This route is for someone who has already opened a demo account or placed a few small live trades and noticed that the account balance falls even when the chart seems to move in the right direction. The cause is usually cost, not bad luck. The six lessons are ordered so that each one answers a cost question raised by the one before it. You do not need to know how to read candlesticks or indicators to start. You need a calculator, a notebook and access to your broker's fee schedule.

The route assumes you trade EUR/USD, around 1.0850, because it is the pair most beginners in Nigeria see first. Every cost example uses naira, written ₦, so you can compare the figures with your own account statement. If your broker quotes in dollars, convert at the rate your bank used on the day. The lessons never recommend a broker. They show you what to look for in the documents every broker must publish.

Finishing the route does not make you profitable. It makes you able to state, before you click buy or sell, what the trade will cost in naira if it lasts one minute, one day or one week. That is the skill the route builds. Everything else, such as predicting direction, is a separate problem and a harder one.

The first lesson names the three costs: spread, commission and swap. You cannot compare account types until you can point to each cost on a real quote. The second lesson takes the third cost, swap, and shows how an overnight charge is calculated and when a swap-free account removes it. That comes before account types because a swap-free account is only useful if you already know what swap is.

The third lesson compares standard, raw spread and cent accounts. By then you have the vocabulary to see that a raw spread account moves the cost from the spread into a commission, and a cent account changes the size of the position rather than the size of the cost. The fourth lesson, on scalping, uses all three costs at once because a scalper may pay them many times in an hour. The fifth lesson slows the holding period down to swing and position trading, where swap grows and spread shrinks as a share of the total.

The sixth lesson, on sessions, news and the calendar, comes last because it changes the cost you pay rather than the way you calculate it. Spreads widen when liquidity is thin, and scheduled news is when thin liquidity is most likely. Doing this lesson earlier would give you a reason to avoid trading without first knowing what the avoidance costs you in missed opportunities. The order is a chain: name the costs, then change one variable at a time.

Before the first lesson, open your broker's fee page and find three numbers: the typical spread on EUR/USD, the commission per lot if there is one, and the swap rate for holding a long position overnight. Write them in naira beside the original currency. If your broker charges in dollars, use the rate from your last bank transfer. If you use a cent account, note that the contract size is smaller and the same spread costs you less per trade.

You also need a way to deposit and withdraw. In Nigeria that usually means bank transfer, USSD or cards. Check which of these your broker accepts and what each one costs you in fees or exchange rate margin. A cheap spread is worthless if the deposit route takes a large cut. Keep a record of one deposit and one withdrawal so you can add those costs to the trade costs later.

Finishing the route gives you a written cost sheet for your own account. It states the total cost of a one-lot EUR/USD trade held for one minute, one day and one week, in naira. You can then compare any broker or account type by replacing the three numbers. The sheet also shows you which style of trading your account type makes expensive. That is the practical result: a number you can check before every trade, not a feeling about whether trading is cheap.