I think demo is good for beginners, to learn a new trading platform, leverage, explore brand new things like strategies or different instruments, options, futures. Once the know how is taken care of, is good to get the feet wet in my opinion. You can today trade in single dollars and cents. You can trade single FX units with brokers like Oanda, and fractions of a share with direct market access like IB. Psychological approach is very different and it's good to learn how to manage risk and preserve capital, treating small capital the same way as if it was a larger account. If you can't make a small account profitable, no point trying with a larger one.
A demo account has its place, but staying on demo for too long could be counterproductive. In the last analysis, a demo account is limited in what it can teach you. If you want to learn how to trade, i advice you open a micro account and trade with little money.
I am rather surprised reading the comments here. I am a demo trader currently with ic markets and fxview and learning so much. Without this knowledge I can’t fathom beginning to trade at all.
I think the demo account is replica of the live platform. so that one can trade in demo account and check the conditions provided.
Ditto! Only with a demo account I got the confidence of live trading. Imo nobody should trade bypassing this important step. Imagine losing all of your real money just while learning. Where 90% of traders fail now, without demo this number would cross 95 easy.