How long to demo trade

In my opinion, You Should demo trade only until you fully know your trading platform,
And not a day more,

And ofcourse, you must have a working method, after that you Should open a live micro acount with real money,
The reason for that is because you Cannot go from demo to a winning trader even if you have a method that show Good profit in backtesting and even forward testning on demo acounts, Why is that you may ask? The reason is your ego and psychology,
You do not yet master your self on a psychological level, you might think you do, but believe me, you do NOT,
The only way to learn to master this is screen time on a live acount, a small micro acount is ideal because at the same time you feel the heat of battle, you dont risk much money, you Should be prepared to loose your first acount, the fear and greed Will make you do things that is not in your strategy, such as, exiting winning trades to soon, waiting to exiting loosing trades too long, make entrys too large to get even, and you name it, fear and greed is powerful emotions and it take a long time to conquer Them,
This is something you Cannot experience on a demo acount, and you need to, so there is no reason to spend more time Than neccesary on a demo acount, it is just a waiste of time. There is no fear of loosing papper money, so that is worthless training, the psychology is the hardest part to master and probably Why there is so many loosers in this game, been there, done that, take it from a guy with 5 years of live trading experience, and im still not graduated.

3 Years is a hell of a time, I only would say that 3 months are too much on demo trading. Then you must switch to micro or cent account and start trading live in practice format.

These days, it is not proper for one to demo trade for more than one month. I think the demo platform is just to help you get familiar with the many options of trading such as “how to place a trade” How to set ST and TP, how to use the charts and how to open and close a trade. These things wont take you more than one month to learn. After learning these things, you need a micro account to learn how to trade properly.

yeah, the same thing

To study trading ‘on paper’ is one thing, but to practice and become proficient in the art is quite another.

Almost anyone can make money on imaginary trades, for these require no risk of any kind - the mind is free from the strain which accompanies an actual venture; fear does not enter into the situation; patience is unlimited.

All this is changed when even a small commitment is made. The trader of slight experience suffers mental anguish if price does not go his way; he fears a loss, hence his judgement becomes warped, he closes the trade in order to secure mental relief.

As these are symptoms of inexperience they cannot be overcome by avoiding the issue.
The business-like thing to do is to wade right into the game and learn to play it under conditions which are to be met and conquered before success can be attained.

After complete absorption of every available piece of educational material it is best to commence trading in small lots.
This may not suit some people with a propensity for gambling.

The above words of wisdom are not mine, they are the words of Richard Demille Wyckoff, perhaps one of the most forward looking traders of all time. He had a passion for educating ordinary people at no cost to them, he hated to see them lose their money.

You are right, once you know all the necessary operations that are required to execute trades, then you can open a micro/cent account and can practice easily on it.

It depends on person to person. There are lots of people who can learn this trade within 2 to 3 month and on the other hand there are lots of people who need 5 to 6 month to understand the basic of this market. From my personal experience i can say that maximum newbie can learn this market within 2 to 3 month if they are serious and committed to themself. Don’t be so happy if you do well in demo trade. Keep in mind that real trade is different. The idea behind Demo trade is that it would help you to understand how Forex trade works. More importantly, you would also able to find out your mistakes in demo trading and that would help you immensely in real trade.

I find i treat my demo account as if it was real money, because then i take more realistic risks. i have only just started trading and have been using my demo account for just under a month. I would start thinking about converting to a live account within the next month or so, but use a demo until i become confident enough to use/lose my own money! Plus i want to enter some trading competitions and you have to have a live account…

I think I’m going to trade with a demo account until I can consistently make a profit with it…
Otherwise I would not put my money on the line. Do you think it is a good idea?

How long did you guys use a demo account before trading for real?

Depends on who you talk to. In my opinion it is a terrible waste of time as you do not learn anything, others view it as important so forget what others think. As long as it makes sense to you, do it. Just remember you can’t and won’t learn how to trade in a demo account, just like you won’t become a golf player playing it on a video console. If you can’t afford to lose $200 in a micro account while you learn how to trade then you should not bother to start. That’s just my two cents.

I suggest to trade micro accounts. I think you need to feel greed and fear. Paper accounts you will fool yourself too much and loose interest. $100-$200 micro account is not that much to lose. Then if you can trade three months well, then maybe up it to $1000 and grow slowly…

Use a demo account until you feel you are ready to take the risks, remember never use the money you are going to cry over if you lose it all, ie: use ur going out to party money or similar things you can cut n save.

Demo accounts are good to use for practice and keep practicing until ana find sitem good trading and profit. Everyone is certainly not the same problem how long it will be used, so in moderation.

Yeah right demo accounts are very helpful and if we practice more and more in it and properly learns the basics
of Forex trading then we can become the good trader.

how long you have been demo not really important, the most important how long you can make consistent profit on you demo, if you can make atleast 3month i think you are ready to open live acc. good luck

There’s no set period. Trade for however long you need, up until you see that you’re consistently profitable for a considerable period of time. And even if you do move onto a live account, don’t invest a large sum of money. Trading on a demo account is not exactly the same as trading on a live account, don’t go into trading on the latter with the expectation that you will be as successful and profitable as on the demo account. It takes time and effort to learn to trade with real money.

Good solid advice

I have to work on a demo account in the beginning to more than a year and a half after it began trading on a real account

No specific answer, but you need to practice your demo account until your profitable trading strategy or system! I see, many successful Forex traders used their demo only for few months but now they are enjoying their live trading! On the other hand, many traders are struggling in their live account although they were profitable in their demo, so it’s really unpredictable! By the way, I used my demo account for 11 months!

The foreign exchange market is the largest financial market is the world. To do currency business here or other commodities we must need to learn all about this financial market. A new trader must train his or herself properly before entering in this business. Foreign exchange market is not for an uneducated person. Though this market welcomes all category people to get their chance of making money. But Without the knowledge of economy and currency trading no one can survive for long here.
According to achieve success in this business and earn a good amount of money a newbie should educate his or herself with foreign exchange market. To apply this acquired knowledge everybody, need a platform and that platform is demo account. Practicing with demo account make yourself prepared to trade with live account. Also trader can test their strategies with their demo accounts. And now many broker provides free demo account to practice.