Hi my name is Lindys, I’m a newbie who is only well read in forex Trading (Currencies)#Price action . I have cold feet in beginning to trade my demo account without a trading plan, I dont want to start bad habits with my demo which will follow me to my future real account so how do I go about it.
It’s a chicken and egg problem. You can’t develop or evaluate a trading plan unless you start trading.
So, just jump in.
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Hi Lindys,
Welcome to the forum. It is said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I have spent a significant amount of time with one particular well known strategy known as trading the London open strategy. There are many sources of examples of how this can be approached, back-tested and demo tested. Search for London opening strategy on a browser.
Here is one of many explanations. Pick any and follow it, provided you are not asked to pay for publicly available information.
What is London trading strategy?
However when trading volume increases at the London market open trends set prior to the Asian range often resume. The strategy identifies these trends and positions to capture any session price breakout when the London market opens. The strategy uses a 100% mechanical entry and exit levels for trades.
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Welcome here Lindys, you can learn the basics of Forex here and start trading with demo account and after some practice with demo you will be able to make your plans and strategies.
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Hi Mondeoman,
Thank you for that info and I’m immediately looking into the London Opening Strategy right away.
i have seen according to our trading experience in demo account we the traders always use our trading strategies , its very supportive to increase trading performance , but in practical situation is totally different , the result we take from demo actually not works in a real account .
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Hi QuadPip,
That makes alot of sense thanks 
Hi NeilKruger,
I’ve heard of that quite frequently how the results we take from demo actually does not work in a real account so when you talk about increasing trading performance what does that intel exactly.
Hi Gove1971,
So what you are saying is I can already start demo trading without a plan since I’m starting off then I will be able to implement my trading plan and strategies based on the way I trade.
You can always start demo trading without any trading plan so that you can develop one while trading in demo account, getting my point? Not many people can start off trading with having plans in their minds. But that is how important the demo trading is. It exists so that you can improve, develop, and strategize the plan and everything that comes into forex trading. Wishing you all the best.
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There is just one difference between a demo and real account. A broker is not interested in what you do with a demo account, but with a real account, they’ll show you who they really are. Choose your platform for a live account wisely.
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Hi Lindys. welcome to the community. I think you must develop a trading plan first, using the guidelines provided on the school of pipsology, then start demo trading it. As you get exposed to the market environment, you will be able to make necessary adjustments to your plan, until you get a truly personalized and solid trading that you would take with you to trading a real account.
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Thanks alot, I get what you are saying.
thanks alot for the different info
Hi Lindys, I fully agree with forextt. If you want to learn a language just for fun, you take a holiday in the country that uses that language and try to find some local friends, take them for a beer and ask them to teach you that language. The first thing you will learn is all the dirty words in use in their town, city or region. Or you could register in a language class if your future depended on knowing that language. I think Forex is the same. By all means focus on one well trod plan (like London opening) that you will find thousands of posts about on the internet, but think about not getting into bad habits from the outset. Following a plan blindly without understanding how the basic knowledge is used to create and continuously improve that plan is like copy trading. Not recommended.
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I totally agree
Hi Lindys,
I hope I don’t confuse you here, but there is one huge advantage of using a demo account, and that is like learning how to drive a car. I remember way back that I had a big problem understanding the terminology of a long and a short, calculating how the amount of £ I wished to risk on a trade converted to stock price, or PIPs in the case of Forex. I used a demo account to set up a series of trades that were completely random, but with the objective of entering the market either long or short, with stop losses from 10 pips to 100 pips, just to get used to the clutch, the brake and the accelerator. Whilst the trades were in play, I did manual calculations to calculate how much I would win or lose, then when the trades ended, I would compare the actual results with those I calculated on paper. I did this until I got 30 on a row correct, to the nearest two PIPs, then I was confident that the actual act of putting on and taking off a trade became automatic - like when you get in your car to go to the local shops, it sometimes feels that someone else is driving and you are on “remote control”. I was reminded of this “mechanical practice” some months ago when I started to trade Crypto currencies. What was so automatic for me (since many years ago) about opening a broker account, setting up security, ensuring I did not lose passwords or account names, etc, I had to learn all over again when I wished to buy and sell Crypto currencies. So the first tokens I bought were for very small sums like £10. Since the market spread in Cryptos can be as low as 0.3% for Alt coins and less than 0.1% (10p for a £10 purchase or sale) for Bitcoin, it is a very cheap way to know that you are buying and selling what you think you are buying and selling. Cryptos range in price from USD35,000 per token down to about USD0.001 per token or less. The buy/sell screens of the three brokers I have used so far are set up to prevent you from trading ten times your intended trade size in error, but having Forex mechanical trading experience sure helps.
So why not try a trading plan that says, for example, I will start with a $10,000 demo account. I will trade only the GBPUSD pair. I will set my trade size at 1% of bank ($100 risk per trade). I will enter the market at exactly 09:01 hrs London trading time in the direction of the 15 minute candlesticks for the last hour. If I can’t determine the direction, guess, and record the “guess” in your trade journal for later analysis, and I will set a stop loss of $100 (at $2 per PIP, or 50 PIPs, and a take profit of $150 (or 75 PIPs). At exactly 16:01 hours, if the trade has not closed by either triggering my stop loss or triggering my take profit. exit the trade and record the profit and loss. These are really simple rules that you can get used to within a few trades without making mistakes. Just do that every trading day for a month and you will have 20 trades on which you can work out what the profit and loss was. You can do this with more than one trade and with a different set of stop loss and take profit parameters to speed up your demo time duration. If you run four in parallel, each one starting a week after the first you will have four sets of data to analyse. After one month, adjust just one parameter and run another 20 trades. This way you will get to “feel” how market volatility affects your win / lose ratio, and make you very confident with the mechanics of putting on a trade to a fixed set of rules, and will test your psychological stamina not to interfere with the rules until you have a minimum set of data to analyze. It is like flipping a coin 100 times. Lots of people “get it” but few people do this at all, let alone 10 times over, to actually see the number of consecutive wins and losses, and how far off the 50/50 the result can be even after 100 coin tosses. I did it once ten times over (yes, 1,000 coin tosses) and it shocked me how far one of those results was off the 50/50 theoretical average. It is this “feel” that is the beginning of a successful trader’s experience (only in my opinion) and one of the reasons it is so hard to stick to is that it is so BBOOORRRRRRRIIINNNNGGGGG!!!. So get used to the boredom if it helps you see the outcome, the range of differences in the outcome from an expected 50/50 win/loss (without slippage which won’t show up in the demo trading), and good luck with it.
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Hi Mondeoman,
I appreciate the practicality in your reply and how it’s an example of what I can initially begin with. You gave me the confidence to start trading my demo. I was underestimated the amount of info in my trading plan.
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First time heard someone trying to make good habit from the beginning. Take a 500$ demo account. Before opening a trade you should have some reasons to open it. Don’t open trade for sake of of opening trade. Follow money management policy. And according your strategy decide your entry and exit points.
Im not trying to blow accounts so thats why I’m trying to make a good habits in the beginning and I’ve witnessed some close to me blow accounts because of lack o good habts so I’m not trying to follow suit. Thank you for the advice.