I have a live account and a Demo account with oanda at the moment and so far I’m quite happy. Execution looks good and I haven’t been screwed by slippage. Yet. These where two issues I have had with other brokers. They allow you to trade with very small lot sizes, if you would like to get a feel for trading with real money it means you could make a small deposit and scale down your position sizes. they have some decent educational resources albeit limited They also wiped all negative balances after the Swiss frank went bananas. I found the customer services to be very helpful and understanding of my level of experience. In saying all that, I have only tried three of a long list of brokers so my knowledge on the matter is obviously limited.
It is very important. You can open a demo account with any broker they are free. Good move.
I had my demo account with Etoro. The broker does an okay job in getting a newbie started. Their Openbook system is also a well design one too. 
Almost every broker is giving free demo trading account and it is good for practice. One thing I noticed that there are more requotes in live account as compared to demo account.
I think people would have mentioned that demo only lets you get used to a broker’s platform, so it’s good to do demo for a while(max 3 months) to get used to the platform. If you are satisfied, do go on to a live account with the same broker, and you will find that your emotions when in a live trade would be totally different due to the fact that you have real money on the line. Also, I cant say for sure but you might not encounter as much slippage on a demo account compared to a live account. If you trade the higher timeframes and use a larger stop than slippage might not matter to you, but if you trade smaller timeframes or are a scalper, every pip counts, and slippage on the live account might result in poorer results compared to demo. I do have demo and live accounts with Oanda, but I find their spreads not very competitive. I have a live account with IC markets, as well, and do all my trading with them. Their spreads are great, they charge a commission, only thing I dun like abt IC mkts is that slippage on live trades can be pretty bad sometimes. For example, I can be slipped anything from 0.1-0.7 pips on entry, then if I am stopped out of a trade with a stoploss, another 0.1-0.3 pip of slippage. Worse I’ve encountered is I paid an extra 1 pip in usdjpy, over and above their normal spread of 0.5 pips, on a trade, due to slippage on entry and upon being stopped out. However that does not happen very often, and most of the time slippage is around 0.1-0.3 pips, on the majors.
The one &only, primary, basic rule for demo. Bravo. Majority of brokers that’s whay offer 50 or 100 k and not 500 or 1000 $ account where people can trade. They know why for shure.
I do not think that the broker wants to train properly trade. There are many companies that are “trained” but only to ensure that people have invested money is lost to them. And it’s sad
Besides demo trading you the newbies can also try trading with no deposit bonus provided by some brokers. You can have $5 no deposit bonus by registering into Fort financial Services. Register and verify your account to get the bonus and you can withdraw all your money after completing 1.5 lots of trade.
Sensus Capital Markets Ltd. very , very good broker for demo and live acc. Al I can say about them- exelent:8:
[QUOTE=“Iztok V;688427”] The one &only, primary, basic rule for demo. Bravo. Majority of brokers that’s whay offer 50 or 100 k and not 500 or 1000 $ account where people can trade. They know why for shure.[/QUOTE]
I agree with forexcrisp. I am a newbie on forex. I started with 100,000 and I was able to make it grow to 110k. (Or so I thought haha). Opened my live acct with 200, and realized that I should have practiced with my demo for that amount with leverage of 10:1.
And yes, it did create a lot of problem haha. Anyway, still learning here. I lost 32.5% of my equity. I profit about 2-3% of my equity per day. But due to wring analysis, loses 2.5-4%. Hehe.
Anyway enough ranting. Hopefully, i make better trades as time goes by. And (crossfingers), recover the lost $70.
if you are bored with demo trading then there is a relief for you as Fort Financial Services offers you with no deposit bonus of $5. You can get it by simply registering and verify your account. You can also get the bonus 2nd time around if you loose it. The withdrawal is very simple and fast. You need to complete only 1.5 lots of trade to withdraw money.
Do demo accounts have the same spread and execution as the live ones of the provider? if yes isn’t better to open multiple accounts and test which one suits you more
Demo account is simulation account before we used real account. It is same with training before you entered into the competition. Good trading in demo account won’t guarantee your good performance in real account but good trading in demo account means good preparation before you entered into real account. Good system can be made in demo account so your trading result in real account will be easier to manage.
Quite to the contrary! The way FXCM weathered the SNB fiasco is a testament to their resiliency. In my opinion, of course. No need to argue the point, it’s not why I made this post here.
Going back to the original post of this thread; juiceman, you asked for advice and you are going to get it. Wish I had someone tipping with this advice a few years ago:
Open a live account and a demo account with FXCM! Use their Trading Station platform, forget about MT4! Words cannot describe the difference between the two, you must experience it for yourself.
You can open live account for a few hundred dollars, $400, $500, $600 … it does not matter. No need to use it right away. Also open a demo account with Trading Station for you to trade on.
Having a live account with FXCM gives you access to daily instructional videos from their education department dailyfx.com. The education and on-going training you will get from these guys is what you are after. I took two trading courses from known trading instructors (one of which recommended using FXCM) and I have no shame in saying that the training I got from the FXCM instructors is more comprehensive, clearer and being on-going, way more effective then both courses combined. This is true trading education and live training that works. If you are just getting started you need quality training more than anything else.
I might add, that I am not related to FXCM in any way, I’m just a very very happy customer.
Its good to trade in a mini real account especially with free money than trading in a demo account. But still you cannot learn properly if you will trade in a real money account, because your intentions will automatically turn towards earning rather than learning.
Totally agree with you. same point of view here
That’s interesting, I’ve never thought about this side of micro real account. I guessed that it’s actually better, because on demo you can’t feel anxious about trading and it’s a bit different than real trading.
Demo trading is only good if you are taking it seriously, but if you are only doing it for time pass, then you won’t be able to make proper progress in your trading career.
A demo account is very good place to start and practice. It also gives more information about a broker so you have to make good choice with a broker while before demo trading.
Same spread yes, execution - no. Some of the brokers tell you this. However, from my experience demoing a number of brokers seems to give you an idea how their computers execute the orders.