[scg84]

Are the results of trading with a demo account in any way indicative of the result of trading on the real market?

This question is particularly directed at the OpenECry Futures demo platform. But all I am curious about the other demos for other markets also.

Cheers.

[evroom1]

The only thing a demo account is good for is learning the platform. And maybe checking out your new system for a short period of time. Just about everyone who stays on sim for more than 2-4 weeks never learns to trade well.
Suggestion just trade FX with a mirco mini account. Hard to hurt yourself but real money on the line.

[mtaalamu]

You could also try ninja traders platform. it is very close to real time trading. While it is true that just because you can make money sim trading is NO proof you can make money trading real money; it (almost) goes without saying that if you CAN'T make money sim trading, you have NO business trading real money.

Hope this helps
T

[laurus12]

Yes. If you have access to the exact same market data feed as with live accounts it would be the same.

A more interesting question maybe, would be the psychological aspect of it. If you take it seriously enough as traning for the competition you can get something out of it technically. If the attitude will be "it's not real money so it does not matter" kind of thing it will not be fruitful.

If a newbie one would eventually have go live and then there will be the psychological training where you will get the experience of how skillful you are to implement what you did on paper trading.

As a recommendation I would reccomend that you have everyting in place before you go live. Trading plan, risk management, trade management rules and so on. Prepare everything as in a real money situation.

Wish you good luck,
Laurus12

[TheWizard]

Originally Posted by evroom1 »

The only thing a demo account is good for is learning the platform. And maybe checking out your new system for a short period of time. Just about everyone who stays on sim for more than 2-4 weeks never learns to trade well.
Suggestion just trade FX with a mirco mini account. Hard to hurt yourself but real money on the line.

I must respectfully disagree. I started with NinjaTrader (live data feed / SIM trading account) 3+ years ago, have traded live - several times - but primarily stayed in SIM for the express purpose of honing my skills & fine-tuning my indicators & have gotten exponentially better with time. Looking back, there is almost NO comparison to where I am now, as to where I was then. I feel like I've travelled light-years since beginning this journey. I HAVE, however, spoken with several people who did exactly that - opened an account, practiced for a month or so, went live & blew their account(s), some, repeatedly! Anyone who thinks they can go into a bookstore, buy a book on Tennis & go out and win a tournament after 2 - 4 weeks practice, needs to rethink that! Enthusiasm will only carry you so far. ANY subject matter, on average, takes approximately 10,000 hours practice at which to become proficient. Piano, tennis, you name it, can't be mastered in 2 - 4 weeks. Just my 2 cents.

[evroom1]

Wiz you sound like a guy who actually took the time to put together a trading program before they started trading. That is how it is best done. But for most people sim trading and real life trading are not remotely the same. I deal with rookies every day and I can tell you after a point sim trading does not help them. You can play virual Tennis or you can get out there and hit a real ball. In tennis as in any real sport and trading requires 10,000 hours under pressure. Can you become a doctor playing or watching a video?
I do not suggest losing large amounts of money to learn. A 500.00 dollar FX acount , trading .10 cents a pip will do just fine.
I also suggest that if it takes you more than 2-4 weeks to trust your trading system, you may have the wrong one for you. If you can not explain your entry and exits to your 10 -12 year old child you have the wrong one.
Last if a new trader does not have a good money management system in place no amount of sim trade will help you.

[sevensa]

Originally Posted by evroom1 »

Wiz you sound like a guy who actually took the time to put together a trading program before they started trading. That is how it is best done. But for most people sim trading and real life trading are not remotely the same. I deal with rookies every day and I can tell you after a point sim trading does not help them. You can play virual Tennis or you can get out there and hit a real ball. In tennis as in any real sport and trading requires 10,000 hours under pressure. Can you become a doctor playing or watching a video?
I do not suggest losing large amounts of money to learn. A 500.00 dollar FX acount , trading .10 cents a pip will do just fine.
I also suggest that if it takes you more than 2-4 weeks to trust your trading system, you may have the wrong one for you. If you can not explain your entry and exits to your 10 -12 year old child you have the wrong one.
Last if a new trader does not have a good money management system in place no amount of sim trade will help you.

Your anology is a bit off. Sim trading and real trading is not like playing virtual tennis and real tennis. This is like practising tennis with a training partner and playing competition. You are honing your skills and shots while practising and then applying it in match play.

One of the big problems with beginning traders are that they don't stick with one thing long enough to see if this is viable, but continually adding/removing indicators. This is very possible and very likely that any profitable system can have two losing weeks in a row. If you only sim trade for two weeks during that time, you might abandon a good system.

Also IMHO to say one should trade a micro fx account is probably far worse than sim trading. Different markets have different personalities and by trading one market and then switch over to another is most likely not going to work. To use your analogy if you want to play tennis, you should not start playing racquetball and then enter into a tennis competition.

I won't be able to explain my entries and exits to a 10 - 12 year old, but they still work for me. How can you say then that I have a wrong system?

I am wondering if you have any facts to back up all the statements you are making? I would be really interested in reading up more about them for background information.

[scg84]

After opening up a live account I found the limitations of the demo account. I wasnt able to get my orders filled as easily.

Still I did find the demo account helpful in learning how the market acts and how to use the platform itself.

As for the live trading, it went quite well.

Cheers.