounded dovish. This pair also moves hard on risk sentiment: in a panic, money floods into yen and USD/JPY drops fast. Watch: BoJ speakers, US yields, any talk of intervention. **USD/CHF — 0.8247.** The safe-haven cross with the widest carry on the board. Driver: SNB policy vs Fed. The SNB is at 0.00% and expected to hold there at its Sept 24 decision (tomorrow), while the Fed sits at 3.75–4.00%. That +3.875-point spread is why this pair pays you the most to be long dollars. In a geopolitical shock, the franc strengthens violently as a safe haven, which is the risk to the carry. Watch: SNB decisions and any change in its FX-intervention language. **AUD/USD — 0.7041.** The commodity and China proxy. Driver: RBA vs Fed plus iron ore, copper, and Chinese data. The RBA is at 4.35% with a decision on Sept 29; all four major Australian banks expect a hike to 4.60%. Note the twist: Australian rates are HIGHER than US rates, so the carry actually favors being long AUD/USD (−0.475pp to the dollar). Watch: RBA decisions, Chinese PMIs, commodity prices. **USD/CAD — 1.4099.** The oil pair. Driver: Bank of Canada vs Fed plus crude prices. Canada exports oil, so high oil strengthens the loonie and pushes USD/CAD down. BoC held at 2.25% on Sept 2, but Governor Macklem is openly floating hikes if inflation stays near 3%. US–Canada tariff tensions are an extra wildcard right now. Watch: oil prices, BoC speakers, trade headlines. **NZD/USD — 0.5675.** The smaller commodity dollar. Driver: RBNZ vs Fed plus dairy prices and risk appetite. The RBNZ hiked to 2.75% on Sept 2 (Governor Breman) with inflation at 4.1%. Thinner liquidity than AUD, so it can move sharply. Watch: RBNZ decisions, dairy auction prices, global risk tone. The pattern: every pair is a story about two central banks and the gap between them. Learn the gap, and you understand the pair's gravity. The rest is timing. --- ## 4. Sessions: when to trade Forex trades 24 hours a day, five days a week, but volume is not evenly spread. Volume is opportunity; thin markets are where beginners get chopped up. - **Asian session (Tokyo): roughly 7pm–4am ET.** Quietest. JPY and AUD pairs move most. Spreads are wider. Not prime time for day trading unless you specifically trade yen news. - **London session: roughly 3am–12pm ET.** The heavyweight. Most daily volume, cleanest trends, tightest spreads on EUR, GBP, CHF pairs. - **New York session: roughly 8am–5pm ET.** Second-heaviest. US data drops at 8:30am ET and moves everything with USD in it. **The London–New York overlap, 8am–12pm ET, is prime time.** That four-hour window has the deepest liquidity, the tightest spreads, and the most reliable intraday trends. If you can only trade one window a day, trade that one. This is also when our morning routine (section 10) is designed to be executed: you do your homework before 8am ET and trade the overlap. What "daily profit" realistically means per session: on a normal day, a major pair moves roughly 0.5–1.5%. A good day trade captures a fraction of that, typically 20–60 pips on EUR/USD or GBP/USD. With proper risk sizing (section 8), a realistic good day is +1% to +3% on your account. Anyone promising 10% a day is describing a path to a blown account, just more slowly on the winning days. Do not trade the 30 minutes before and after major scheduled releases (US CPI, jobs, central-bank decisions) unless that IS your strategy and you understand event risk. Spreads triple, price jumps over stops. --- ## 5. Carry trades: getting paid to hold When you hold a forex position past 5pm ET, your broker pays or charges you the interest-rate difference between the two currencies. Buy the high-rate currency, sell the low-rate one, and you collect the spread every day you hold. Verified rate table, 2026-09-23 (policy rates; retail rollover will be a bit less than these raw gaps after the broker's cut): | Pair | Long direction that earns carry | Rate gap (approx) | |---|---|---| | USD/CHF | Long USD/CHF | +3.875pp (widest) | | USD/JPY | Long USD/JPY | +2.625pp | | USD/CAD | Long USD/CAD | +1.625pp | | EUR/USD | Short EUR/USD | +1.375pp | | NZD/USD | Short NZD/USD | +1.125pp | | GBP/USD | Short GBP/USD | +0.125pp (nearly flat) | | AUD/USD | Long AUD/USD | +0.475pp (Aussie rates higher) | How to use carry as a day trader: 1. **It is a tailwind, not a trade.** +3.875pp annualized is about 1.06 basis points per day. On a $10,000 position that is roughly $1 a day. You do not day-trade for the carry payment. You use the carry direction as a tiebreaker: when your technical setup is ambiguous, prefer the direction that pays you rather than charges you. 2. **It tells you where the big money leans.