How Long should you demo test a system?

being trying a system for a week now and getting some good results, 33 trades with 28 of them wins.

thinking this could be luck still. How many trades do people think i should do before taking the percentages to be close to what i would get over a long period? the babypips school says to test for 6 months but not sure if thats assuming a few trades a week rather than alot?

would like to trade a small money account (0.01 lots at a time) but dont want to jump in too quick and end up blowing it all…

I’m personally going for the six month time frame. The reason is two fold.

I have nothing to lose and everything to gain the longer I spend demoing. I made a bad trade last week and it cost me 100 pips. I made a short trade against the trend and at the bottom of a retracement and near a six month low for the euro. I’m glad I made that on a demo account.

Second I’m putting $25 a week away towards my forex account. I will have a small but usesble fund to start trading with.

Good luck!

i’d demo for at least 3 months. I did that and then started a live account and blew it up eventually. The emotional toll of live trading is nothing like demo trading. However, demo trading is needed.

I suggest 3 months demo, 3 months of live, very limited account size, trading. After those, evaluate where you stand and see if you can use a larger account size.

Allow me one question, since you either have a remarkable rabbits foot, or youre the greatest thing to hit the ground running Ive ever met !

WHAT IS THE SIZE OF YOUR DEMO ACCOUNT ? Is it the same size as the REAL money you shall be placing into a REAL account ?

If not, then your results are being skewed by the massive credit one has on the normal $50K demo, and you should IMMEDIATELY get rid of that one and open one using the PROPER amount you will be using !

If you dont, you are cheating yourself and you will invariably find you will blow your margin and your real account

Unless you really are the luckiest new trader to hit the ground !

But i dont think so

the searcher

For a completely new system nobody else has tried (rare), then yeah 6 months would be good, or backtesting a few years even…

However, as was mentioned above… trades and events will turn out quite different once you start using REAL money rather than paper trading or testing or demo accounts… it’s not just the trading system, it’s you as a trader, and how we operate when we’re dealing with real money as opposed to paper money…

You have the right idea about starting in small lots though. If you can do it with a 0.01 lot, you can do it with a 1 or 10 lot.

6 months is the ideal.

But I did the complete school and in some lessons it says that if you get really used to it, the minimum could be 3 months demo.

By the way, which system are you trying?

Argentum: trying the amazing crossover system from the free forex section on these forums, but with a t/p limit of just 15 pips each time. know that means i miss out on alot of pips each time but keeps the percentages up

Insearchoftheflame: yes, demo account is �500 and just trading 0.01 lots each time on it which is same as was planning to start a real account on for a bit while i get use to it all

What website (platform) are you using??

alpari uk, which is on MT4

As long as you feel confident, nobody can really say a finite time.

It mostly depends on your patience level. Normally about 80 - 100 trades with good results are enough for a system to be tested upon, but getting a signal for 80 - 100 trades on longer time frame will take a long time. So its not a fix duration that can be told for any system to be exactly tested upon.

That’s good, setting the demo account to the preferred level you may want to go live with later on. On the length, it depends on the individual trader and when you start making pips constantly, then yes, it may be time to go live. Do note, some of the brokers demo accounts tend to vary a lot from a live one, so you may want to check up on that…and when live, start small.

Good advice, this was a great mistake done by me as well. I started in demo accounts with huge capitals but when I started in real account, the capital was small, so the difference has taken long for me to adjust.

50 years should give some idea…

You can test demo system untill you are not skilles in forex traing . Demo practice will tell you all about trading . You should pay attention to monay management and market analysis in demo so that it will help you in real trading . Try to manage that much amount in demo which you will invest in real account.

should try out itcfx also using mt4, they also have a 30 day protected account, where there is no risk of loss whatsover, and all profit made is yours. (the profit made isnt gonna make you madly rich because there is no leveragebut at the same time it is rilliant pratice wihtout the worry of loosing anything.

Yes, then another 50 years with a microaccount :slight_smile:

You are right, understanding the dynamics and working of market is very helpful through demo account. We should give some serious attention towards demo trading to become a good trader.

IMO, 3month if you can make consistent profit, i think you are ready to do live, micro acc is good idea, trading live its not just about good system but also psychology, unless you using EA its a different story, good luck.