Actually, this isn't correct. If I'm up a fair bit and don't feel comfortable in the direction that the market's going, I'll just cover and GTFO. Really, I'm not greedy. Profit is profit.
JRL, Paper trading is same as when one trades other people's money like those money managers and hedge fund managers. If you are trading with your own money in realtime, no one knows who you are, only market knows and it will teach you, hopefully, you won't pay big $$ to learn. Trading is nothing but, other people's emotion we are trying to figure out. If we make a lazy trade, other traders who have better emotional control at that time, will make us pay. Look at the SPY chart for the past two months, full of emotions, confusion, pain, angst, profit (still anger, did not make more with big size, etc.). In real trading, even one makes $$, mind acts weird, complaining, why didn't I put more size, why didn't I stay longer, etc. Hope, this helps. Good luck.
What is 'obvious' to you? After 10 whole days, I'm sure this is an easy question but why don't you let us know what is obvious at this point.
profit isn't profit. Man, you got a long ways to go before you start trading real money. Think about what you just said, "profit is profit" Any trader on this site can tell you why that's not true. I'm always encouraging people to trade, but there's no need for you to get killed. profit is not profit, think about that for a while and you will be far ahead
You do it, I do it, probably many do it. Like just today I got long some beans for some fundamental reason, and the next thing I knew they were flying, so yeah, profit is profit, so I just took it. But that is not a strategy I would rely on for a "Main Income Comes From Trading" strategy. Bottom line it may make me look better at the end of the month, but how much did it cost me in information? Now I have strategy that works if every now and then you get lucky. Which actually, all things considered isn't a bad strategy.
The first time I read a trading forum I felt sick, I was very curious about the industry the entry requirements were perfect and if approached correctly I knew it could be very lucrative. Upon reading the forum I was faced with..lets say the word: FAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAILFAIL....THEY JUST FAIL- 95% FAIL!!!!! Now there is a difference between curbing unrealistic expectation and outright pessimism, much of the intention behind the posts were reality based and aimed towards curbing peoples unrealistic expectations, how ever a line needs to be drawn and only you can draw it. You can of course decide to paper trade for the next two years but this is not going to expose you to the issues that arise in a live market environment. After two years of paper trading your method will be as equipt to deal with the difference of paper VS live as it is today.. My advice: Risk little to start with. Lock your self in a room and read nothing but the required economic information. Let no one know the details of your trading activity. Let no one influence how you perceive your trading activity Completely Clear your mind of doubt. Take each trade as a small case study, noting the differences between live and demo. You can run them side by side on the same trades and as time goes on with the more information you get you adjust your method to deal with the live market environment but start small. If you make 20 demo trades per day make one live trade In Conjunction with a demo trade. Increase the number of live trades as you feel appropriate, when in a psychological sense you feel the same about both and your method works well live its time...Good luck.
The "obvious" difference between trading cash and non-cash are the emotional effects that would be difficult to overcome when there are real consequences associated with the outcomes. What did you think that I meant?
If I'm profitable, I'm happy. Whether that's 1 penny or 10. A gain is a gain. Your post suggests that there's some great secret associated with knowing why "profit isn't profit". Please, I'm dying to know. I don't care about "opportunity loss", if that's what you're referring to.