Been paper trading over the past three months, with a focus on swing and day positions. At first my paper results were rather dismal. But I've gotten my losses down and my wins up. I am considering moving over to real trading now. Can anyone describe their transitions from paper to real. Aside from the emotional stress, what else is the big difference. Do successes with one suggest successes with the other. Is there a way to limit slippage. thanks, stza
Perhaps you should not get into real money yet, until you get consistent results. You say you have been trading during the last 3 months, -everyday-, right? If so then you still need to learn that there are days, or "seasons" when there's just NO clear trend, so you're basically flipping coins when going long or short. You still need to learn to spot trends. When theres no clear trend (as it was 3 months ago) stay in cash. Regards
starz, start small until you get a handle on the emotional part of trading. As soon as your real money is on the line, things change. You won't realize it until those losses are real. Just start small, you can always increase later.
i just started real trading 6 weeks ago. I have made and lost about four thousand. because of the usual mistakes, risking too much, overtrading, being in the market when there were no good opportunities. ...i noticed that everytime i had a large profit, i got very excited and eventually i took a lot of risk and ended up losing it all. Also i overtraded after a loss, just to make up for my losses, which resulted in more losses. be aware that these markets are not volatile, so if you don't make money, don't worry about it, just gain experience to become a good trader so you will ready for months like july and august. have fun and try not to lose your account!
Dont discount the emotional side of using real money. Paper trading is really nothing like going live. I would go as far to say its a bad idea and waste of time for a new trader, much better to just start live and trade very small lots IMHO. I dont believe you can become a successful trader until you learn to control your emotions. Loosing at a game of monopoly just doesn't have the same effect as taking a huge drawdown on your account simply because you were too stubborn to stop a losing trade when you knew you should have.
you can sleep at night with directional trades overnight with paper trading. with real trading ,yoou can't sleep at night especially if the position is BIG and that effects your MIND..in this game your STATE OF MIND is all you've got!!! that is you EDGE!!!! [ QUOTE]Quote from brownsfan019: starz, start small until you get a handle on the emotional part of trading. As soon as your real money is on the line, things change. You won't realize it until those losses are real. Just start small, you can always increase later. [/QUOTE]