I agree so much candle. As a matter of fact, I am probably the worst trader there is. I let my fear cloud my judgement and will freeze at the wrong time. This is not true when paper trading because there is no money on the line. When doing real trading, strange enough, even loosing $10 is difficult (I would try to be break even instead and possibly see my position disintegrate !). However, paper trading is better than nothing since it is the closest thing without loosing money. And anyone, newbie or senior should paper trade (with a good paper trading method, where you can't cheat) before following a new trading method. I did solve my problem going to highly disciplined trading methods and systems. In fact letting an alter ego (a robot) do my trading following my trading plan. This is to show how important that psychological factor is. And, yes, paper trading will never help in that respect. Each tool has its purpose, I guess. That's one I noticed successful traders are using. tntneo
Paper trade until you have something that works reasonably well on PAPER and then trade the same way for real as if it were paper trading. If you can't do that then don't bother. Find another get rich scheme instead.