** Carry is the reason USD/CHF and USD/JPY have persistent upward drift when markets are calm. Funds borrow cheap (francs, yen) and buy high-yield assets. That flow supports the pair until risk sentiment breaks. 3. **The risk that kills carry trades: spot moves dwarf carry.** That $1-a-day payment means nothing if the pair drops 100 pips ($63 on a mini USD/JPY) in an hour on a risk scare. Carry traders get destroyed in exactly two situations: sudden risk-off panics (money floods back into funding currencies) and central-bank surprises that compress the rate gap. Never hold a carry position through a central-bank decision of either currency without a plan. 4. **Watch the calendar, not just the gap.** The gap is priced in; CHANGES in the gap move markets. RBA Sept 29 (hike to 4.60% widely expected) and SNB Sept 24 (hold at 0% expected) are the near-term gap events on our board. Rule of thumb: trade WITH the carry direction on calm days, cut carry positions before binary events, and never size a carry trade as if the daily payment protects you. It does not. --- ## 6. Reading COT: where the big money is standing The CFTC's Commitments of Traders report shows how different groups of traders are positioned in currency futures. Our pipeline pulls the Traders in Financial Futures (TFF) dataset every week. Here is how to read it. **The three groups that matter:** - **Dealers (banks).** They mostly hedge client flow. Informative, but not the signal. - **Asset Managers (pension funds, mutual funds).** Real money, slow-moving, trend-following. When they are heavily positioned one way, the trend is mature but real. - **Leveraged Money (hedge funds).** The fast money. This is the group our pipeline flags. When leveraged money piles to an extreme, it tells you where the speculative crowd is standing, which is exactly where the pain trade lives. **The three numbers to watch:** 1. **Net positioning** (longs minus shorts). Direction of the bet. 2. **Net as % of open interest.** Size of the bet relative to the market. A big net in a small market matters more. 3. **Percentile rank (1-year).** Is this positioning extreme versus its own history? 90th+ percentile = crowded. 4. **Week-over-week change.** Is the crowd still piling in, or starting to leave? A huge WoW add at an extreme percentile is the classic top signal. **How to use it as a contrarian:** crowded positioning does not predict timing, but it predicts vulnerability. When leveraged money is 100th-percentile long yen (like right now: net +23,170 contracts, 4.3% of open interest, +72,268 in a single week), the contrarian read is not "short yen immediately." It is: the long-yen trade is consensus, the fuel for further yen strength is mostly spent, and any surprise (a hawkish Fed speaker, a risk-on rally) can trigger a violent unwind. You do not fade the extreme blindly; you demand extra confirmation for trades WITH the crowd and you keep stops tighter, because crowded trades reverse fast. **What COT cannot do:** it will not give you an entry day. It is a weekly regime filter. Use it to answer "which direction is dangerous to chase?" not "what do I buy at 9:30am?" --- ## 7. Central-bank divergence: the trend engine The biggest, most tradeable moves in forex come from central banks moving in different directions. Right now the board is unusually clear: - **Hiking or hawkish:** Fed (3.75–4.00%, more hikes signaled), ECB (2.50%, more hikes priced), BoJ (1.25%, hiking cycle), RBA (4.35%, hike to 4.60% expected Sept 29), RBNZ (2.75%, more hikes possible). - **Holding:** BoE (3.75%, 6–3 vote, hawks pushing), BoC (2.25%, Macklem floating hikes), SNB (0.00%, expected hold Sept 24). **The calendar we track (verified 2026-09-23):** - Sept 24: SNB decision (expected hold at 0%) - Sept 29: RBA decision (hike to 4.60% widely expected) - Oct 28: Fed AND BoC decisions (same day — expect USD/CAD volatility) - Oct 28: RBNZ decision - Oct 29: ECB decision - Oct 30: BoJ decision - Nov 5: BoE decision - Dec 9: Fed; Dec 17: ECB; Dec 17: BoE; Dec 18: BoJ **How to trade the calendar:** 1. **Before the decision:** reduce size or stand aside on the affected pairs. The outcome is binary and priced for the expected move; the surprise is what moves markets. 2. **The divergence trade:** when one bank is hiking and the other is holding, the trend favors the hiker's currency over days and weeks. Fed-hiking vs SNB-holding is the cleanest divergence on the board right now, which is why USD/CHF has both the widest carry and a trend tailwind. 