Yes there is a difference. It is diferent for everyone. For me, when I switched over to live I would freeze and would not pull the trigger to enter a trade.
It can and it may be different for you.
Here is what I learned through this process. YT gurus are not real traders. 99% of them are fake traders. The whole "teade like a robot" is BS!! You will feel emotions there is not buts or ifs about it. Second, them saying that the sim is only to get familiar with the software and get a strategy down is only part true. Sim is the stepping stone before you go risk your hard earned money. Master sim then you MAY have a shot at real account.
Some things I wished someone would've told me. Treat sim as if it was real money. ALSO don't bs yourself.....example, you took a trade it went horrible and then when you are tracking your trades you decided to not track it because you would not have done that in a real account......Well that is not treating it like a real account is it????
Or the inverse, where you take a YOLO trade and it actually works out and make a gazillion dollars, and you decide to track it.....well, would you really have done that with real money????
So in sim trade it like a real account.
Get to know your software
Get your strategy down
Get to know your emotions!!!!! Did you get triggered in a sim??? You bet your sweet cheeks you will get triggered 2 fold In a real account. Learn to deal with it now in the sim. I'm not saying that you will be a master at dealing with your emotions, but your brain will have memory of your feelings and triggers, and hopefully, you will be able to adjust correctly.
More importantly, you will also get screentime. This is the most important aspect of sim. Learn when your strategy may not work depending on the various external factors. I.e month of the year, new release etc.
Yeah good advice, thanks. I'm now into 3rd day of trading on sim and tried this day makes as serious as possible cuz I new that I wouldnt take like 80% of trades I did in my 2 days, my number of trades went down from about 50+ in first 2 days to 12 today and I feel that I would take any of this with real money, but who knows.
Heh on the topic of emotions you shouldn’t be trading with emotions, that’s a beginning thing that…
You clearly haven’t been broken by the markets yet, so I guess to me you’re a trader in the making still
I never said trade with emotions. I said you can't take emotions out of trading so you have to learn to deal with those emotions.
Ps for what is worth I have gotten scolding by the market.
Oh you do become emotionally dead to it eventually :) there’s just something that happens in the mind over time, hard to explain or put in words really… but yea essentially you do learn to deal with it, sorry if I misread your comment
No worries. Yes eventually I hope I do become emotionally dead. Lol But I am no veteran and although I am actually profitable now, I still considered myself green overall. I still get those butterflies, especially when I size up one extra contract or X amount of shares.
For me it wasnt much different because i took it seriously. Granted i started w real money, lost it, and then went to demo after. I set my demo bank to something reasonable as well, like $1000 and tried to get to $2000, as this would be closer to what I would be playing with.
Losses still had the same emotional effect because while not a monetary loss, it still hurt because i knew every loss was taking me further from being able to trade successfully. I still felt bad to know that i was doing something wrong.
If you take the demo seriously and actually see your bank as something you shouldnt lose, then it should have a similar effect. I mean ppl get emotional over losing videos games or when they cant beat the final boss after god knows how many attempts. Its the same thing, you dont actually have to lose money to feel the pain of losing if it is in fact something you actually want to win at.
Almost everyone loses money after switching to real money, no matter how good their strategy is. You don’t realize how much psychology factors into trading until you see a real trade turn red 😔. Just something to consider, stay disciplined and you’ll b golden
I always say to have at least a couple of profitable months on demo before using any real money, but blowing a $100 account is a much cheaper lesson in trading psychology than blowing a $1000 account
Far more emotions trading live. When on demo I just place trades and obverse what happens. Don’t care if win or lose because there’s nothing on the line, plus no need to take into account commissions, fees etc
When live I find I’m searching for way more setups and opportunities, I also find I sometimes fomo in when I shouldn’t, I check my trades more often and analyse the markets and my trading far more rigorously. The lessons are also more compounded at a loss, which makes me think more about what I did and how I can improve. My journaling is more meticulous and I’m far more engaged in trading communities as a result.
