How long do I have to trade with demo account?

[Mnefyn]

Well, the first thing you need to know about demo is the fact that it will not teach you how to trade. Demo trading is quite different from the real trading: you don't risk your personal money and consequently, you don't have any emotions about the outcomes of your deals. Some traders become a success with their demo account and they start to believe that they will be also successful in trading the real money, however, in most of the cases it is not true. More often than not they lose the money just because of the fact that they cannot stand the psychological and emotional pressure of trading real money.
So, if you feel that you can use the trading platform quite efficiently and you know the right buttons for setting pending orders and the indicators settings, then you can move to trading real money with microlots in order to test your emotional stability. You can also use demo account in order to test some new trading ideas.

 

[bigdolly]

Time that you spend on demo should be restricted, because ease of trading, you tend to transfer to live trading too and it's misleading since you incorrectly assess trading risks which stems from unlimited demo deposit. It's really hard to blow out demo account if you keep lot size below 1 lot.

 

[Dora_WalletInvestor]

Time that you spend on demo should be restricted, because ease of trading, you tend to transfer to live trading too and it's misleading since you incorrectly assess trading risks which stems from unlimited demo deposit. It's really hard to blow out demo account if you keep lot size below 1 lot.

I don't think time on demo should be restricted. I agree that it doesn't give you completely realistic expectations about real trading, since you don't experience trading psychology effects and unfortunate events such as slippage. So transitioning from a demo to a real account should be done carefully. But demo is still good for learning the technical aspects of trading.

 

[Vo32ss]

It is hard to say because I don't know what is your level of knowledge and skills,
I believe that trading demo is alright only for mastering the trading platform and its basic functions like opening the orders, setting up pending orders, and so on. I don't think that it is possible to learn to trade on demo account. I mean that you will not learn how to control your emotions and psychology, which are among the most important aspects of trading. More than that, it is impossible to trade carefully when you don't experience any feelings towards your losses and wins. That is why, I suggest you learn how to do all the basic things on your trading platform and then switch to the real account and trade microlots. This will definetely help you become a success in trading.

 

[Tahntaman]

The disputes about trading with demo are among the hottest ones in trading community. There are lots of different opinions actually concerning learning how to trade. Some people say that demo trading is absolutely useless, some people tend to think that trading on demo account can give a newbie lots of valuable eexperience.
As for me, I think that demo accounts are good in order to learn how to use trading platforms and to test new trading ideas. Trading with demo will never give you that kind of experience that you'll get trading real money for several reasons. First of all, your psychology will work differently from real trading. It is because of the fact that you don't take the real risks. Secondly, while trading demo you don't include the broker's charges into your trading strategy. You don't have any spreads or commissions or slippages or requotes in the process of trading demo. These factors influence the whole trading results quite dramatically. THat is why people who were successful in trading demo are usually not as successful after switching to real accounts.
I think that a newbie can trade with demo for several months after he gets used to the trading platform and test a few trading ideas which can be implemented on practice. Right after it he can switch to real account and trade with small sums in order not to lose much. He should test his psychology and be able to calculate different charges and include them in the whole decision making process.

 

[fxoday]

I think each trader can take advantage or leave t depending on their own perspective if they think the demo account is useless, hence just leave demo and start in real, don't blame trader that works in a demo for learning purposes, and if trader felt demo account is good for learning strategy, they can moving forward to use demo account, there is no risk at all, although another trader said it useless nothing affect on us, like as we need water to drink because thirsty meanwhile other people don't need.

 

[Kiamch]

You ought to trade on demo as long as you need. All the traders are different. One can state that it's enough for him/her to trade on demo just a day, while another one would claim that he's trading on demo for a month and still can't understand the mechanism of trading.
It's okay and it's exceptionally a personal moment. There are some risks which are connected with trading on demo for too long. You will never be able to start trading on a real account, because your psychics and brain will consider demo trading as the convenient way of trading, but when it comes to spending your own funds, the brain will deny these ideas.

 

[bigdolly]

There are two useful demo applications: learn basics of trading (order placement, setting TP/SL, usage of charting and other technical analysis tools) and simulating performance of your trading strategy on historical prices. I prefer to test my trading strategy on demo first before it goes to live that's why I still use extensively demo account.

 

[fxoday]

For experienced traders demo accounts sometimes still uses to backtest trading strategy or when they find or buy new automatic trading software before going to use it on a live trading account. In a demo account, traders can explore instrument trading that is available and test skills.

 

[sami dlx]

It is wise to trade on demo until you are completely comfortable with your understanding of the market