3. **After the decision:** trade the repricing, not the headline. If the RBA hikes to 4.60% as expected on Sept 29, AUD may barely move (priced in). If it holds at 4.35%, AUD drops hard (surprise). The playbook rule: expected outcome = fade the initial spike; surprise outcome = follow the momentum, with a stop. --- ## 8. Technicals for daily setups: keep it simple You do not need twelve indicators. You need trend, levels, and stops. **Trend vs range.** Open the 1-hour chart. Are the last 20–30 candles making higher highs and higher lows (uptrend), lower highs and lower lows (downtrend), or bouncing sideways (range)? Trade WITH the trend on trend days; trade the edges on range days; do nothing when you cannot tell. "I don't know" is a valid read, and it saves money. **Support and resistance.** Mark the last two obvious swing highs and swing lows on the 1-hour and 4-hour charts. Those are your zones. Price respects old levels because orders cluster there. Your entries go NEAR levels, never in the middle of nowhere. **Entry zones, not timestamps.** You do not enter at 9:47am because a clock said so. You enter when price reaches your zone and shows confirmation (a bounce, a break-and-retest). Example: "long USD/JPY on a pullback to the 157.50–157.80 zone, prior resistance turned support." If price never reaches the zone, you do not trade. Missing a trade costs nothing. Forcing one costs money. **ATR-based stops.** ATR (Average True Range) measures how much a pair typically moves. A robust beginner rule: stop loss = 1.5 × the 14-period ATR on your trading timeframe, placed beyond the nearest level. If EUR/USD's hourly ATR is 20 pips, your stop is about 30 pips. This keeps you from placing stops inside normal noise, which is where most beginner stops get hunted. **Risk-reward.** Never take a trade where the profit target is closer than the stop. Minimum 1.5:1 reward-to-risk; 2:1 is the standard. A 30-pip stop needs at least a 45–60 pip target. This math is what lets you be wrong half the time and still make money: at 2:1, a 40% win rate is profitable. --- ## 9. Risk management: the core chapter This section matters more than the other eight combined. Print it if you have to. **The 1% rule.** Risk no more than 1% of your account on any single trade. Account = $1,000 → max loss per trade = $10. Account = $5,000 → $50. This is not a suggestion. At 1% risk, you can lose 10 trades in a row and be down less than 10%. At 10% risk, four losers in a row cuts your account by a third, and then fear makes every decision worse. **Position sizing math (do this before every trade):** 1. Account size × 1% = max risk in dollars. 2. Entry price minus stop price = stop distance in pips. 3. Pip value per lot for the pair (section 2). 4. Lots = max risk ÷ (stop distance in pips × pip value per lot). Worked example: $1,000 account, EUR/USD long, entry 1.1393, stop 1.1363 (30 pips). Max risk $10. Micro lot pip value $0.10. Lots = 10 ÷ (30 × 0.10) = 3.33 micro lots. Round DOWN to 3 micro lots. Your worst case is about $9. **The daily loss limit.** Set it at 3% of your account. Two or three losing trades and you are done for the day. Not "one more to win it back." Done. Close the platform. The market will be there tomorrow; your account might not be if you keep going. Write down what went wrong instead. That journal entry is worth more than any revenge trade. **Why leverage kills beginners.** Leverage does not change your odds; it changes how fast you die when you are wrong. A beginner using 50:1 with no stop is not trading, they are buying a lottery ticket with a negative expected value. Use the minimum leverage that lets you take your sized position, and let the 1% rule — not the broker's maximum — decide your size. **One position at a time (beginner rule).** Until you are consistently green for a month, do not hold two open trades. Correlated pairs (EUR/USD and GBP/USD often move together) mean two positions are often one big position in disguise. **Journal every trade.** Date, pair, direction, entry, stop, target, size, the setup name from your routine, and one line on why you took it. Then the outcome and one line on what you would repeat or change. Review every Sunday. Your journal is the only honest coach you will ever have. **The math of survival.