I did well in papertrade, but when I switched to real data, boy I lost nearly 15K my first week. So I stopped. .. Just wondering if anyone here experienced the same prior to become profitable? What did you do then after such situation. I completely lost confidence in myself with this market.
paper trading is 99% technical, 1% mind management. live trading is 90% mind management, 10% technical. < 10% of the traders can make it. It might take years to develop our own holy grail. If your passion is there, review your trade journal, and see how to make a breakthrough. How long did you do paper trade?
If you started with $750 000, then it's only 2%, but if that 15k is 10% \ 20% size of your portfolio, then the problem isn't paper vs real.
I have been papertrading two months but not daily.. More like one trade every two days. This is a lot harder than I assume. I thought I was consistent but when it's real money, I started to sweat out and did not follow my rule. I tended to add and double down my position.. A lot of things too. So I decided to take a quick break. . At least doing 2-3 more months before jumping back to market with real money. So damn hard to find a real coach for this. All the chatrooms did not help. Wasted money and these room coaches dont really teach you. When I direct messaged them, just being ignored. So I stopped subscribing these chatrooms. A lot of them are full of beginners and posted tickets like penny stocks and I hate it.
Paper traders often forget about the bid ask spread. Some brokerages get clever with order filling as well.
It is not the end of the world. Don't give up. Everyone has to go through the process of taking losses. Trade small and trade often.
Don't paper trade. It's a waste of time. In my opinion, a better approach is to start with real money, but risk very little per trade at the beginning. Get used to taking risks. Gradually increase the risk level, getting used to it over the course of months, until you reach the risk level that you originally intended to use as per your strategy/plan.
Papertrading is an excellent way to test a new approach or technique, for an experienced trader. It's unlikely to be effective for an inexperienced trader, as you probably won't papertrade in a realistic way and it wont teach you the mechanics of live trading. Live trade for a while first with small amounts, then go back to papertrading with refined rules.
IMO, paper trading is a good way to determine what does not work and to get accustomed to software. Then when you jump to real trading, you have to start very small and continue your learning curve. Based on your losses, you were playing too big and did not learn from your mistakes. Paper trading has no fear or creed and executions can be random. Sterling Trader has a professional grade simulator with live market data. I would give it a try. We offer Sterling if you like it. https://www.sterlingtradingtech.com/products-and-services/platforms/sterling-trading-simulator/ IMO, the most important part of trading is finding a process that works. That means keep good records in either paper trading or real trading to analyze what you have done and why.