I know that most of you frown on paper trading but I thought I would ask the question anyway. I have been studying the market and trading for two years now and I have started paper trading about 4 months ago. I have outgrown the system I am currently using. I use the system at Multex.com. It is very fast and efficent, but it only lets me do 7 round trips a day. If I do one more than I have to hold it overnight which is very dangerous in this market. It cuts me off at 15 trades. Also if you do not trade within 45 mins or so it logs you off and if you are in a hurry to make a trade you have to log in again. I emailed the company and asked them why they limit everyone to 15 trades, and they told me that they did not think daytraders should do more that 15 trades a day. Also they charge a .30 commission against your account for every round trip. I find myself hanging too long in the trade sometimes just to try to clear the commission and show a positive increase in the account. Of course this is the wrong way to trade. I have tried six other sites and they all have bad points that are too numerous to discuss. I also tried one yesterday that seemed to be simple and OK, but when I put in an order to buy 100 shares of GILD yesterday morning, it said it would execute my order at market one half hour after the market opening the next day. I cannot think why a daytrader, swing trader, or even an investor would want to paper trade with that as a condition. What paper trading sites do you recommend. I would prefer one that lets you make an unlimited amount of trades and one that you can adjust the commission. I plan to use IB when I start trading with real money. Thanks for your help.
if you did not do a search yet, look at this thread http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=1654 mytrack is good for simulation, unlimited [but the commissions are based on their brokerage of course]. Cybercorp is good but you need an account there so the simulator is hooked to realtime AND live data, only the money is faked [they don't include commissions, so you can check the results with your commission schedule]. neo
Thanks for all the links. I was looking for something free if possible. I am not sure that I was looking for a simulator, but that may be what I need instead of just paper trading in a vaccum. I had read those threads before but I had forgotten that IB had a trading simulator. Since I am about to open up an account with them anyway, I might as well use them. I hope they do not have any limit on the amount of trades you can do. I appreciate the info. Thanks for the quick response.
IB simulator is not using live data, but recorded data. So your trading method has to be tape reading otherwise the simulator is useless [well you can learn how to use TWS, that was their goal].
Thanks for the response. I guess I will use the IB simulator in order to learn their system, but I am going to have to find a website that has a free system that I can daytrade using real market data. There are so many subtle changes that go on in the market over time and I need to be on top of the changes once I start trading with real money. Thanks.
trufultrader Thank you for the link. It looks better that what I have been using. I signed up for the game. I will use it for the first time tomorrow. Thanks again.
alipang Do I have to fund the account in order to use the simulator? Also is the simulator on the CD they are going to send me? I could not find it on the website. Thanks.