Today just after five o’clock (GMT) I closed the same trade
on my demo and real accounts, with a five minute difference,
but here is where it gets interesting:
on the real account, a Sell order for GBP/USD, 4k lot, opened at
9.34am and was closed (by me) at 5.11pm, earning 38.4 pips and
£9.20;
on the demo account, the same Sell order for GBP/USD, 4k lot,
was opened at the same time (9.34am) and I closed it at 5.16pm,
just five minutes after the same trade in the real account; however,
here is what puzzles me: in spite of this trade scoring 1.4 pips less in profit
than its real counterpart, it earned an extra £5.60, taking it up to £ 14.80!!
How is this possible? There was no news release, nothing visibile at least, that
could account for such a disparity… The five-minute difference makes little difference,
because the pips earned were less in the second (demo) trade, so that is what should
matter in this case…
Can you explain it?
I am testing a live system with slight differences in the demo, so I need to know that
when something like this happens I have not overlooked something, and when it is
a genuine system error (if any).
Is your demo account denominated in US dollars by any chance? I ask because I know your real account is denominated in British Pounds. Is it possible you’re comparing the profits from your demo account, which are in US dollars, to your real account profits which are in British Pounds?
For example, the GBP/USD exchange rate at the time of this post is 1.6680. That means a trade that makes £10.00 in your GBP-denominated real account would show up as a $16.68 profit in USD-denominated account.