There is no harm in starting a live account as long as you can afford to loose the capital.
Those of you, who have served your country will know firing at a real person is much different from firing at a mean looking German face target. If you are going to develop a mental attitude you have to get burned and battle hardened and this will mean you develop the patience and mental agility needed to win.
Trading a demo for a year is cowardice and you will likely not succeed in real trading. 1. You fear loss 2. You will never have the mental attitude because you are not risking anything, fundamentals of trading of any kind. It’s like a salesman who wants to pitch his wife and kids and never a real client.
So don’t listen to people make your own judgement. “Trust your feelings Luke” I have a demo account. However I chart on my live account and use the demo to place trades that I couldn’t justify just to see what the result would have been if I had placed it. So for me it is just a tool.
Yep, often I have thought about this, the value of a demo a/c.
I heard of a retired bank trader, he decided to go on his own as a retail, and so opened his demo - essential to get used to the software.
After a number of trades he became well versed in the platform, all was going reasonably well, that is until he encountered a trade going wrong.
He sat up the entire night managing that trade until he could exit a level acceptable to him.
The trade was still on his DEMO a/c.
His reasoning was simple, he refused to take his emotions to work, he never had done his entire trading life, it was what he was trained to do.
He said simply, if I am trading differently on a demo than on a live then that means I have taken my emotions to the trading desk, discipline was his only emotion.
[QUOTE=“emeraldorc;590857”]There is no harm in starting a live account as long as you can afford to loose the capital. Those of you, who have served your country will know firing at a real person is much different from firing at a mean looking German face target. If you are going to develop a mental attitude you have to get burned and battle hardened and this will mean you develop the patience and mental agility needed to win. Trading a demo for a year is cowardice and you will likely not succeed in real trading. 1. You fear loss 2. You will never have the mental attitude because you are not risking anything, fundamentals of trading of any kind. It’s like a salesman who wants to pitch his wife and kids and never a real client. So don’t listen to people make your own judgement. “Trust your feelings Luke” I have a demo account. However I chart on my live account and use the demo to place trades that I couldn’t justify just to see what the result would have been if I had placed it. So for me it is just a tool.[/QUOTE]
That’s quite funny, as far as I can tell price action trading is a form of technical trading and you recommend demo trading for these individuals on your website. So maybe you should correct that part of your website, because flip flopping tends to weaken that advice.
Don’t forget the title of the thread and his first post. He asked what to do next after having finished the School of Pipsology, and clearly stated that he was leaning towards PA trading. That, coupled with the obvious lack of trading experience, MBA or much less a trading plan, makes it clear that the logical advice is to demo trade… at least until you have worked out how you want to trade. He can obviously do what he wants, and no one here has suggested he should demo trade for years.
By telling the OP that he can do what he wants; and that demo and real money trading are very different things, well thats just simply pointing out the obvious. No need for dissertations on these topics.
Always start off with a demo, usually for practicing what you’d just learnt - and for developing a range of strategies…
After a few weeks, once you have a strategy that works for you, move to live acc, pref micro
Great…you can learn and hone your skills with a live account as well. There’s no set rule you need to move on with a demo but it is usually the preferred choice. But it’s great you are on the right track, good luck
I hope you will keep your momentum and excitement when you experience a large of a drawdown to the point where blowing up the account (assuming you have not yet experience this ). When that time comes (it will come), just be prepared yourself emotionally and mentally… The best way of knowing that you start to " get it" , for me, is when you are able to comeback from losing turn it into break-even, then starting to gain profit again…and maintaining it…
The best teacher you can have is the market itself and knowing who you are as a trader and what kind/type of risk you are willing to take and still be able to sleep at night… Journaling all your trades can help you as well…
Find a professional trader with a daily forecast that trades your market and your style of trading. Many out there offer 14 days free trial so you can get a feel for their accuracy. Then use their input as another indicator in your tool box. You should be able to find some at under $90 a month equivilant to one losing trade.( cancell any time) From their you will get to see a real trader thoughts. Like the market there are many conflickting views but I found it worked for me as I trade alone and have fallen for some of the chat room advice. If its free your advice is most likely as valid as theirs
I found a demo account let me practise my plan, which is based on demarco trend lines but going live was a whole different thing and provided the trigger to get to terms with the emotions of trading
So I was thinking that maybe it would be a good idea if I started journaling my trades on here so the more experienced traders here could supervise or maybe make sure that I am not doing horrible trades! Lol. Writing each one down seems a little tedious though, is there some sort of way to show what trades that I am taking without me writing them? I’m open to suggestions
I completed the full babypips school last May/ June and have been demo trading since. Trying out various strategies, trying out a number of brokers, reading numerous threads and blogs, watching many trading videos and attending a number of webinars (in the middle of the night for me). There are conflicting views on demo trading. The popular view is to trade it as if you were trading a live account. The other view, is to trade your strategy to death. Opening as many trades as your strategy will permit. The second way allows you to cram in experience of using your strategy so that when you eventually trade it on a live account you will know it backwards.
I have tried trading with and without a journal and I can definetly say that logging trades in a journal makes you think about the trade a lot more. Open a word document and type a paragraph on each trade. You can make it amusing. I copy and paste photos (I’m not saying what of ;)) to make mine more pleasing to my eye. The very fact that you are spending time typing the details of the trade makes you think about it. Once my trade has closed I type in the pips gained or lost and highlight them in either red or yellow. It is normally then that I realise the error of my ways
I seem to recall reading in the babypips school that you should demo trade between 3-6 months. I am currently in my seventh and I am beginning to get an understanding of the market. Before leaving the rat race of the UK for Thailand, I was a Chartered Surveyor and I see assessing a trade as being similar to assessing a structural defect. Once I have a reasonable grasp on that, I will go live.
I know! That’s exactly what I have been doing, it’s really starting to make sense today. I’ve just been watching which direction price seems to be going and I just trade in that direction. And guess what?! I’ve made $260 profit today!!! squeals so excited!
I don’t understand? I tried a few different usernames when I registered and it seemed like a few others had “Lexi” in it so there are probably another Lexi on here. Not many girl traders I’m noticing.
Lol… Oh man… d-pip and others…You guys are so good at this! I needed mentoring to finding out whose who. Is there a “especial” class that I can signed up? Lol nice!!
just saying