Hi fellow traders, before everyone says demo trade demo trade so heres a brief summary of where I am. I’ve been trading for just under two years now and have already live traded before but felt like I wasn’t ready so went back to demo trading even tho I was profitable I just felt like I wasn’t quite there, I have been working on couple of new systems in last few months more suited to part time trading, so all my trading systems work on long time frames, wider stops, etc. I’ve also found few currency pairs that I work well with and I would say I’m starting to understand their personalities of the pairs, I won’t be live trading yet as still slightly tweaking few things in my systems, I also personally need to be more on top of my trading journal. I have completed machincal systems so no emotions when trade and I never ever risk more than 1% first rule and have built my demo account well I would say ( started with £1000account) but still get little nervous when I think about live trading.
However, I would like this topic for traders with experience to sorta give there advice on how they dealt with there emotions going from demo to live and so on.
This advice is more aimed for trades that do have experience but aren’t as experienced as others(if that makes sense). But I would say this topic is not for a week old trader who thinks they can come a billionaire in a week cuz we all know it take at least three weeks to come billionaire in forex but seriously I would like this topics advice to be aimed for Traders who aren’t rookies but aren’t experts at the same time.
Hey Robotrades.
I might be one who fits your mold there. In fact, I started a thread called “My Journal journey, from demo to live, and beyond”. Please don’t read it. It’s just a journal. But, my point here is, I’ve searched my soul to make the demo-live transition as smooth as possible. See, I demoed for 3 complete years before I jumped in, to live. And when I went live, (Jan. '16), I remember how it wasn’t such a big difference, from demoing. That’s mostly because of the amount of effort I put into the demo trading as real life trading. Just like you, I went in with $1000, on the demo. Crashed and burned 3 times that way. But, there just comes a time when you have to leap in live. It became stale. It is just the progression of things. You just have to do it.
But, what comes to my mind, the real key to the transition, is TRUST. You must trust your system. I mean, of all the work that was put into it, all of your experience of trading that way, believing that it’s the best you can do, is what it comes down to.
And you should know by now what a complete system consists of. Money management. Risk management. Proof of concept. Etc…
So, if you have planned properly, the next step is to see it take place in real terms. That’s all.
And look…if you fail…(like I did, twice) ( all documented )…you just pick yourself up, after you have learned something and move on. That’s how we all really progress anyway.
It’s all part of the process.
It’s about growing up.
So.
Trust your system.
Using the rules of your system, there will be points while you’re waiting for a set-up to complete to give you the entry price and signal.
Try setting an entry order rather than clicking at this point live. It takes just a few seconds to set the order and its associated stop-loss. There’s always time.
I was started like you. Like every trader I didn’t able to control my emotion and started live trading before doing demo trading properly. But as I didn’t investment big capital I was trying to do short term trading. Two things help me most. First of all I am comfortable with micro lot so there is less chance of losing. But whenever I feel I stuck in any place I tried that on my demo platform it give me glimpse which helps me on live trading.
Hey Tommor fan of you’re reply’s I see on other topics, as I trade part time and work full time and I already use orders in my sets ups , however I dont use them much for instance I’ve had a trade open for a three weeks now, I think it may go the over way if it does I’ll still come out with 160+ pips. But yeah thank you for you’re advice tho.
That’s not a bad idea because I’ll be starting £1000, so I could put £100 get used to the stress of live trading but really with £100 I couldn’t execute my trading plan properly but definitely gonna give it a go
MikeWolski thanks for the advice I think you’re right because I believe in my system and have work very very hard to get it where it is today, I do think when I’m more knuckled down on my trading journal as I’m very poor at writing down my trades I will start to live trade. thanks very much for your advice.
Live is somehow is not similar to demo trading accounts since in case of live trading traders have the anxiety to lose money. And traders need to overcome the fear of losing money with the better utilization of money, time and risk.
Its a fair point. Money is an intensely personal commodity in its own right. If our losses were almost anything else except money, they would be emotionally much less impact.
A stop-loss set as soon as you plan and enter a trade has a useful psychological influence. If your TA says put the stop-loss at price X, and you wish to only risk 2% of your account, then you adjust your position size accordingly. Now, the worst loss you can face is 2%.
In your trade journal, immediately deduct that 2% from your trading account capital - as if you have already lost it. You are now already saying goodbye to that money, and it is no longer yours, it belongs to the market now. The market may give it back to you, and more besides, or it may not, but it just ain’t your money any longer so don’t fear the stop-loss getting triggered, that money was already gone, soon as you opened the trade.
but seriously I would like this topics advice to be aimed for Traders who aren’t rookies but aren’t experts at the same time.
thanks very much for your advice.