I’ve been trading as a side income for a while now. And one thing I’ve learned is that the markets don’t stop moving just because you get busy. New developments happen. New instruments come up. Things shift.

For a long time, keeping up with it meant either spending hours on financial news sites, paying for expensive courses, or accepting that there were gaps in my knowledge I’d fill in “eventually.”

Then I started using Claude, an AI, as my personal finance tutor. And it changed how I learn completely.

This is not about replacing proper financial education or a licensed advisor. It’s about having a tool that explains things clearly, at your level, on your schedule, so you can walk into any market conversation and actually understand what’s being said.

Here’s exactly how I do it.

Start With What’s Happening Right Now

The first thing I do when I want to understand a market is ask Claude to break it down like I’m hearing about it for the first time. Even if I already know the basics, this gives me a clean, jargon-free starting point.

The prompt I use:
“Explain what’s happening in the gold market right now like I’m a complete beginner.”

What comes back is genuinely useful, no unnecessary terminology, no assumptions about what I already know. It covers what’s driving the movement, what external factors are at play, and what it could mean going forward.

This used to require a finance degree. Or a $3,000 course. Or years of reading between the lines of analyst reports that were never written for people like us.

Now it takes thirty seconds.

Build Your Pre-Trade Checklist

Before I enter any trade, I want to know I’ve looked at the right things. Not every possible thing, just the ones that actually matter for the decision I’m making.

I asked Claude to build that checklist for me.

The prompt:
“Give me a checklist of what to look at before I enter any trade.”

What it gave me covered the key areas, market trend, support and resistance levels, volume, risk-to-reward ratio, news or events that could affect the position, and what my exit plan looks like before I even enter.

I saved that checklist. I use it every time.

The point isn’t to follow it blindly, it’s to have a consistent process so that emotions don’t make the decision for you. Discipline in trading isn’t about willpower. It’s about having a structure you return to every single time.

Understand the Risks Before You’re In Too Deep

This is the one most people skip, and it’s the one that costs them.

Before I go into any new area of trading, I ask Claude to walk me through the risks specific to that market or instrument. Not in a general “investing involves risk” way. In a specific, practical way.

The prompt:
“What are the risks a beginner should know before trading gold?”

It told me everything I would have otherwise learned the hard way, about volatility, about leverage, about the emotional patterns that cause most people to exit too early or hold too long, about the difference between what looks like a trend and what actually is one.

Reading that before I had real money on the line was worth more than any course I’ve paid for.

How to Go Deeper on Anything

The three prompts above are my starting point. But the real value is in the follow-up questions, the ones you’d never feel comfortable asking a financial advisor because you’d worry about sounding like you don’t know enough.

With Claude, there’s no such thing as a question too basic.

Some of the follow-ups I’ve found useful:
“Can you explain that in simpler terms?”
“Give me a real-world example of how that would play out.”
“What’s the difference between X and Y, I always get them confused.”
“If I’m a busy person who can only check my trades once a day, what strategy makes the most sense for me?”

That last one matters. Most trading content is written for people watching screens all day. That’s not most of us. Knowing which approaches actually fit your life, swing trading versus day trading, for example, saves you from following a strategy that was never designed for your schedule.

Where I Actually Practice

Here’s the step most people miss between learning and doing.

Understanding how markets work is one thing. Applying it without the pressure of real money on the line is where the actual learning happens.
The platform I trade on is XM. One of the reasons I started there is that they offer a demo account, meaning you can practise everything you’re learning in a real market environment, using virtual funds, before you put in a single dollar. You see real price movements, you use real tools, but there’s no financial risk while you’re still building confidence.

If you’re at the stage where you understand the concepts but aren’t ready to go live yet, that’s exactly where I’d suggest starting. Get familiar with the platform, run through your checklist, and let the learning become muscle memory first.

What AI Can and Can’t Do Here

I want to be clear about something.

Claude is not giving me financial advice. It’s not a licensed advisor and it shouldn’t replace one. What it does is help me understand, so that when I do make decisions, I’m making them from a place of knowledge rather than guesswork.

Think of it like having a very patient tutor who can explain the same concept five different ways until it clicks, answer questions at 11pm when you have thirty minutes to learn something, and never make you feel like you should already know this.

That’s the gap it fills. Not the decision-making, the understanding.

A Simple Way to Start This Week

If you want to try this yourself, start with just one prompt. Pick a market you’re curious about and type:
“Explain what’s happening in [gold / the S&P 500 / forex / whatever interests you] right now like I’m a complete beginner.”

Read what comes back. Then ask one follow-up question based on what you didn’t fully understand.

That’s it. That’s the habit. Ten minutes, once a day, and within a week you’ll notice the difference in how you follow financial conversations, whether that’s in the news, in a group, or in your own head when you’re deciding what to do with your money.

The Bigger Picture

I’ve built five businesses. I run a household. I have three kids.

The time I have to sit down and learn something new is limited, and it has to count.

AI hasn’t replaced my learning. It’s made the learning I do more targeted, more efficient, and more useful. I spend less time confused and more time actually understanding what I’m looking at.

That applies to trading. It applies to a lot of things.

Risk disclosure: Trading forex and CFDs involves a high level of risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Please ensure you fully understand the risks involved before trading.

My book is out. Get your copy here!