How to Start Trading: A Beginner’s Guide by Octa Broker

The Asian financial markets are experiencing a substantial increase in interest from novice traders. In Southeast Asia, online trading has expanded rapidly, driven by growing internet access and an increasingly digital-savvy population. In Indonesia, active online traders grew by 18%, supported by a thriving e-commerce sector and rising financial literacy. Across Southeast Asia, the digital economy is projected to reach $1 trillion by 2030, highlighting the region’s fast-paced growth and the broadening appeal of financial trading as a means to diversify income streams and improve financial security.

While the trend for trading is obvious, beginners often find themselves lost in the whirlpool of markets, assets, graphs, and tools. To facilitate entry for novice traders, Octa, a broker with globally recognised licences, explains how to get started and what assets to consider for first trades. It also offers vital tips on diversification and risk management.

3 Assets for Beginner Traders

For those just starting their trading journey, selecting the right assets is crucial. Beginners should focus on stable, liquid, and widely traded instruments that offer enough volatility for profit opportunities but not too much unpredictability. In this guide, Octa explores three such assets.

Gold

Gold’s historical stability makes it a great choice for beginner traders. It is less volatile than other financial instruments, and its liquidity ensures that traders can always find buyers or sellers when they need to close a position. Additionally, gold is well-supported by fundamental factors like inflation and geopolitical tensions, offering traders steady opportunities over the long term.

In 2024, with global markets facing heightened volatility and currencies in key Asian economies, including India and China, experiencing depreciation pressures, gold’s appeal has strengthened. According to the OECD Economic Outlook for Southeast Asia, China, and India 2024, currency fluctuations and rising inflation in these regions have prompted investors to seek more stable assets, making gold an increasingly attractive option.

Gold demand in Asia has surged to notable levels in 2024, driven by increased investments in gold bars and jewellery across the region. Thailand, for instance, saw consumer gold demand soar by 20% to 9 tonnes in Q2 2024, marking the highest growth rate in Southeast Asia. With the festive season approaching in countries like India, the World Gold Council anticipates further boosts in gold demand, which, combined with global inflationary pressures, has pushed gold prices higher. For beginner traders, these stable and growing trends make gold an attractive asset for both stability and long-term growth potential.

For beginners, trading gold is fairly straightforward. They can either take long positions (buy gold when they believe prices will rise) or short positions (sell when they expect prices to fall). As a basic example below shows, those who opened long positions at $2,604 per ounce have already seen gains of $116 per ounce. With a 1,000-ounce trade, this translates into a profit of $116,000.

EURUSD

The EURUSD pair is among the most popular and liquid in the Forex market, making it perfect for beginners. Liquidity is key here, as it promotes tight spreads and allows traders to enter and exit positions without facing significant slippage. Furthermore, EURUSD trading volumes are among the highest globally, allowing beginners to buy and sell easily, even with small amounts of capital.

Moreover, this currency pair is preferable for beginners due to the wide availability of market information. Anyone can easily find analyses, forecasts, and educational resources online, making it simpler to understand how the asset behaves.

The EURUSD pair is also relatively stable, meaning that wild price swings are less common, allowing beginners to learn the market without excessive volatility. As the example below shows, traders who sold EURUSD at $1.12 and closed at $1.08 earned $333 from a 0.1-lot trade. This illustrates that even small trades can bring tangible profits.

Beginners can start by analysing key economic data from both the U.S. and the Eurozone. The pair reacts to major announcements like GDP figures, interest rate changes, and employment reports. However, it’s advised to avoid trading when news is released, to protect one’s capital from unexpected volatility.

Brent and WTI

Brent and WTI (West Texas Intermediate) crude oil are two of the most significant commodities traded worldwide, often referred to as ‘black gold’. They are attractive assets for beginners because of their liquidity and frequent price movements, allowing for opportunities to profit in both rising and falling markets.

Oil is a highly liquid commodity, meaning that traders can easily buy and sell contracts without much risk of slippage. Furthermore, oil prices are strongly influenced by global factors such as geopolitical events, supply chain disruptions, and shifts in energy policies. This gives traders clear cues to watch for when planning their trades.

One of the most common strategies for trading oil is to follow geopolitical events and OPEC’s (The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) decisions, which can influence prices dramatically. However, traders should also keep in mind that such events may provoke increased volatility.

Beginners can easily enter oil trading as a rather small deposit is enough. In the example below, traders who opened a sell order on Brent at $79 and closed it at $69 earned a $1,000 profit from just a $100 capital investment.

Diversification as the #1 Rule for Beginners

Diversification is spreading your investments across different asset classes to reduce risk. The idea is that if one asset underperforms, others in the portfolio may still do well, helping to protect your capital.

For beginner traders, diversification is an essential risk management strategy. Instead of putting their whole capital into one asset, such as gold or oil, they can spread their investment across multiple assets, reducing the risk of large losses. Diversifying also allows traders to take advantage of different market conditions. For instance, when gold prices rise during times of uncertainty, oil may experience price drops due to falling demand.

Kar Yong Ang, financial market analyst at Octa broker, notes: ‘Diversification isn’t just a strategy—it‘s a necessity for new traders. By allocating funds across multiple assets, you protect your portfolio from unexpected market movements, ensuring that no single downturn significantly impacts your trading results.’ He adds that a well-diversified portfolio might allocate 40% to gold, 30% to EURUSD, and 30% to Brent crude oil.

5 Tips for Beginner Traders

1. Learn the market basics: Start by understanding the fundamentals of the financial markets. Learn what drives asset prices and how market events, like geopolitical changes or central bank announcements, can affect the assets you’re trading.
2. Practise on a demo account: Before risking real money, use a demo account to trade in simulated conditions. This gives you a chance to familiarise yourself with the platform, learn the ropes, and refine your strategies without financial risk.
3. Limit exposure to 5% of your deposit: One of the biggest mistakes beginners make is over-leveraging. Never risk more than 5% of your total deposit on any single trade. This way, even if a trade goes wrong, you won’t lose your entire account balance.
4. Diversify your portfolio: Spread your investments across different assets. By diversifying, you reduce risk and make your portfolio more resilient to market fluctuations.
5. Commit to continuous learning: The financial markets are always changing, and successful traders are those who never stop learning. Stay up-to-date on market news, attend webinars, and continuously study new strategies to stay ahead.

Conclusion

For beginner traders in Asia starting with reliable assets such as gold, the EURUSD currency pair, and oil provides a solid foundation. Trading offers the opportunity to create additional income but requires careful planning, strategic diversification, and continuous learning.

By following these tips and focusing on stable, widely traded assets, you can build a profitable trading strategy while managing risk effectively. Remember that patience and discipline are key, and with the right approach, trading can become a valuable source of income.

About Octa

Octa is an international broker that has been providing online trading services worldwide since 2011. It offers commission-free access to financial markets and a variety of services used by clients from 180 countries who have opened more than 52 million trading accounts. To help its clients reach their investment goals, Octa offers free educational webinars, articles, and analytical tools.

The company is involved in a comprehensive network of charitable and humanitarian initiatives, including the improvement of educational infrastructure and short-notice relief projects supporting local communities.

Since its foundation, Octa has won more than 70 awards, including the ‘Best Forex Broker 2023’ award from AllForexRating and the ‘Best Mobile Trading Platform 2024’ award from Global Brand Magazine.