Hey everyone. I’m looking for some advice. I’m new to the trading world and on top of that I’m an old dog who takes time to learn new tricks. My plan is to work my way through the baby pips schools in order and practice with a demo account. The advice I’m looking for is related to the demo account; I would like to know at what point should I get the account and practice trading. Keeping in mind I want to build a solid foundation 1st.
Thanks
Gp
I got an account the same time I started studying so I could play with the software and try out the indicators that baby pips has lessons on
ASAP. Then when you have the idea invest a small amount in a micro account.
Honestly I would recommend that you don’t trade with a practice account but instead go invest like $100 into a real account and just trade very small micro lots. I found that I never quite trade the same with a practice account as I do with a real account because there is real money involved.
I would contra popular opinion, stay with demo. My reason is this:
To learn any dicipline takes time. Now fine if $100 doesn’t mean much to you… go ahead and blow it? There are those who say only with real money on the table will it matter to you. Quite correct, but if you don’t know or understand what is going on why risk real money?
To learn is to grow, but on the other side of your trade and make no mistake are seasoned professionals. Learn to see what they are looking at, learn what they know. This can be taught but it takes time.
Invest [B]TIME[/B] and not Dollars, its your best investment if you want to come out ahead. If it was easy to make money in FX…
Good Hunting!
agree with R Carter 
1000 times on demo account more better than 1 times reckless on real account.
Invest time, and first thing we must do:
[B]“Develop Trader’s Traits” [/B]
We can learn several psychological aspect here, on babypips blog. With Dr.Pipslow, my favorite lesson
When you read completely pre school artices and some how you get understanding of it you can start demo trading. with demo you can learn with application of the basics of forex. Thereis no limit of practice, it can be for 4 to 6 moths or 1 year. When you feel yuou are now trained you can start real trading .
Thanks guys for the imput. I should have mentioned in my op, that I’m a full time online poker player and sports bettor. I tell new poker players when they ask for advice. This simple 3 step formula. 1. Learn to crawl. 2 learn to walk. 3. learn to run. Make sure to do them in order and make sure step 1 is mastered before you go on to step 2. Do these 3 steps and keep in mind poker is a game of mistakes . you want to capitalize on the other players while making the least amount of your own. Exercise discipline and patience, proper bankroll management and follow the 3 step formula and you’ll make less mistakes and be able to capitalize on the others mistakes.
I see I can apply the same success formula to forex trading.
Actually you’re in a great position to succeed in forex if you’re any good at gambling. They’re very similar in that risk management is most important, you only play hands (or make trades) that have the greatest possibility for success, and you fold out early to minimize losses. I think you’ll do just fine.
To answer your question. Get the demo account as soon as you can so you can start learning it. Understanding your trading platform is imperative. The advice everyone else gave is all good, valid, and accurate. But knowing now that you’re a gambler; you are probably not going to have any of the psychological issues that many new traders face.
I think you would be best off getting into a demo account, practicing your strategy until you understand how it works and its nuances, taking a small amount of money (like $100 as suggested above) and trading in micro amounts to ensure you can apply those things in the Live markets. (Yes I realize another user basically suggested this course of action, but the “gambler” information is new and quite imperative to your ability to think of money as a fluid that will sometimes go up and down.)
I would also suggest that you look at a pre-established strategy rather than trying to come up with your own to get started with. A lot of newbies spend a ton of time trying to piece something together themselves and in most cases it’s just not worth the effort since their body of knowledge about indicators and their uses is relatively small. Plus then you can bounce things off of other people who trade the strategy to sort out your mistakes.
