If you have completed the Babypips School (or even if you havenât), you should be ready and [B]eager[/B] to tackle your first demo account.
Your next step should be to download the demo platform of your choice and start studying the user guide or tutorial that comes with it. Then, dive in. Not to make professional-quality trades, but to experiment with the functionality of the platform.
Find out how to use the charting package that comes with the platform. Find out how to place a market order, and a stop-order, and a limit-order. Find out how to cancel an order that hasnât been executed, and find out how to exit a trade that you have entered. Find out how to place stop-loss orders and take-profit orders, and how to change or cancel those orders after they are placed.
Find out all these things by trial-and error. Donât be afraid of your demo account. You wonât break it. If you manage to lose all the play-money that comes with it, so what? Get a new demo account â theyâre free. If your brokerâs demo account expires after 30 days, get a new one every month. Even after you open a live account, you will want to keep a demo account for trying new things in a safe setting.
Donât waste your time doing deliberately foolish things with your demo account, but donât be afraid to experiment. And donât be afraid to make mistakes. Nobody is keeping score on you, except you, yourself.
Until now, all youâve had is book-learning. Now you need to practice. Try to incorporate what you have studied into your practice on your demo account. That includes money management.
Treat the play-money in the demo account as if it were real money. Risk it intelligently, knowing that some trades will be losers, some trades will be winners, and the object of the game is to make your total winnings MORE than offset your total losses.
Pay attention to your emotions. If you canât take demo trading seriously, then you need to switch to live trading in a micro account, or a nano account, so that the dimes or pennies that you are risking on your trades are enough to get your attention.
If you observe a tendency to trade recklessly, then you have some serious work to do on your mental and emotional approach to trading.
If you are afraid of losing âmoneyâ in your demo account, then you have other issues that MUST be addressed, if you are ever going to become a successful trader.
Youâve completed the School. You should expect to return to the School frequently to refresh your memory, and to pick up those details that you missed the first time through. But, now is not the time to start another school â itâs time to practice what you have learned.
Thereâs an old saying that âPractice makes Perfectâ â well, not necessarily. [B]Perfect practice makes perfect. [/B]
There is so much that you canât possibly know, until youâve had some hands-on experience. For instance, some traders swear by indicators, and some traders scoff at indicators. You may think you know your opinion on that issue, but until you actually try trading both ways, you canât make an informed decision.
Some traders are deep into candlestick analysis, and some traders pay only scant attention to candlestick patterns. Whatâs your opinion on the value of candlestick analysis? Until you have some experience under your belt, you canât possibly know.
So, go for it. Jump in with both feet. Make all the newbie mistakes that every other novice trader has made. Ask all the dumb questions that every other newbie has asked. You really canât skip these steps. Theyâre part of the learning-curve that youâre on.
At some point, after youâve had a certain amount of hands-on experience, youâll be ready for some more book-learning. Youâll know when that time comes; and, when it does, there are some excellent book lists on this forum.
But, for now, get that demo account cranked up.