Trading is simple but not easy. After all, the currency pair that you trade can only do three things : up, down and sideways. Whilst a demo account is a useful platform for strategy testing and development, one needs to understand that there are components in skills development that are necessary in trading that cannot come from a demo platform. There are many moving parts involved in the pathway to profits and many more to ruin.
A key piece in this whole equation is not just acquiring a methodology that is profitable (positive expectancy) but also one that is in line with your personality. It involves a process of discovery, both externally and introspectively. Since this thread is about demo accounts, I will focus my comments on the former. In my view, the biggest hurdle while in demo phase is strategy development and the pathway is typically moving from one indicator to another and/or from one system to another with the ultimate objective of having a system with maximum winning trades and few losses. Unfortunately, traders can spent years in this wilderness looking for something that does not exist. I think the other problem is the pathway often pursued is too indicator centric. Invariably when in draw down, the blame shifts to the indicator as being not good enough but not realising that the problem in trading is the "trader". If you don't understand the source of your solution, you will never find the answer to your problem. .
It is generally acknowledged that it takes 10 years to get good at trading and that means trading live accounts. If you think that you are ready after 6 months on demo I think you are overly optimistic at best and simply delusional at worst. So far that is the bad news.
So is there any good news? The first thing is to accept in trading is that there will be periods of draw down. It is simply a function of the nature of the market in that it spends approximately 70 % of its time in consolidation. The most damaging phase to your account is when a market transitions. This can only be established after the fact and no indicator in the world can help you. In other words you as a trader must acquire the skills to understand order flow and be able to understand as quickly as possible the changing environment and adapt your trade strategy according to the market conditions. When the market is in consolidation trade defensively and when the market is trending trade aggressively. This is obviously premised on the fact that you have the skills to read order flow. Unfortunately indicators by nature lags and herein lies the problem where a lot of the newer generation of traders in my view are too indicator centric. Developing the ability to read price action requires thousands of hours of screen time and there is no short cut to this process.
Finally it is always important to remember trading outcomes are random events. If you are short term profitable, it may simply be luck or a random favourable outcome. The real test is long term consistent performance and that is the hard part.
Good luck on your journey.
