You can do up to 3 trades in january (remember a trade is where you buy something and sell something, just selling a stock without buying anything is not considered a trade) that would exhaust your two wc trades for the contest and your january trade. if you don't use your january trade you lose it. Your feb trade becomes available in feb, you can't use it until feb, as jan it goes away if you don't use it, and the same can be said for march and april. You don't have to use your trades as well, I've seen plenty of contestant go the whole contest without using a trade, I've seen others use every trade available it is up to each person what they want to do. Also the WC trades (2 of them) can be used at anytime in the contest, they only get used though if your making a 2nd trade in a month, if you only make 1 trade in a month obviously your monthly trade gets used first. hope this helps.