How do beginners start trading forex?

How do beginners start trading forex?

Rihari's beginner education series says a trader should first build "foundational" chart-reading skills before touching intermediate or advanced strategies, because skipping straight to strategies "just doesn't work." The video builds that foundation around three chart types and two indicators, starting from a plain, indicator-free chart.

Rihari frames this as part one of an ongoing education series aimed at people who are new to trading. He is explicit that the goal of the video is to explain "technical analysis made simple," covering which chart types and indicators he considers useful and which he considers "rubbish," by his own description. He states this reflects his personal approach and opinion, not a universal rule.

What should beginners learn before strategies or indicators?

Rihari says that going straight into strategies without understanding the basics "just doesn't work," and that beginners must understand foundational chart-reading before moving on to intermediate or advanced material. He frames this order as non-negotiable for building a durable trading approach.

In the video he starts from what he calls a "completely naked chart" - one with no indicators, tools or trend lines - and treats that blank chart as the beginner's starting point. Only after establishing how to read raw price movement does he introduce moving averages and the RSI indicator.

Which chart type should beginners use?

Rihari's video compares three chart types - candlestick, line and Heikin-Ashi - and says candlestick charts are his personal favourite for reading price action, while Heikin-Ashi suits staying in longer trend-following trades. He presents this as his own preference rather than a fixed rule for every beginner.

| Chart type | What the video says it shows | Rihari's stated use | |---|---|---| | Line chart | Connects the closing price of each period into a single line, one point per candle | A simple view of which way price has been moving | | Heikin-Ashi | Colours bars to show bullish or bearish continuation (for example, unbroken green bars signal bullish continuation) | Staying in a trade longer through a trending move | | Candlestick | Shows the open, close and wick (high/low) for each period, whether that period is 5 minutes, 15 minutes, an hour, a day or a week | Rihari's preferred chart for day-to-day analysis and entries |

Rihari explains that each candle, bar or point on these charts represents a fixed block of time set by the chosen timeframe - for example, a 5-minute chart's candles each cover 5 minutes, while a weekly chart's candles each cover a full week of price data. Switching timeframes changes what each candle represents, but the three chart types themselves work the same way across any timeframe.

On the candlestick chart specifically, Rihari points out that a single candle can open, travel away from that open in one direction, and still close back near where it started - the part of the candle beyond the open-to-close range is what he calls the "wick," and he says reading wicks alongside the open and close is part of understanding what a candle is actually doing. He also notes that the colours shown in his examples (dark purple for bullish candles, in his platform) are a personal display preference rather than a universal standard, so beginners should expect their own charting platform to use different colours for the same bullish or bearish candles.

How do moving averages help beginners read price direction?

Rihari describes a moving average as the average price over a set number of past candles, and says it can work like "a live trend line" that shows which way price is likely to continue, with pullbacks expected along the way rather than a straight line up or down.

In the video he changes the moving average's length in the platform's settings to show how the indicator's shape changes: a 9-period average reacts quickly to recent candles, while a 100-period average smooths out much more price history. He also shows that the same "100-candle" setting looks completely different on a 5-minute chart versus an hourly chart, because each is averaging a different stretch of real time. Rihari states that when the moving average trend is bullish, he expects price to keep favouring the upside over time, with pullbacks to the average along the way rather than a guarantee of continued direction.

How does the RSI indicator help spot potential entries?

Rihari's video explains the Relative Strength Index (RSI) as an oscillator that flags when a market may be overbought or oversold. He references a default look-back of 14 candles and shows how changing that setting (for example, to 30) alters the indicator's sensitivity.

He treats roughly 70% as the level where a market may be considered overbought, and roughly 30% as the level where it may be considered oversold, noting that RSI usually ranges between those two markers and only becomes notable when it pushes beyond them. In the video, Rihari is careful to say the RSI does not mean "get into a sell" or "get into a buy" at those extremes - he describes it only as an area where the indicator suggests price could start pulling back, not a signal to act on by itself.

How does Rihari combine moving averages and RSI into one approach?

Rihari says he watches for price to push away from the moving average, reach an overbought or oversold RSI reading, and then pull back toward the moving average as the RSI returns toward its 50% "equilibrium" level - that combined pullback area is where he says he looks for a possible trade in the direction of the broader moving-average trend.

The process he walks through in the video runs roughly as follows:

1. Start from a plain chart with no indicators and pick one chart type - Rihari uses candlesticks.
2. Add a moving average (he demonstrates 20-period and 50/52-period settings) to read the broader direction price is favouring.
3. Add the RSI indicator to see when price is overbought (above roughly 70%) or oversold (below roughly 30%).
4. Watch for price to push away from the moving average toward an RSI extreme.
5. Wait for price to pull back toward the moving average as the RSI moves back toward its 50% level, which Rihari calls "equilibrium."
6. Treat that pullback area as a potential point of interest in the direction of the moving-average trend, then check market structure - a topic Rihari says he covers in a separate video - before considering any entry.

Rihari is explicit in the video that he does not personally trade off these two indicators alone: he says "there are other influences like fundamentals and sentiment" that also need to be understood, and describes this walkthrough as showing beginners how the tools work rather than handing them a complete trading system. He does not state a win rate, a typical result, or any specific outcome tied to using this approach.

He also states a broader rule for direction: "the trend is your friend," and says beginners should not flip between buying and selling against that trend just because price moves - his words are "do not trade like that unless you're scoping," meaning he treats constant back-and-forth trading against the prevailing moving-average direction as a mistake for anyone not specifically trading very short-term. On indicator settings, Rihari says the periods he uses (such as 14 for RSI) are standard defaults he has not personally altered, and he tells viewers they can "pick and choose, test it out and see what works for you" rather than treating any single setting as fixed or correct.

What are the real risks beginners face in forex and CFD trading?

Independently verified regulatory data shows most Australian retail traders in comparable leveraged markets lose money rather than profit, which is separate from anything said in Rihari's video and should weigh heavily on any beginner's decision to trade. This is a verified fact, not a claim made by Rihari or by this article.

ASIC Report 828: Risky business records that 68% of Australian retail CFD investors lost money in the 2024 financial year. Rihari's video does not cite this or any other loss-rate figure. Separately, Rihari does say in the video that his aim is to help viewers "become profitable and eventually leave your 9 to 5" - that is Rihari's own stated goal for the education series, not a performance claim, a guarantee, or a typical outcome, and it should not be read as one.

How big is the forex market, and why does it matter for beginners?

The foreign-exchange market that beginners are learning to read is very large by independent measures, which means beginners are trading in one of the most liquid and heavily traded markets in the world rather than a small or thin one. Rihari's video does not address market size or turnover.

The BIS 2025 Triennial Survey reported that the Bank for International Settlements measured average daily OTC foreign-exchange turnover at US$9.6 trillion in April 2025. Scale of this kind means beginners are never short of counterparties or price activity to study, but it does not on its own make outcomes for individual retail traders more favourable - see the loss-rate data above.

What free resources does Rihari offer beginners?

Rihari's video points beginners to a free Discord server and a companion PDF that he says summarises the chart-type and indicator notes covered in the education series, plus a follow-up video on market structure that he describes as still to come.

He frames these as free add-ons to the video rather than a paid course or signal service, and does not attach any price, licensing claim, or business structure to them in this video. Nothing in the transcript describes RihariFX as a licensed advisory service, and this article makes no such claim on the video's behalf.