What’s is the best time duration for demo trading before starting forex trading with real account.
Until you can confidently generate a positive return, say 2% a month, for 6 months. Allow about 12 months of learning. Successful trading is a highly skilled activity to generate consistent profits. Remember the vast majority fail to do that (lose lots of money).
4 Likes
See above as a good guide. The demo aim should be to develop a profitable strategy plus a rigid process for every trade, and always using it - which many losers don’t.
You need to be confident that your strategy works before going live. Forget about making money, focus on developing a ZEN mindset, and let the rewards, if any, take care of themselves.
Once live, your largest challenge will be YOUR emotions - PAIN of losing, and fear of missing out winning trade profits - so accept your only control over what the market throws at you is your risk exposure.
It sure ain’t easy, so best of luck.
4 Likes
Demo trading is important for skill development and you should stick to demo trading as long as you don’t become skilled.
2 Likes
The duration for using a demo account can vary depending on your goals. I advise spending enough time in the demo environment to gain confidence and refine your approach before transitioning to real trading with actual funds.
2 Likes
Trade on demo account as long as you are not skilled enough. Demo trading is highly useful for traders.
3 Likes
I think and based things I have learned once you have gained sufficient knowledge, developed a strategy, and achieved consistent results in the demo account, you can consider transitioning to live trading. However, it’s crucial to understand that live trading involves real emotions, psychological factors, and financial risks that may differ from simulated trading.
3 Likes
Although there is no set time limit for demo trading, it is typically advised to use a demo account for at least a few months to develop the necessary abilities.
in my opinion, it isn’t really about time duration
it’s got much more to do with “achieving statistical significance”, i.e. being confident that your results are reliable
factors like the number of trades and the type of market(s) are therefore much more important
i’m not being particularly articulate, here, but probably you can see more or less what i mean? for example, if all your demo trading trading was on an up-trending market and you did mostly long entries, then whether you did it for 3 days or 3 weeks or 3 months your results will doubtless have been positive but without that necessarily demonstrating any real “robustness” in your methods at all
that being said, unless you’re doing anything particularly unusual or unorthodox, i would recommend in principle a minimum of 250 trades without making an overall loss, and without having any peak-to-trough drawdown of more than 5% in your account, as a general rule of thumb
essential point: the drawdown is a much more important figure than the profits
good luck!
2 Likes
Cannot specify the time for that until you see you are earning profits and start with reals with small capital.
Trading demo is essential because it enhances experience. Traders should stick to demo trading as long as he doesn’t become skilled.
Yes brother, besides being an important tool for strategy development, demo trading increases traders’ efficiency.
I agree with everything everyone is saying here so far. But lemme be my usual bummer self and tell it like it is:
When you’ve finally reached consistent profitability on demo, you’ll notice one thing: Trading will become incredibly boring. When that happens, you’ll know that you’re ready for live trading.
You will have put away all the stupid indicators you’ve been playing with in the past, you’ll get rid of the silly colored lines, you’ll stop taking advice from YouTubers, and you’ll look at the charts not as a grown-up video game, but as a tool as mundane as a screwdriver.
You’ll also be adept at waiting, and waiting, and waiting, either for your pending orders to trigger, or your stop or TP to get hit. All that waiting will evebntually cause you to find other things to do besides wait.
Since your trading strategy will be the same every time, you’ll be so bored with it that it becomes like brushing your teeth. You’ll spend an average of five minutes per day on the charts, including the time it takes to enter a trade.
The routine of doing the same thing every day will drive you crazy. You can’t believe how something so quick, easy, and boring can actually make you money, but you stay with it, because it makes you money.
You can’t wait to get off the charts, so you can go do something interesting and fun.Trading has become mundane, boring, and profitable.
It’s now time to trade a real account using the same boring strategy.
1 Like
Exactly. I was fortunate to be able to take a long break, to refresh my appetite for challenging what the market throws at me. Now I’m taking up trading with LUX prop firm, and as they give me as much time as I want or need, it’s an ideal test.
1 Like
All the best to you with Lux. They are a great company. Let us know how you are doing. My advice is to watch the rolling drawdown like a hawk. I tried to force their challenge once and got burned, but I may join you again soon for the fun of it. Very low cost of entry.
2 Likes
Yes, it cost me £149 for a $25K evaluation account, refundable if passing two of these demo targets. I am watching their drawdown limits, now $1,209, but I doubt I’ll run foul early on as my risk exposure is minimal, just enough to keep me in the game.
However, it’s just my luck to run into three consecutive losing trades this week, costing around $50. Trading the Asian session is well difficult as I’m meeting several trend retracements targetting my quite generous S/L without the price action reaching my reasonable T/P first.
Anyway, I might hear from you if you also decide to have a fling again.
A trader should trade demo as long as he stays with the market. Demo is helpful for many reasons like for developing strategy and increasing trading efficiency.
What matters is not only the duration but also your level of confidence and skill in executing trades. Take the time to build a solid foundation and gain experience, so that when you upgrade to a real account, you’ll feel more ready and comfortable.
It varies. For me it was three months but I still use demo to backtest (verify on history) new ideas and strategies. You basically can’t develop sound trading strategy without backtesting.
There’s no exact time frame for demo trading. The better basis is to stay on demo until you’re consistently profitable.