Hi Guys,
Does anyone have comments or suggestion which one could attract most for new traders? Would it be a Demo Account or Live Account?
As long as your not a quick fire scalper where a few pips here and there is not going to effect your Profit and losses then they are both the same. As long as you treat them the same with respect to your money management that is.
Most say that ‘everyone is profitable when paper trading’. The emotional aspect doesn’t really kick in until it’s real money on the line. Either have the mental capacity to trade paper with the same mindset as you trade live, or trade live with small amounts. I prefer to demo for some time just to make sure I’m comfortable with the platform and orders and such, and then switch to live trading 250-1k unit sizes
Hi Jezzode,
Thank you for your reply.
what do you mean by quick fire scalper?.. Yeah you’re right with regards to the money management.
Do you have some suggestion or articles that i can read about money management?
try both and you will notice the diffrence ? dont ask any one … each one has his own experience … so experience it first … in my view (the psychology plays at live — dies at demo)
The only real difference with a demo account vs a real account is that your trades will be filled at the exact price you click on, hence you wont get slippage. Slippage is the difference between the price you want and the price you actually get. But even on live accounts this is rare, and when it does happen you are talking of a pip or two maximum. Anymore than that sort of allowance and I would consider changing your broker.
As for trading psychology, some say that a live account is more difficult as it’s real money on the line. But this is why I said that you need to treat them with the same attitude to money management, and not trading higher risk trades on demo because you know its pretend. But the psychological effects have nothing to do with the demo vs live account, in terms of price feeds they are the exact same. What would change is your behavior, and not that of your account - if that makes sense.
When I went from demo to live I saw absolutely no difference, because I treated the demo account the same as I would treat my real money account.
It’s this few pips slippage that can effect scalpers, i.e traders who go for a few pips profit and then close their trade. placing these sorts of trades on demo can look attractive as you always get the price you want, but do it on a live account and your profitable trades may diminish as you loose part of your profit via the slippage. (you could also have an extended loss if your stop level is slipped).
You just need to figure out the ratio of possible slippage against the average number of pips that you will be aiming for in your usual trading day. If you aim for say 100 pips per trade then a 2 pip slippage will only effect 2% of your trade. But should you usually go for 10 pips profit then the same 2 pip slippage could effect your trade up to 20%. As long as you take these possible errors into account when on demo then you will be fine. You can just subtract them from your success rate to get a nice ball part figure of “what one should be able to achieve in a live account”.
Most if not all, new traders started at Demo account. It is simply because they want to test the water first, learn from mistakes, and get a feel what it is like to be a trader before they put their hard earn money on the line. However, as everyone have said it before, Demo is a different feel than on a live account. In demo, it is ok to lose a lot and you do not feel any pain because you know it is a fake money. But when you start trading live with your hard earn money, you will realize how painful it is to lose that quick.
So start with demo and see how you do… give it a lot of time and practice…
Good-luck.
Hi LiquidGenius,
Thank you for your comment.
I appreciate it, You have point there in that phrase ‘everyone is profitable when paper trading’ and in the aspect the doesn’t really kick until it’s real money. Hehehe… With your advice to go on demo account ten switch to live account, do i still need to re-register just to make it live?
Hi ForexMnstr,
Thank you for your reply.
You are right in your comment. However, i just want to ask some advice from professional traders with a lots of experience… :D… Hope you get my point… but in any case… i really appreciate your response… Thanks… In your experience, which do you prefer?
Hi Jezzode,
Thank you so much for thorough explanation… I really appreciate it specially the thing that you said about the way you treated the demo account. 
In my case, i would try to test the demo account and have more experience on how to handle trading psychology while i am still in the demo account.
How long do you think does a person like me to stay in trading as a demo account? just a suggestion…
Hi PipNRoll,
Thank you for your reply. Yeah I’ll give it a try. But do you have any suggestion on how long should i stay as a demo account?
No problem…
You can do demo as long as you like in 6 months, 12 months, even 2 years or so…It all depends on you. However, if you also wanted to get a feel how it is to trade on a live account while doing demo, just open a very small amount.
BTW, which part in Philippines you are at? I am a Filipina. Born and raise… and I am proud of it :). We have a handful of Filipino traders here just so you know 
Ask away if you still have any questions… Glad to see you here…
Sheryl.
I was on demo for two years, while flashing in and out of small live accounts when I kept thinking “right, i get this now” - of course i was wrong. I’m now on a live account and have been profitable, but the trading method that I use was designed on a demo account which I used for back-testing purposes.
when i started trading few months ago I used both (demo & live ) at the same time … the broker offered me a demo with 1000$ but i started to lose money on demo on purpose inorder to reach 100$ which is the same amount I had on live account … and i realised at that time that i was actually losing money on live while gaining on demo despite that i was trading on same pair same price … the reason was because I used stop loss orders on live while not using any on demo…
after that i closed my live account … and started to trade on demo … testing strategys that has been used before … developing ones … asking traders about how am I doing … Now i have a 1000$ live account trading micro-lots only … until iam comfortable I will start trading mini-lots then trading standards …
I believe it depends on your broker, although most generally yes
On the length, it depends on the individual - usually anywhere from 2-3 weeks to months. In the end, you need to be comfortable trading with real money and have a strategy in place…
Demo is for learning and familiarize yourself with the MT4 or whatever platform you choose to trade.
Do not spend a dime on a real account if you don’t have a solid strategy and tested it on a demo account.
Demo! Best way to understand the market and learn how it will react throughout major/minor events between countries. I am currently demo-ing but plan to enter soon!
Agreed, demo accounts will really help you to come up with a trading strategy and you can use this account to find out more about your preferences vis-a-vis trading
I agree, do not go live until you practice enough. If you want to go live faster then I suggest this way:
- Backtesting
- Demo account
- Micro Live account
- Live account
In this case the risk will be minimized