Most often, we hear people advice newbies to trade on demo for as long as they can before they think of trading with real money. I think that advice is not good if you want to learn fast. I’ll use myself as an example. I have traded forex for a year and half now. The first time I traded live was only after 11 months of demo. I blew my account in less than a month. I went demo for about four months until I felt I was ready to go live a second time. Using proper risk management, I was able to retain 60% of my equity after my many losses. It was then that I realized the problem. I did everything right on demo because it was not my money and my emotions were on vacation. However, on a live account, the situation is entirely different. You place a trade and automatically, the market will start to move against you. You pick a bias and you are proved wrong. You close a trade because you think you are wrong and the market moves in the direction you predicted initially. It’s like everything you do is not working. I was at the point of calling myself a failure until I stopped being too hard on myself. I moved my money to a micro account and I am gaining my footings. If you want to master the market, trade demo for only three months. Then open a micro account and practice so you learn to control your emotions when trading. And if you trade micro with success, a standard won’t be a big deal.
That’s a good suggestion. I think three month is little short for those who are slow learner. I think 3-6month is better.
Thanks for the suggestion. I think that’s perfect.
@dquaye
Welcome. I am of the same mindset as you, but for many people, it hurts to lose any money no matter how small. I know I have been foolish in the past, but each idea of foolishness has given me lessons in how not to make the same mistake. So I proceed to make different mistakes. They say even a broken watch is right twice per day.
I am fortunate to be old enough that my education did not cost me directly much money. The current young generation have to end up with debt around their necks and ankles the size of what used to be the cost of a house to live in. It may get worse. There is a cost of education whether that is formal study or the university of life. Each to his own. I always reconcile this with the time value of money. For some people that is less than a dollar per hour. For others it is hundreds. Just because you are trading demo doesn’t mean it costs nothing. The biggest cost is your time used in following Forex trading in a demo account versus the opportunity cost that you have foregone by spending all that time trading on demo.
Exactly. All forms of education come at a cost so it’s better we pay a small fee early on than a hefty one later