I have been paper trade for more than 6 months and result was acceptable (600pips++ in my last 2months). Lately when I decided to fund in small amount of money to LIVE account, I found myself loss.
I am not sure what was the main reason, the consistency to identify entry and exit is missing. I have been losing continuously since the last 2weeks (more than 500pips) in demo account.
I found myself so hard to get the right entry even and this makes me not been touching my real account trading for more than 2weeks.
I am trying to find back my confidence and picture which I feel I lost it.
How can you loss consistency? Didn’t you have some kind of scenario when to enter and exit, when to buy or sell? Didn’t you take note for ever trade, demo or live?
I really don�t understand that about paper trader, let me ask you, how did you saw the market? Had you a demo but you wasn�t trading?
In the other hand, if you did something on paper, maybe you missed something in there, because its not normal that you were trading on paper and it was good, and now, you are trading in a demo and its sucks, so you are missing something, that`s for sure. Read again your notes and see what is happening.
Perhaps you’re facing the mental challenge which is the difference between demo and live trading: in live trading it hurts to lose since it’s your hard earned real money at stake. in the end demo is just a video game with really sad graphics, and like in a video game, you can die as many times as you want.
The switch from demo to live is a big deal. I wish you good luck. It might help if you have your rules clearly written down, so that feelings get less chance to influence your live trading decisions.
I don’t know whether you realized the difference on execution terms between demo and live or if you were seriously taking notes on a paper. I prefer to think it was something that occurred when you switched live and is something that usually happens, so you better check out execution with your broker because it may be affecting your entries.
I guess what’s important isn’t only how you are trading but when you are trading. Also equally important is what you are trading. I.E. what pairs are you trading, what sessions (timeframes) are you trading, what isn’t happening that was happening before, what is happening that wasn’t happening before. This information may help you and it may help even more to explain it to someone else because then you have the ability to see the answers as you are explaining them and get feedback.
In the mean time, take a deep breath, go back to demo and keep plugging away at it. Keep a trading diary. That way you have a written history of what is or isn’t working and when.
Also, and don’t be offended, but realize that trading isn’t for everyone. I’m not saying it’s not for you, but you should ask yourself that question.