paper trading is worthless as it neglects perhaps the most important aspect of the market: emotion. i recommend trading 1 lots until you can be profitable consistantly, then trade 2 lots...
yes, good trading is about successful habits if by habits you mean discipline, confidence, a positive attitude and hard work. none of these are demanded by paper trading. its a joke because who cares??? theres nothing at stake.
Let's follow that logic shall we? Someone gives you a scalpel and says go practice on your neighbor. Someone gives you a formula one car and says take it out for a test drive at 200 mph. Someone sends you in to court and says you are the attorney for O.J. Simpson good luck. Trading is a profession NOT a past time. In my humble opinion (and it took a LONG time to reach it the hard way) failure to test and paper trade long enough is the NUMBER one reason for failure in this business.
yeah thats good logic samson. it pains me to hear such nonsense. trade 1 lots with real money and set daily loss limits and get a REAL education in the trading business, none of that paper trading crap. when people tell me how much money they are making paper trading i laugh.
Emotional control is important, but not nearly so important as having a solid and tested strategy. Without that, all the emotional control in the world won't amount to squat. Unfortunately, most new traders don't have the patience to take the time to test and verify a strategy. So they jump in and blow out. A new trader needs one of two things: 1. A lot of patience. 2. Or a lot of money. If you don't have (1), you'd damn well better have (2), because you're going to need it.
Sure 1 lots or 100 shares that's like paper trading to me too. Make sure that you don't put to much in your account though so that you can not screw up and have a serious trading loss because then you WILL definetly feel some emotions but they will be the wrong ones to feel .
im glad we found something we can agree on samson... i have a question for you though: lets say someone did successfully paper trade their strategy for 6 months, what size would you recommend they begin for real with then?
Hello Samson, trolling again? What you got burned for was violating copyright law and theft of intellectual property hosebag. Admitting to it in public was not a great idea, but then you never were the brightest bulb in the chandelier. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=34689&perpage=6&pagenumber=7 My own advice is to take a while to research the site. Use the search function at the top right hand side of the page. Check out threads that relate to subjects of interest and skim the posts. Depending on your background you will need to do some reading first (perhaps a lot of reading). You should also take stock of your vocational skills to see where you may need to fill in the gaps. I would suggest you pick a market of interest and check out the exchange website. For instance if you decide to trade the Emini S&P 500, you will want to read the information at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Here is a URL for your reference. www.cme.com I also suggest you get a data feed and simply observe the market on whatever time frame you intend to play. If for instance you want to swing trade (holding for days, weeks months) you will want to watch the market on daily charts for a while to see how it behaves. Check out the low cost services first, like Qcharts, Sierra charts and Quotetracker (talk to Jerry Medved). As regards "advice" be very careful. If you possess common sense you will have to put it to use right away, as the sharks are here in the pool with you. One the problems with free speech is that every yahoo in the place has an opinion. What I found was that the worst ones were those whose comments were about half correct. I tended to waste most of my time trying to separate the wheat from the chaff. My advice is to watch carefully before participating. Do not take weekend seminars. Do not buy systems (anything for that matter), advisories, or join chatrooms, until you have had a while to aclimate yourself to this new environment. If you intend to trade equities (stock), you probably need to check out the three main exchanges including the NYSE, the Nasdaq, and the AMEX; www.nyse.com www.nasdaq.com www.amex.com If you are interested in options, you need to read about them first. The best intro to options for serious traders is "Options as a Strategic Investment" by Larry McMillan. It will cost you about $60 at your local bookstore or at Amazon. Also you may benefit from checking out his site; www.optionstrategist.com In my opinion the guy is one of the authorities on options and a person of good will (he won't take advantage of you). I think that about covers it. You have a long road ahead of you. It can take a few years to get to where you can make a consistent profit. But that is what it would take you in any profession. Good luck, Merry Christmas Steve By the way, the idea that you might make 10% a month is bullshit. No one knows what you will or wont be able to do. Take your time and find out where you stand before worrying about this issue.
who the hecks going to put 500k in a non sipc insured futures acocunt. i bet the avg futures acocunt is funded with 5k or so. after refco the only broker i trust with my money is ib