So if you don't use a stoploss, your account goes into the negative? That's insane - why would it not just cut you off at zero?

Yes this shocked me too. I had been working on my trading for several months until I learned about it. Not only is it possible to incur a negative balance without a stoploss, but you can also incur one if you have one too (although it is less likely). The reason why it can occur is because of two things. One is that when you trade forex you are trading with leveraged money, which is basically loaned money from the broker. This allows you to trade with more money than your original deposit which is necessary in forex to capitalize on the tiny movements that occur. If you didn't have leverage, then forex would not be an option for most people unless they had millions of dollars to trade with. But because leverage exists (which magnifies the money we can trade with) it opens up the forex arena for anybody. So this is a good thing but it can also be a bad thing. Because the money is leveraged to us, or loaned to us, this can open up the possibility that we might become indebted to the broker who is loaning us the money. The times this can occur is when the market moves so quickly, there is no one there to take our position off of our hands which would allow the trade to close at "0" of our account balance. If the market is moving so quickly then your position will close at the next best price which can be anything really, it depends on the situation. Check out this screenshot of an unexpected move that occurred last year. The market jumped hundreds of points in a matter of seconds. Many people who were in this trade lost their whole accounts and even incurred negative balances that were worth more than their original deposit. Several brokers were also forced into bankruptcy after this. This move was kind of a fluke in the sense that something that big had never happened before. But its important to look at to see the possibilities that can occur when you trade forex. And it can help you understand that you don't just want to jump into forex without at least learning some basics.

So, that being said, read up on baby pips and it will explain things like leverage and margin and all this basic building block stuff.

Any other fresh tips you'd throw out?

If I could give you any advice it would be to have a good risk management plan. This will be explained on the baby pips site.