How to Trade — Guides

Step-by-step asset guides

Each guide examines one instrument with a distinct hypothetical accounting example, quote-source checks and common interpretation errors. Timing sections discuss observation freshness and execution limits; they do not identify a profitable trading window.

Available guides

• Bitcoin (crypto) — Bitcoin is a digital asset with a protocol-defined issuance schedule. Its market price is separate from that schedule and can change without a protocol change.
• Ethereum (crypto) — Ethereum is a network for running applications and smart contracts; ether, or ETH, is its native currency. People use ETH to pay network fees, transfer value and participate in staking. Trading ETH means exchanging that currency at a market price. TradeHQ lets you practise the price and quantity calculations with virtual funds; it does not send coins to a wallet or stake them.
• Tesla (stock) — Tesla is a listed company. A simulated TSLA holding represents a stock-price exercise and does not provide options exposure, voting rights or actual share ownership. Company results and delivery reports are different information sets.
• Nvidia (stock) — Nvidia supplies computing products and services. Its share price and its operating business are different objects: a change in sales does not translate mechanically into the same percentage stock return.
• S&P 500 ETF (etf) — SPY is an exchange-traded fund designed to track the S&P 500. An index methodology, a fund holding and a country economy are different things; broad coverage does not remove market losses or concentration.
• Solana (crypto) — SOL is Solana's native token, while Solana is the network on which SOL is used for transaction fees. Learning to read a SOL price quote is not the same as transferring SOL on-chain, staking tokens or trading a derivatives contract. TradeHQ offers a virtual spot-price practice exercise only.

What every one of these guides has in common

The guides separate instrument mechanics, hypothetical price inputs and whole-account arithmetic. A practice order demonstrates an interface, while the worksheet records quantity, costs and alternative outcomes. None of those steps establishes an appropriate real-money size, execution time or future return.

So each guide spends most of its length on those parts. None of them tell you whether to buy, none contain price targets, and none imply that following the steps produces a profit. They aim to make your first practice trade in an instrument an informed one rather than a random one.

Using a guide properly

• Read the drivers section before looking at a chart, so the chart does not supply your opinion.
• Reproduce the stated hypothetical arithmetic, then compare a different quantity or adverse price path. The numbers are teaching inputs, not orders you must place.
• Record quote timestamps and data provenance. A simulated fill cannot establish actual venue liquidity or an optimal trading time.
• Come back to the review section a day after the trade closes, not while it is open.