Desire is the starting point of all achievements, I desired to be a forex trader and enrolled at the School of Pipsology. I graduated. Immediately opened a demo account and bought a trading journal to record anything and everything about my trades and my emotions before, during and after a trade. I was contacted by an account manager pushing me to open a small live account. I was new to trading and I wanted to survive in this field and so I did not fall for the trick. I have been demo trading for four Months now and I have developed a suitable trading plan that works for me. I have three trading systems that I use on different time frames. My portfolio at first was whack! I truly sucked at trading during my first week. The best thing is that I survived and I have never risked more than 2% of my demo account. I set well calculated stop loss with a reasonable profit: risk ratio. Now my portfolio is green. Lots of winning trades. I believe am ready to open a live account. I strictly follow the rules of my trading system and keep track of my trades. One thing that really disturbs my mental is the energy forex brokers pass to newbies on short term trading mindset. I understand trading small account is trading small mindset. Dr Pipslow warned me against opening an account smaller than $10000. Micro lot account. But I only got $300 and a DREAM.
If pips low said that … he’s s clown. Just start, with what you have
Just remember, if you risk 5% of your Capital on each trade, you’re out in 20 trades… so better risk 1% per trade, and get 100 bullets … slowly grow that account and increase risk amount
The rationale is that newbies expect to make enough money to pay for their lifestyle by pressing a few buttons. A $300 account will not achieve this easily, unless you get lucky, but if you can manage your emotional control you could become profitable enough to spend on a beer or two at weekends.
With $10,000, two percent profit or loss is $200 dollars. That one trade could pay for your weekend lunch at your favourite restaurant, and if losing it won’t affect your lifestyle. The higher your account balance the easier it is to make money - and lose it. Which if applied to a $300 account the odds of blowing your account is high.
I think the worst thing people can do is linger on demo accounts.
Even if it is only micro 10 pip trades on Oanda with no leverage at all, I still see it as more value from a trading standpoint than using fake Monopoly money.
If you want to see trades “work” with larger numbers and fantasize about it being real, I feel this will hinder your judgement and risk appetite and analysis.
You will be too quick to jump into a larger account, greed is hard to escape for most people. Impatient people are poor at deferring gratification.
If you must use one, run both at the same time I guess.