Just after and indication of where profits should be in the demo before even considering going live.
What are most peoples experiences before using real money,up - 50%,100%, 500%???
Do you reach you goal consistently every month?
I started a demo account last October and made a total of 43 trades ending with a total net profit of $7427.57 USD! Over a 3mth period.
Now for the good bit, I then opened a real account with 10k USD and I’ve managed to reduce that successfully to 5.5k USD! I have to say I’ve learnt a lot from the losses and have started trading mini lots and am slowly clawing my way back.
BE CAREFUL OUT THERE!
when you think about going live ask yourself this question: have I over the months(weeks, etc) accomplished my daily/weekly/monthly goal ? if the answer is no, then don’t go live.
- do you have a daily/weekly/monthly goal ? do you accomplish it ?
- do you see your trade successful before you even enter it ?
- do you still trade in a day when you lose 3 trades in a row ?
do you, after you close a losing position, quickly enter another position ? (revenge on the market) ? - if i were to come and take the money you are about to invest in forex, and lit it in front of you, would you feel anything ?
if the answers are :
- no
- no
- yes
- yes
then don’t go live. try to make the no answers yes and the yes answers no, then go live. that’s more important than how much you make profit per day for example, you can so easily lose all that in a couple of hours.
I read in this forum about the demo or live account. Which do you prefer to demo account or live account? I think demo account is a good way for learn and practice our trading activity. Live account is full of challenges
Well I think if you can take 10 trades in a row without having a single loss then you are ready for a live account.
The trades must be taken on different days ( not whack on the same movement 3 or 4 times and call it profitable.)
The trades should have a valid SL and not be let to float with a massive draw down and then claiming its profitable.
If you get to do the above on a demo, then the next step would be opening a micro with a 100 or 200 USD account tops.
Start with 10 cents a pip and slowly work yourself from there. You will top up the account once or twice. Trust me on that.
This is so the psychological parts can be ironed out.
If you ask me personally, you should never invest more than USD 2000 in a forex account.
It either grows exponentially due to compounding, which in the case it just proves that you know what you are doing.
Or it does not. Which in case its back to the drawing board minus the big loss.
The whole idea of being able to leverage is that you dont need a small fortune to make another.
Hope that makes sense.
Happy Pipping.
Beware of a common mistake, demo profits have zero to do with actual trading. Use a demo account to learn markets and your platform. Demo trading is good for learning but you can never truly learn to trade from demo alone. As far as the psychological and money side, demo trading will teach you nothing. why should I really care if I lose £50000 demo money?!
Trading now or trading no? I start trading a new strat after checking it for 2 years, usually minimum 100 trades and if the dd is well below 20%, sharpe is ok and roi is reasonable. Plus some other variables must meet my criteria.
Frankly, profit itself is a rather unimportant number in my check list. If roi is above 25%.
ROI above 25% for how long will that be? Weekly, monthly or what?
This is really my suggestion. Go live after one week of demo. Put in $100 dollars and it will teach you how you react to situations where you are in a losing trade. If after a month, your $100 is intact and made some profits, add another $100 or $900 then see how it goes after a month. Never add funds if after a month you’re losing money.
before going for live trading, its not necessary how much money you’ve made but proportion of profit and loss on an average.
I’ve always agreed with Bucks on this type of post, which has come up on a number of times in the past.
I’ve alse been on a demo account for a specific trading approach that im working on. Nearly three years in the demo stages, 600 trades later, and alot of amendments whilst implementing variables that change with the changing market condidtions. I can tell you now, that 2011 from Jan to November (not trading december) gave a monthly ROI average of 65%.
This specific trading approach still wont be live for another year or more as it needs further testing during 2008, the financial crash. If it can maintain its sucess and the variables with in the trading strat can change sucessfully with the increased volatility of 2008, then we have a nice income for many more years to come.
So, if you take Demo seriously, and treat it as real money, and also include a margin of error into your final monthly results for slippage and trading mistakes, then it does actually reflect a strong indication of how you will perform. It’s all about being honest with yourself when in demo.
i agree with jezzode. i have been using my demo account as if it were real money. i have been making at least 2 % per week on my account for the past month (takes losses in to account). i do stocks and options so i know how to handle my losses…i know its a different ball game but still. In the last 3 weeks, im up 4k and i only use 10k of my demo account which is what i would invest if it were real. i use to make stupid trades but i learned never buy or sell something in the middle of a trend…if it hits its weekly highs there is high chance of it coming down or if it hits its weekly lows there is a high chance of it going up. thats what i use and of course the business news for the pair im trading. I think im ready for a live account with 3.5k ?
You can go to the real period of 6 months when things get 200% deposit with a minimum of 200 transactions. But the deposit should not be big because you have to do it again in real money;)
Hi everybody and thanks for this thread, really valuable thoughts are here.
I want to ask you to take a quick look at my demo trading history and tell me what you think:
myfxbook.com/members/phpworker1
You will see some drawdowns there… They happened to me when I had to leave the platform (I traded at work) or I forgot about my open trade, or I tried other strategy.
As yo can see I am not using visible SL and it came from my exp not to use it anymore. If I am not sure where market will go then I do not trade. And I usually care about opened trades If I only can.
For now I have a problem - my employer locked the net and I cannot trade at work anymore. I tried to trade at cafeteria on lunch break and it doesn’t look promising. Maybe I need to learn another strategy than the one I use.
Tell me what you think.
… And what experience taught you that using a SL was a bad idea?
My earlier trading years shown me clearly that I cannot play with SL because of my constant loses with it. Also showing your SL to broker learnt me something when I was trading live for a while… there are bad brokers that will use your SL to grab your money.
Instead of visible SL I set it in my mind and close trade when it is hit. So, I need to care about opened trades.
Also I think that visible SL is quite primitive tool at all. Better watch the market because it’s situation is changing constantly and your SL is not - sometimes it needs to be smaller, sometimes greater.
I also tested ideas when trader plans a trade, sets awaiting position (limit buy/sell) and goes to work. It’s also not working for me. Again, because situation on market is always changing. Simply, I trade when I see opportunity and all my requirements are met. You can see on my trading history that it works, on demo.
I know that People behind Babypips say that SL is a requirement. Well, I tried hard to profit with it but I couldn’t, so finally I left it forever. My long-time experience said me that, and than some profits started to flow-in. But, that wasn’t anything I had to learn, other things had to be worked out…
A catastrophic stop is important where “catastrophic” is defined as losing the x% set aside for the trade.
If your cat. is 10 pips then of course you need to use a stop & if it is 100 pips you still need a cat. but you do not need to place it right away.
It is my opinion that any stop for less than total risk should be for less than half of the total position on the grounds that liquidating half doubles the remaining space & there is rarely a technical situation that requires such a move.
Personally I will trade minute charts with a 90 pip mental stop & a long term idea; I’ll place a partial stop if the situation warrents it, but I usually do not place stops from the get-go.
I dont believe a SL is [I]absolutely necessary[/I], but to me it just makes more sense knowing when to cut your losses. In no way am i saying that you cannot be profitable without a SL, as i am sure there are many traders that can and do trade without one. But i had a quick glance at your fxbook, 3 out of your 4 demo account are over 50% loss. So if you say you werent making a profit using a SL, it doesnt seem you are making one without one?..
Would it not be a better idea to use a SL - not to put you into profit, but to help your risk management and start cutting your losses?