Don't lose money!

The first and most basic rule in trading is not "how to win money", but "how not to lose money". About 90% of retail traders (non-professional users) lose their money when trading. You need to fully understand what is trading and what its not.

What is Trading: Price movement.

Trading means to try to get benefit with the price movement:

You buy something and sell it later for a profit;
You sell something and buy it later for a profit.

In both directions, your main goal is trying to get a benefit. So, the magic word in trading is to get a profit from price movement:

If the price goes up: we say "going long": you buy low and sell high.
If the price goes down: we say "going short": you sell high and buy low.

Difference with investing

The main difference between Trading and Investing:

Investing: this is normally on a long-term. You buy assets (example: shares of a company) with the hope that the value of the company (and so its shares) grows with the time, so you can sell the assets later with a benefit. During this time you really own the assets (shares).
Trading: this is normally short-term. You bet money hoping that the value of something goes up or down, you bet on a price movement, on a price direction (up or down). You don't own anything. That's why in trading terms you don't buy nor sell, but you go long ("buy") or you go short ("sell").

That's why "price movement" is key in trading, because in trading you can win in both price directions:

Going long: you bet that the price of something will go up (you "buy").
Going short: you bet that the price of something will go down (you "sell").

Profit when selling and then buying back?

The most confusing part is to "go short" (to sell) and then to buy it back later with a profit. How is that possible? The normal thinking is "I buy first, then I sell later", and not "I sell and then I buy it back with a profit", correct? So, how can I sell something and then buy it back later with some profit?

Long & Short

"Going long" means: "I buy now and try to sell it later with a profit". My profit is the difference between the value of buying and the value of selling it.
"Going short" means: "I sell it now, at today's price, with the intention to buy it back later at a lower price". My profit is the difference between the value of selling and the value of buying it back.

Example SHORT:

Imagine you want to trade physically with gold. You don't own any, but your friend does. You ask your friend to borrow you 1 ounce of gold (approx. 31 grams) with the promise to give it back later. Today the ounce of gold is worth $2.400. You sell it for $2.400 and keep the money in your pocket. Later, the gold goes down to $2.380. Now you buy the ounce back for $2.380 and return the ounce to your friend, but you keep the difference of $20 for yourself. You just made a profit of $20. The profit is because the gold went down after you sold it and now you simply buy it back cheaper and return the gold to your friend.

Now let's imagine that the gold had grown in the meantime, when you were holding and borrowing it. You sell it at $2.400. Now, let's say that the gold had grown to $2.420. In order to get back the gold you borrowed and sold, you would need to pay now $2.420. In this case, to return the gold to your friend as promised, you would need to spend additional $20 to buy it back. Your loss would be $20.

So, a trading rule is:

A short trade loses when the price goes up.
A short trade wins when the price goes down.
A long trade loses when the price goes down.
A long trade wins when the price goes up.

In trading the good news is: you never own gold physically, you don't hold it in your hands, you don't borrow it, you don't see it, you don't touch it. You trade the PRICE MOVEMENT OF THE GOLD. You trade with the so-called CFD, Contract-For-Difference: you "sign" a contract with your broker of the price difference.

Trading Software

Use MetaTrader5, Telegram and a Pyhton Bridge to connect each other (MT5 - Telegram). and connect it to your Telegram channels where MT5 is not just a trading platform where you buy and sell trades. MT5 can handle so much unattended, without you being before a computer. Example: it let's you connect MT5 with your Telegram channels, where you can on Mac has fewer features than on Windows: the core features are identical (charts, timeframes, buy and sell, etc.) but some Expert Advisors (EAs) and Robots do not run under Mac or they run only limited.