How long did it take you to go from demo to live?

[bobsbeer]

Surely emotion will be there all the time on a live account? Nobody likes to lose money even if it was profit. I'm just starting so have a lot to learn and have only used a demo trading account, now I have stopped binary options trading. I realise now that was a mugs game. So now going back to school to do it properly.

 

[ForexVerified]

Surely emotion will be there all the time on a live account? Nobody likes to lose money even if it was profit. I'm just starting so have a lot to learn and have only used a demo trading account, now I have stopped binary options trading. I realise now that was a mugs game. So now going back to school to do it properly.

Always start with low lots and focus on money management. You'll sleep easier if you know your losses are limited.

 

[bobsbeer]

Thanks @ForexVerified. I know I'm using a demo, and I know the money isn't real, but I'm trying to treat it as real. I purposely started with only £1000, and only trade in 0.01 lots, except for gold which will only go as low as 0.10 lots. So far after a month I managed to go down to £400 and I think more by luck than judgement am now back to £1016. I must admit it is nerve shredding watching the loss increase, even though I have faith the opposite will happen eventually. Closing a loss making trade or hitting a stop loss overnight is difficult. So I hate to think what it will be like when it's real money.

 

[mlawson71]

If any trader already they want start in live account, for beginner step might use cent account and spent money that afford to lose is better than jump to use standart account, usually real account will already involved emotion if directly use huge capital hence will faced emotion problem I think.

Oh, certainly. It's a bad idea to jump from a demo account to trying to trade big sums of money.

 

[bobsbeer]

I suppose the emotional side of things will decrease with confidence and experience. There is no shortcut to those aspects.

 

[downtrend]

Hello all,

Just wanted to ask how long it took you to go live?

for me it was about 2 years.

2 years is really a lot of time to remain only on demo. I however started directly but its not a good thing for me. I lack practice and thus lose a lot on my real account. This I realized after some months and then started demo trading.

 

[ElaineMDG]

I'm planning on staying in a Demo at LEAST until July. (I began in Feb). Like a prior commenter, I also began with just $1000, (if we're not going to actually trade real money in the $500K-$3million range-why would I "practice" with that much?) I began journaling every trade last week, and take small mini or micro-lot trades the same way I'm planning on trading in real life.
I've had quite a few people tell me that I "need" to be trading, even a nano-lot of real money to "get the full experience". They even say that Demo trading is "worthless". We'll have to agree to disagree. This is a whole new experience for me, about as far from my 30yr medical career as you can get. I have a LOT to learn yet, not to mention save-up enough for a decent deposit. Perhaps in July I'll begin with a nano or micro account, but until then, I'm going to take full advantage of every learning opportunity I can find. Being on a very small fixed income, I can't afford to "practice" my way out of any chance I have of making this endeavor work! And I'm DETERMINED to MAKE it WORK!

 

[ForexVerified]

Thanks @ForexVerified. I know I'm using a demo, and I know the money isn't real, but I'm trying to treat it as real. I purposely started with only £1000, and only trade in 0.01 lots, except for gold which will only go as low as 0.10 lots. So far after a month I managed to go down to £400 and I think more by luck than judgement am now back to £1016. I must admit it is nerve shredding watching the loss increase, even though I have faith the opposite will happen eventually. Closing a loss making trade or hitting a stop loss overnight is difficult. So I hate to think what it will be like when it's real money.

One more thing - always use stop loss, even if not as a fixed price (like if you're there, watching the market ready to close out). Weird things happen once/twice a year when a massive spike of 1000 pips can easily blow up your account. It happened many times in the past (whether it was a glitch that started out in the stock market and sent ripples to FX, or a natural disaster like a tsunami in Japan, or a central bank intervention). Always make sure the rest of your capital is safe when trading with real money.

 

[Whitesnake]

One more thing - always use stop loss, even if not as a fixed price (like if you're there, watching the market ready to close out). Weird things happen once/twice a year when a massive spike of 1000 pips can easily blow up your account. It happened many times in the past (whether it was a glitch that started out in the stock market and sent ripples to FX, or a natural disaster like a tsunami in Japan, or a central bank intervention). Always make sure the rest of your capital is safe when trading with real money.

OMG i just cant imagine the status of the traders whose account would have blown out during such incidents. Lucky are the people who were along the direction of the market spike during such times.

 

[ElaineMDG]

A "stop loss" is the #2 item on my developing strategy and ALWAYS use one!! Just trying to find a happy medium between too small, and too much risk!! (Especially with the exorbitant "swap" costs the broker I have my Demo with charges!! -$38 on a $100 loss trade??!! Ugghh!!)