Does anyone have advice to offer concerning trading simulators? I hope to begin trading in September using the Realtick platform, I'm thinking of subscrbing for a couple of months to the the Realtick simulator offered through Marketwise.
check out this thread http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=1553 also, http://www.mytrack.com/ offers a good simulator [register for their realtime data feed and the simulator works like a real brokerage account during the day]. there are very few good simulators for free because you need to get real time data and that's not free. So either it is a realtime data provider which offers simulation or a broker. There are more (good) futures trading simulators than stock simulators, for this very reason. vpiNeo
willsoph, > I'm thinking of subscrbing for a couple of months to the > the Realtick simulator offered through Marketwise. I'm not familiar with Marketwise but if you subscribe to the Realtick platform thru TerranovaMB you can setup your account for simulation with realtime data. One severe limitation is that your order-routing is restricted to something called TAL-X which means you don't get to experiment with all the various methods (direct ECN's, SelectNet, SOES, etc.) that you would have when not in simulation mode. If you are not set on Realtick you might consider CyberTrader. Their free online demo software uses canned data, is very buggy, and generally sucks. But if you setup an account with the real software, every time you logon you have the choice of "live" or "demo" mode, the latter using realtime data with full order routing capability. It's very useful for testing strategies and very convenient that you determine your mode every time you logon (with TerranovaMB you must arrange your mode over the phone and you're locked into that mode until you arrange otherwise over the phone). Be aware that with all simulators you'll do much better than when trading live because of the fills. CyberTrader tries to simulate random fills but, nevertheless, you get filled alot more than you will in real life and at MUCH better prices.
Personally, I believe Cybertraders demo's is geared to show you how fast and how good their system can be. An advertisement if you will. As was stated earlier in the post's, it in no way simulates what will happen in realtime trading, you can enter and exit where you wish in the demo. Is nice to see where all the buttons and features are, that about it. -Hoyler
>you can enter and exit where you wish in the demo... Well, not exactly. I used it all day every day for about 3 weeks (I'm talking about the demo in a funded account, not the free online demo software) and often wouldn't get filled. Sure, there were many times I was able to buy at the Bid and sell on the Ask. But many, many times I couldn't. Usually, however, I was always able to buy at the Ask (or slightly above it) in a running market, or sell at the Bid (or slightly below it) in a falling market. So like I said, it's not at all realistic relative to live trading, but it's not a bad simulator to get to know the software, various order routing, etc. And it's very convenient to use since you don't have to call anyone (during office hrs) to turn it on or off.
if you only route to ECNs during demo trading, then your real trading results will be comparable to your paper results... assuming if emotion is not a factor.
dozu, > if you only route to ECNs during demo trading, > then your real trading results will be comparable > to your paper results. If only it were true. Over 90% of my demo trades were routed exclusively to ECNs (since I only trade Nas) and I'd regularly get filled long on the Bids and sell at the Asks. Or be able to easily short at the Asks and cover at the Bids. When I went live I was shocked how my fills were VERY different from the demo fills, same software, same DSL connection, same computer, same size (300 shares) etc. Again, while I strongly recommend demo trading to test out strategies and get comfortable with software, don't think for one minute that your fills will be an accurate reflection of how they'll be when you're live.
Have to agree with Magma about the above. A lot of demo's allow you to always buy the bid and sell the ask. No so in real life. than there is assuming emotion isn't a factor. There are very few people that can be emotionless while losing a small % of their account waiting for a trade to happen. Greed and fear get a lot stronger when money is involved. rtharp
route to ECN, buy on ASK, sell on BID, and for shorts, only on uptick BID. There you have a realistic paper result.