can you elaborate?. It is possible that i make losses in demo but i do not remember them because i have in reality made no loss of money only of prestige
that is what i do now trade with small size i also now keep a journal where i list all the reasons observations for taking the trade.....but i usually do that after i enter... the last trade i entered and then placed all the reasons in the journal and also some other observations and after i did all that realized it was a bad trade maybe that is why a lot of experienced traders advice to keep a journal
There could be other parts of his strategy that may not be exactly set in stone, aside from the technical analysis. If his execution is off when he trades live, then it might not matter how good he is at reading charts. Do you have your strategy written down, op?
Agree you wouldn't want to trade 100 shares actively, but otherwise there's nothing wrong with slipping in a 100 shares of this and that.
When I said a 100 lots I meant FUTURES lots! Which is a lot of $$. I know some people treat sim as fake. So they say buy 100 lots which has notional values in the millions. For equities, a 100 shares is the minimum..
Some traders make the mistake in simulator trading via not documenting & journaling the simulator trades. Resulting you not having anything to remember as in no feedback to help you when you traverse to real money trading. Then when they move into real money trading...they really have no info/stats/context to help themself if/when they struggle in real money trading. Another possibility...the simulator trading is not realistic nor compatible to the real money trading. For example, lets pretend you're only trading 1 contract/1 lot in real money trading via a very small trading account. In contrast, you were trading via a 100k demo account in simulator trading. Thus, you're freaking out mentally when you see that small account get losses in real money trading while totally relax in simulator trading. The other possibility is that you're trading real money that you can not afford to lose. Thus, you change your trading style/habits in real money trading. Stop trading with real money and start simulator trading via documenting/journaling your trading so that you can have that valuable info to get on the right track when you return back to real money trading. In addition, use a professional trade journal software for your quantitative statistic analysis during the simulator and real money trading. One more thing...all your backtesting of the trade method occurs prior to simulator trading prior to real money trading. The backtest results is useful info for the simulator trading because you can quickly see why you're deviating in with paper money to give you clues about the possibility of you deviating when traversing from simulator to real money. P.S. Don't wait until real money trading to start your documenting/journaling. Do it first in simulator trading to accumulate that data you need to help yourself while doing the same in real money trading. Always backtest before anything so that you will know the hypothetical potential of your trade method. Backtest Trade Method ---> Simulator Trading w/ Documenting & Journaling ---> Real Money w/ Documenting & Journaling wrbtrader
I would think it would have been much easier to turn a profit in the mid to late 90s, than now. If you could not turn a profit in the 90s (can anyone say "internet"), then I think it's nearly hopeless now