Two prices, a spread, and a bet on which central bank blinks first — most retail accounts are down money before that bet even starts.
Five thousand dollars in the account, twenty-to-one leverage, EUR/USD, target twenty pips. The trader gets direction right. The pair moves eighteen pips in his favor over the next hour. He closes the trade and finds eleven dollars in profit, not the ninety he expected. Nobody stole the other seventy-nine dollars. The spread, the swap, and the slippage on entry and exit took it, in pieces too small to notice until they're added up. Right about the market, and still barely ahead of flat.