It never fails to amaze me on the gambling forums, poker,sports,horses etc. they are full of new people after they ask; whats the fastest way, the best strategy and lets not forget the cheapest way I can become successful? You tell them. . . its very simple just follow the path that the successful players tell you; whats the first thing they do? spend their time figuring out how to change the learning path and the bankroll management. Then when they fail they post: poker is rigged, the site is rigged and the players cheat. The players that say they make a living at gambling are lying there’s no way. Then most of them go to the poker grave yard. . .Im sure there, ( just like all business ) a traders grave yard as well full of people that don’t want to listen and learn. Anyway it’s just like my grandfather said “same suit; different color”
The only thing that really works is cutting loses as short as possible and sticking onto winning operations as long as possible, the rest is just BS
You’re exactly right. There’s some statistic that’s floated around that 95% of new retail traders will fail. I have zero idea where that number actually came from but you see it pretty often on promotional sites and such. Most of us will blow out our first account doing stupid stuff. That’s something you see people comment on all the time.
But yeah, I entirely agree with you (and your grandfather). Most of us are not breaking new ground here. There’s no reason to reinvent the wheel. When i first started learning about forex I quickly realized the path to success was already blazed by others. It’s amazing what you can learn when you can check your ego and just listen to what other people have to say- in and out of forex. I think the thing I learn most is just how little I actually know.
Well when i first started i didn’t have a clue about Forex, so i just went through the first stages of the school to learn first. It was only when i started to read about support and resistence when i decided to test out theories on demo.
And Voila! You be rockin’ it
Unlike most I would advise against a demo account. Demo account trading and real accounts are not the same, not even close. You can do great in a demo account and fail horribly in your real account. Demo trading does not give you one of the most important aspects of trading which is the psychology of it. I would recommend that you open a real account and fund it with $100, use leverage of no more than 1:200 and only trade 0.01 lots. Most likely you will end up loosing your $100 over the next few months as you learn how to trade.
Consider this an investment into yourself and if you can’t afford to lose $100 you should not be trading do begin with. You can always replenish an account, you will never make up for lost time and trading in a demo account is you raping your most precious commodity.
I would disagree with you. It is very important for all new forex traders to use a practice account before going into the real trade. When trading demo, you will feel relax because it is not your real money, take the time to study what you are doing. Use a demo account to understand what each of the options means. Use a demo account to learn how to read indicators, charts and candle stick. If you invest 100$ into a real account without trading demo, I believe your money will run out before you learn anything. How much are you willing to throw away like that.
BS, thereisno relax here, dekos are only good for learni to use mt4, nothing more
This debate comes around from time to time. I never used demo, others do - there’s no definitive right answer and both approaches can lead to success or failure. To my mind it is not one of the key issues. But I don’t think that a consensus is possible on this one.
To demo or not to demo:confused:
So I see opinions of demo accounts are like rear ends. . .everybody has one. I agree with both sides of the debate. I believe that pretty much no matter what you to do in life, the secret is, to make the same mistake the least amount of times as possible; realizing that some mistakes you will make more than once. The truth is I try to make my decisions based on: Facts, Options and Least of the Evils and I haven’t really decided yet whether to start with a demo account or not.
I don’t like demo accounts for reasons stated; as far as real money practice accounts go, I try whenever possible not to make decisions based on trial and error. My process no matter what I do, before I start something,is to gather as much information of the subject as possible, then based on the info decide what my options are, then make a decision or pick the least of the evils. Next I make a plan and last work the plan making need adjustments as I go. So in short even if I don’t like someone’s opinion and still look at it the same way I look at the ones I do like.
Yeah. The demo account thing is really going to boil down to the person and their own psychology.
However; it’s not really something that warrants a tremendous amount of in-depth thought. You don’t commit to anything, have to put real money down, or anything that demands you deal with that broker to open a demo account. It’s just a junk account that you can walk away from or go back to at any time. So there’s really no great reason not to have one open as you’re learning so you can look at things in the account as you go through the education process.
Whether you need to use it very long or not is probably going to be up to you. Personally, I doubt you will need it longer than to learn the mechanical aspects of the platform since you already understand the risk management side of forex through your gambling experience (as previously discussed).