What Learning Actually Costs Per Trade — Cambodia

Cost per round trip (1 standard lot)

On the Standard account measured here there is no per-lot commission — the spread is the whole round-trip cost. Break-even = how far price has to move in the trade’s favour before it is profitable. Cost vs daily range compares that to what the instrument typically moves in a day.

For scale: the EUR/USD spread of 0.8 pips is about 1.9% of its average daily range — the market typically moves 53× the cost of entering it in a single day.

Reading the cost against the target, not against a rival broker

The Standard account charges no commission, so its fee lives inside the spread. Comparing the measured spread with an independent interbank reference feed over the same London–New York hours shows how much of each spread is the broker’s margin — and a negative number means the measured spread was tighter than the reference.

Both feeds compared over identical UTC hours, normalized to absolute price — pip definitions differ between feeds. Indicative; refreshed on a schedule.

What another night adds to a trade you already paid for

Overnight swap is added on top of the spread — always on the side shown, at the measured rate per night (five nights include one triple-swap day; energies have no triple day and charge once per night). Full per-night rates for every instrument are on the swap rates page; swap-free account options are covered on the Islamic account page.

The check that belongs in the plan

Write the break-even distance next to the target distance on the same page. If the target is not comfortably larger, the plan needs a wider target, a cheaper instrument or a longer timeframe — and it needs that change before the demo run, not after.

Cost also scales with the number of trades. A rule that produces ten entries a day pays this ten times, which is why a first plan usually limits trades per day explicitly rather than leaving it to mood.

Reading these figures honestly

They come from the account measured here and they are indicative. Conditions change, and a beginner's own account may see something different at a different hour.

The purpose is proportion, not precision: knowing roughly what a trade costs relative to what it aims for is enough to reject a whole category of unworkable plans early.

Where this sits in a four-week practice run

The comparison this page supports belongs in week two, next to the written plan: break-even distance on one line, intended target on the next. If the second is not comfortably bigger than the first, the plan is edited before the run starts rather than defended afterwards.

It also settles the maximum number of trades per day, which is a rule beginners rarely write down and frequently break. Cost scales with entries, so the cap belongs on the same page as everything else.

By the end of the run the log answers whether cost was ever the binding constraint. Usually it was not, and the real constraint was a rule that kept getting broken.

The document a first month should produce

The purpose of a practice run is a log, not a profit. A few dozen trades under rules that did not change, each with the reason for entry written before the outcome was known, is what turns four weeks into evidence instead of into anecdotes.

Cost belongs in that log as a line rather than as a worry. Once the round-trip figure is written into the plan and the target is set comfortably beyond it, the question is settled and the attention moves to the part that decides the year: following the rules that were written down.

What to read next on the way in