** Win 40% of trades at 2:1 reward-risk, risking 1% each: expected value per trade = (0.40 × 2%) − (0.60 × 1%) = +0.2% per trade. Two trades a day, 20 days a month = roughly +8% a month before costs. That is an excellent month. Notice what it requires: modest win rate, disciplined reward-risk, small size. Nothing heroic. --- ## 10. The daily routine: the morning checklist Do this every trading morning before 8am ET. It turns our live signals into the day's setups. Total time: 20–30 minutes. **Step 1 — Overnight momentum (5 min).** Pull the dashboard's FX rates. For each of the 7 pairs, note the daily change %. Flag any pair moving more than ~0.75% — that is the day's momentum candidate. Ask: is there a reason (news, data), or is it drifting? Reason-backed momentum gets traded; drift gets watched. **Step 2 — Carry check (3 min).** Read the carry table. Note the widest spreads and any pair where the carry direction flipped or widened. Carry is a tiebreaker, not a trigger: mark which direction pays you on each pair you might trade today. **Step 3 — COT extremes (5 min).** Check leveraged-money percentile ranks. Any currency at 90th percentile or above (long or short) gets a "crowded" tag. Rule: do not ADD to crowded direction without a fresh catalyst; require stronger confirmation; keep stops tighter. Crowded + momentum against the crowd = the highest-conviction fade setup, but still with a stop. **Step 4 — Calendar check (3 min).** Is there a central-bank decision or major data release in the next 48 hours for any currency you might trade? If yes: reduce planned size by half or stand aside on those pairs until after the event. **Step 5 — Write the setups (10 min).** For 1–3 pairs max, write each setup in this exact format: - **Pair and bias:** e.g., "USD/JPY — cautiously long." - **Why (one line):** cite the signal: momentum, carry, COT, calendar. - **Entry ZONE:** a price range near a level, never a timestamp. "157.50–157.80 pullback zone." - **Invalidation:** the exact price where the idea is wrong and you exit. "Below 157.30 — idea dead, out." - **Size:** from the 1% rule math. "3 micro lots = ~$9 risk." - **Target:** at least 1.5× the stop distance. "Target 158.60 (2:1)." If you cannot fill in every line, you do not have a setup. "No setup today" is a complete and acceptable outcome. Some of the best trading days are the ones where you trade nothing. **Step 6 — Execute in the window (8am–12pm ET).** Place entries as limit orders at your zones with stops and targets attached. Then walk away from the screen. Checking every candle does not improve the trade; it manufactures reasons to interfere. **Step 7 — Evening review (5 min).** Log every trade in the journal. Note whether you followed the routine. Grade the process, not just the money: a losing trade taken correctly is a win for the system; a winning trade taken recklessly is a loss for the system. --- ## 11. Worked example: today, 2026-09-23 This is an EXAMPLE showing how the routine turns live data into setups. It is not a recommendation. Not financial advice. **What the dashboard shows this morning:** - Dollar-strength day: USD/JPY +1.45% at 158.269, GBP/USD −0.95% at 1.3256, EUR/USD −0.67% at 1.1393, AUD/USD −0.66% at 0.7041, NZD/USD −0.79% at 0.5675, USD/CAD +0.79% at 1.4099, USD/CHF −0.07% at 0.8247. - COT: JPY leveraged-money net long 23,170 contracts (4.3% of open interest), 100th percentile, +72,268 week-over-week. Maximum crowding on the long-yen side. - Carry: USD/CHF spread +3.875pp, widest on the board. USD/JPY +2.625pp. - Calendar: SNB decision TOMORROW (Sept 24, hold at 0% expected). RBA decision Sept 29 (hike to 4.60% widely expected). **Running the routine:** - Step 1: USD/JPY is the momentum flag (+1.45%). Reason-backed: post-Fed-hike dollar strength plus yen weakness after the BoJ's dovish dissents on Sept 18. Valid momentum. - Step 2: Carry favors long USD/JPY (+2.625pp) and long USD/CHF (+3.875pp). Tailwind for dollar longs. - Step 3: CONFLICT. COT says leveraged money is max-long yen — the crowd is positioned for yen STRENGTH, which is the opposite of today's USD/JPY rally. This is the most important read of the day: momentum and carry say dollar strength; positioning says the speculative crowd is leaning the other way and is maximally crowded. Crowded longs are vulnerable to exactly this kind of dollar rally (a short squeeze in reverse — longs getting stopped out fuel the rally further, until they don't). - Step 4: SNB tomorrow → no new USD/CHF positions today, or half size with the decision in mind. RBA in 6 days → AUD/USD is watch-only into the event. **Example setups the routine produces:** Setup A — USD/JPY, cautiously long (momentum + carry vs