Trading is the process of buying and selling financial instruments such as stocks, indices, commodities, or currencies to benefit from price movements. Unlike investing, trading focuses on shorter timeframes and requires active decision-making.

Markets move due to demand and supply, news, economic data, and trader psychology. Prices do not move randomly; they form patterns that can be analyzed using charts. Successful traders focus on understanding price behavior, not predicting outcomes.

A key part of trading is risk management. Even the best strategies fail without proper position sizing and stop-loss discipline. Trading is not about winning every trade but managing losses and staying consistent over time.