The school of forex · white belt to black belt
From zero to a trade you actually understand.
PipMentor is a course, not a blog. Five belts, 25 lessons in a fixed order, a quiz at the end of every one, and calculators that do the arithmetic you were told to do but never shown. Start at the white belt and work down the ladder.
The ladder
Five belts, in order, no shortcuts
Each belt assumes the one above it. The white belt is open to everyone; the rest unlock as you complete lessons, though nothing stops you reading ahead if you are impatient. What changes is what you can actually do at the end of each rung.
- 1White belt
Forex Foundations
You have never placed a trade. Perfect. We start from the very first idea — what a pip is, how lots work, how a price is quoted — and walk you calmly to a first order you actually understand.
- Read a currency quote and count a move in pips
- Explain lots, leverage and margin without notes
- Size a first micro-lot trade from a risk rule
- Choose a regulated broker on evidence, not marketing
- 2Yellow belt
Charts & Execution
The vocabulary is yours. Now you learn to see. Timeframes, structure, support and resistance, and the mechanics of getting in and out without leaking money on every order.
- Pick a timeframe on purpose instead of by habit
- Mark structure: higher highs, lower lows, ranges
- Draw levels that other traders can actually see
- Place market, limit and stop orders deliberately
- 3Green belt
Risk & Position Sizing
The belt that keeps you alive. Fixed-fractional risk, stop placement that respects the chart, correlation between pairs, and the arithmetic of drawdown that nobody shows beginners.
- Size every trade from stop distance and risk budget
- Place stops on structure, not on round numbers
- Spot correlated positions stacking the same bet
- Understand what a drawdown really costs to recover
- 4Brown belt
Strategy & The Journal
An idea becomes a system. You write rules down, you test them against history honestly, you record every trade, and you review the record instead of your memory.
- Turn a vague idea into written, testable rules
- Backtest without fooling yourself
- Keep a journal that answers questions later
- Read your own statistics: expectancy, win rate, R
- 5Black belt
Psychology & Longevity
The mechanics are second nature and the enemy is now internal. Tilt, variance, the discipline of doing nothing, and building a trading life that survives a bad quarter.
- Recognise tilt in yourself before it costs money
- Separate a bad outcome from a bad decision
- Sit out flat markets without inventing trades
- Build routines that outlast motivation
Lesson of the week
Risk management basics
The one skill that separates traders who last from those who blow up: protecting the account.
Your size is dictated by your risk, not by your ambition. The market has never once asked what you were hoping for.
Read it — 9 min →Start here if you are brand new
The first three lessons, in order
- 1What is a pip?The smallest standard step a currency price moves, and why every trader measures gains and losses in pips.6 min
- 2Lots & leverageHow position size is measured, and how leverage magnifies both profit and loss.8 min
- 3The bid, the ask & the spreadEvery price has two sides. The gap between them is your first and most frequent cost.7 min
The glossary
48 terms, defined without circling
Every word you will meet in a lesson has an entry, written so it can be understood without already knowing three other words. Jump to a letter, or start with the ones people look up first.
Looked up most
Working calculators
Do the arithmetic before the trade, not after
Three calculators that run in your browser, show their formula, and are linked to the lesson that explains why the number matters.
| Calculator | What it answers | Formula | Taught in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pip Value Calculator | See exactly what one pip is worth on your trade. | pip value = pip decimal × units ÷ (quote → account rate) | White belt |
| Position Size Calculator | Size your trade from your risk, not your hopes. | lots = (balance × risk%) ÷ (stop pips × pip value per lot) | Green belt |
| Risk / Reward Calculator | Check that a trade is worth taking before you take it. | ratio = |target − entry| ÷ |entry − stop| · break-even = 1 ÷ (1 + ratio) | Green belt |
Beyond the syllabus
Guides for when a lesson raised a question
Longer reads that sit alongside the course rather than inside it — habits, mechanics and the awkward bits nobody puts in a curriculum.