I would say give it a test run. Do a ratio of what you do on paper, say 25%. It is seems to work for say a week, do 50% for two week, then 100% for a week. After a month you should have more data and the "hints" of "technical advantage". Worse case, a false start and not too much damage. BTW: 1K is a small amount by most standards. If it is significant to you, then that might be an issue. PS: that picture does not show commissions. Better to calculate that in also. PPS: you could try several simulators also.
I have tried other simulators and find the one my broker offers to be the most realistic for me. It is delayed by 15 min. However, I only trade and use what I see in my platform and don't use social media, news or anything else to give me an unfair "hindsight" advantage. With past simulators like tradingsim for example. I can scroll back in time from a historical 2 year period. Since I follow the stock market almost everyday for the past 4 years it was almost hindsight trading for many tickers. Another psychological advantage I found was I can fast forward or switch the value of 1 second into 1m-30m. Giving me more patience on trades than I would have in actual trading. If the sim even hinted me it gave me an unfair advantage in any way than I wouldn't be using it.
I had made 1200% in demo in a few week. I haven't gone live yet, but I already know it's impossible. Especially when we make scalps
Live data feeds could also make difference. When it is happening, it is pretty chaotic. Hence the term "orderly" market. Even short price spikes playing out in a particular stock in Realtime can be chaotic. When Lehman Bros went down, I had a futures index short position, 135K up. Placed a Market order before the open. Order did not execute for 20 minutes. Ended up 35K. Extreme example. In hindsight, I should have placed the night before. "Get in Line buddy" Delay 15 minutes later it is all "very orderly". Just recently I had a 4 day old, GTC LMT BUY order execute at 4.03, but the lowest print was 4.06 or something. I did not check the tape but I got filled. I figure it was some sort of "sweep to fill" algo went off and I got consolidated into it. That was real money. Paper or Live, you are still "out in the boondocks" compared to where the action is taking place. I figure I am 500-600 ms away from the exchange servers. 250ms of that is from IB to the exchange. I have an advantage there for sure with paper. For sure a 15 minute delay quote give you an "orderly market" advantage.
You can take big paper risks and let losses run and still sleep at night. In a real account, your amygdala will make you puke up your position at your subconscious max loss point
I think you might've misunderstood the wording. The sim is set to mimmick everything in the real-time platform but 15 minutes in the past. It's not like you place an order and it gets filled 15 min later or the charts/lvl 2 are showing 15m delayed data from what the price currently is. I don't see how that is giving me an advantage as longest I am not looking at real-time quotes, current news or social media. Which would be essentially cheating.
The sim did give you an advantage. You mentioned it in the same post.. See bold #1 Stop using the sim, since it gave you an advantage. See bold #2
Exactly, that was for tradingsim. (Reason, I don't use it anymore.) Not the current sim I am using. It does not have those features.
Go live, Monday. These are the most exciting times you are seeing in price action across many instruments, in forever. Just give it a whirl. I got it all sucked into my brain during the VIX slow times of 8-12. Now we're in 20-100 range. GO FOR IT!