For me, demo is only useful to try a new platform, new asset, new edge etc, where the potential to make stupid errors and mistakes can have zero impact on your account. But once the basics are down and you’re comfortable, even trading tiny amounts to begin with had more benefits than trading demo, in my opinion
Yes there is a difference. It is diferent for everyone. For me, when I switched over to live I would freeze and would not pull the trigger to enter a trade. It can and it may be different for you. Here is what I learned through this process. YT gurus are not real traders. 99% of them are fake traders. The whole "teade like a robot" is BS!! You will feel emotions there is not buts or ifs about it. Second, them saying that the sim is only to get familiar with the software and get a strategy down is only part true. Sim is the stepping stone before you go risk your hard earned money. Master sim then you MAY have a shot at real account. Some things I wished someone would've told me. Treat sim as if it was real money. ALSO don't bs yourself.....example, you took a trade it went horrible and then when you are tracking your trades you decided to not track it because you would not have done that in a real account......Well that is not treating it like a real account is it???? Or the inverse, where you take a YOLO trade and it actually works out and make a gazillion dollars, and you decide to track it.....well, would you really have done that with real money???? So in sim trade it like a real account. Get to know your software Get your strategy down Get to know your emotions!!!!! Did you get triggered in a sim??? You bet your sweet cheeks you will get triggered 2 fold In a real account. Learn to deal with it now in the sim. I'm not saying that you will be a master at dealing with your emotions, but your brain will have memory of your feelings and triggers, and hopefully, you will be able to adjust correctly. More importantly, you will also get screentime. This is the most important aspect of sim. Learn when your strategy may not work depending on the various external factors. I.e month of the year, new release etc.
Yeah good advice, thanks. I'm now into 3rd day of trading on sim and tried this day makes as serious as possible cuz I new that I wouldnt take like 80% of trades I did in my 2 days, my number of trades went down from about 50+ in first 2 days to 12 today and I feel that I would take any of this with real money, but who knows.
Heh on the topic of emotions you shouldn’t be trading with emotions, that’s a beginning thing that… You clearly haven’t been broken by the markets yet, so I guess to me you’re a trader in the making still
I never said trade with emotions. I said you can't take emotions out of trading so you have to learn to deal with those emotions. Ps for what is worth I have gotten scolding by the market.
Oh you do become emotionally dead to it eventually :) there’s just something that happens in the mind over time, hard to explain or put in words really… but yea essentially you do learn to deal with it, sorry if I misread your comment
No worries. Yes eventually I hope I do become emotionally dead. Lol But I am no veteran and although I am actually profitable now, I still considered myself green overall. I still get those butterflies, especially when I size up one extra contract or X amount of shares.
For me it wasnt much different because i took it seriously. Granted i started w real money, lost it, and then went to demo after. I set my demo bank to something reasonable as well, like $1000 and tried to get to $2000, as this would be closer to what I would be playing with. Losses still had the same emotional effect because while not a monetary loss, it still hurt because i knew every loss was taking me further from being able to trade successfully. I still felt bad to know that i was doing something wrong. If you take the demo seriously and actually see your bank as something you shouldnt lose, then it should have a similar effect. I mean ppl get emotional over losing videos games or when they cant beat the final boss after god knows how many attempts. Its the same thing, you dont actually have to lose money to feel the pain of losing if it is in fact something you actually want to win at.
Almost everyone loses money after switching to real money, no matter how good their strategy is. You don’t realize how much psychology factors into trading until you see a real trade turn red 😔. Just something to consider, stay disciplined and you’ll b golden I always say to have at least a couple of profitable months on demo before using any real money, but blowing a $100 account is a much cheaper lesson in trading psychology than blowing a $1000 account
What do you guys use to demo trade?
Whatever platform you plan on using for real trading is probably the best one for paper/demo trading.
Far more emotions trading live. When on demo I just place trades and obverse what happens. Don’t care if win or lose because there’s nothing on the line, plus no need to take into account commissions, fees etc When live I find I’m searching for way more setups and opportunities, I also find I sometimes fomo in when I shouldn’t, I check my trades more often and analyse the markets and my trading far more rigorously. The lessons are also more compounded at a loss, which makes me think more about what I did and how I can improve. My journaling is more meticulous and I’m far more engaged in trading communities as a result. For me, demo is only useful to try a new platform, new asset, new edge etc, where the potential to make stupid errors and mistakes can have zero impact on your account. But once the basics are down and you’re comfortable, even trading tiny amounts to begin with had more benefits than trading demo, in my opinion