personally, my first choice would be a very very small cash account, with no more than $100 or so total [nothing like real money trading experince] 2nd choice might be a demo account marc
If you're learning a trading platform, start with demo. If you know the platform and want to try some trading concepts then fund a small real money account, whatever amount won't keep you up at night. It's much better than a demo account because even though it's a small amount most people still don't want to lose real money. At least I don't.
Not much you can do with a $100.00 account. It really depends on how you utilize the demo. If you are using it as a game and not creating Rules and Guidelines to create a strategy then the demo can be deemed useless and even more so harmful due to the ability of creating bad habits on a fake demo account. Make sure you stick to rules if you want to use a demo and never deviate away from it.
like everyone has said for the most part... fund a small account with $100 and trade it... it has little to do with if you will achieve a living from it or not, but rather it has to do with real fills and actual money in the line with regards to your feelings... because $100 tends not to be a lot, just look at it as if it was $100K, so do things regardless of what amount of money how you would trade $1MM or $1M... that's my 2 cents for whatever they are worth...
Juan, hi. I'm a new trader and currently I am using a demo account. For me its ok because you have to chance to know what would be the scenario when you go to actual trading. Demo account is a good place to start with Forex trading. Also, I suggest that you do extensive reading about Forex and you visit more Forex sites and forums.
Demo is good to learn the mechanics of trading and using the platform. Don't use demo for too long. Your bound to develop bad habits. ie taking too much risk. Start with a some real money. Loose it, then figure out why you lost it. Then try again. Loose again. So on and so forth. Don't stop learning along the way. It's like sex. You may have read about it. You may have "simulated" it...... If you start making some money consistently, then figure out how you can scale and/or automate it.
Demo and real account with small money can be used at the same time. Demo account is always good if a new strategy/method needs to be tested and a real account with a small amount of money helps to get used to the psychology of trading with real money.
How long is too long? Four weeks? More than a month? But I got your point here. I believe that i'll never know the real Forex trading until I start the live trading.