crowded against): - Why: strongest momentum of the day (+1.45%), carry tailwind, but COT crowding demands respect. - Entry zone: 157.80–158.10 pullback zone (prior intraday resistance area, illustrative from today's 158.269 print). - Invalidation: below 157.50 — momentum broken, idea dead, out. - Size: 1% risk per the math in section 9. Half size would also be defensible given the COT conflict; the playbook allows reducing size when signals conflict. - Target: 158.90 (roughly 2:1 on the zone-to-stop distance). - The lesson: when momentum and positioning disagree, you either shrink or skip. You never go bigger to "resolve" the conflict. Setup B — USD/CHF, NO TRADE today: - Why: carry is the widest on the board (+3.875pp) and the trend tailwind is real, but the SNB decides tomorrow morning. The calendar rule says stand aside. The setup writes itself for Thursday instead: after the decision, if the SNB holds at 0% as expected and price holds above support, the carry-long becomes the cleanest trend setup on the board. Setup C — AUD/USD, watch-only: - Why: RBA decision in 6 days with a hike widely expected. Pre-event drift is not a setup. Watch whether 0.7041 holds into the decision; the real trade is the repricing after Sept 29. Notice what the routine did: three pairs considered, one cautious setup, one deliberate stand-aside, one watch. That is a normal, healthy day. Forcing three trades would have been the mistake. --- ## 12. What our data can and cannot do Honest limits, so you never mistake the dashboard for a crystal ball: - **FX rates are daily snapshots** (Yahoo Finance chart API, pulled each morning). They tell you where the day starts and what moved overnight. They are NOT a real-time intraday feed. Your broker's platform is your live price; the dashboard is your morning map. - **COT is weekly with a lag.** Published Fridays around 3:30pm ET for positions as of the prior Tuesday. You are always reading where the crowd stood 3 days ago. Good for regime, useless for timing. - **Congressional and 13F filings are lagged by design.** A politician's trade can be filed up to 45 days late; 13Fs cover calendar quarters. They tell you where smart money WAS, which is research, not a day-trade signal. - **The calendar is compiled and verified, but decisions can surprise.** "Widely expected" is not "certain." The SNB could hike tomorrow; the RBA could hold on the 29th. Every setup needs its invalidation level precisely because expectations are sometimes wrong. - **No news feed.** Geopolitics moves currencies intraday (energy shocks are driving this whole 2026 hiking cycle). Keep a news source open during the trading window. The dashboard will not warn you about a headline. --- ## 13. The 30-day practice plan Do not trade real money until you complete this. **Week 1 — Learn the platform.** Open a demo account with a regulated broker. Place 20+ demo trades in micro sizes practicing entries, stops, targets, and the position-size math until the arithmetic is automatic. Read sections 2–4 twice. **Week 2 — Run the routine.** Do the full morning checklist every trading day (sections 10). Take 1–2 demo setups per day max. Journal every trade. You are practicing the PROCESS, not chasing profit. **Week 3 — Add the filters.** Layer in COT extremes and the calendar check properly. Practice the two hardest skills: writing "no setup today" and honoring the daily loss limit on a red day. **Week 4 — Review and grade.** Sunday review of all four weeks: win rate, average reward-risk, how many trades followed the routine vs impulse trades. If the month is green AND at least 80% of trades followed the routine, you may start real money — at micro lots, 1% risk, same routine. **The rule:** real money only starts after a green demo month. When you go live, start at half your planned size for the first two weeks. Real money feels different; respect that. If the first live month is red, back to demo. There is no shame in it. Blowing an account is the shame. --- ## Disclaimer This playbook is educational material, not financial advice. Forex trading involves substantial risk of loss, including the possible loss of your entire account balance, and is not suitable for every investor. Past positioning, rate differentials, and momentum patterns do not predict future price movement. Nothing in this document — including the worked example — is a recommendation to buy or sell any currency pair. If you trade, you do so with your own money, your own decisions, and your own responsibility. When in doubt, stay in demo.