That's probably the most important thing to realize. Once you trade real money you will worry about not closing for a loss - or become greedy after a few lucky trades and overtrade. The problem is, that your are still too much focused on the money. In nearly every post you write how much money you would have made with your simulated trades. THAT IS DANGEROUS AND YOU WILL BLOW OUT IN LESS THAN A WEEK, IF YOU DON'T CHANGE THAT. .
JP--looking at your previous posts in this board I think you might be more than ready to start and if you can't afford to lose money, you could consider starting with a small account: many brokers offer you the possibility of trading small lots so that you risk is very limited. You could start with 20-50 shares contracts and see how it goes. Sure you are aware paper-trading may not accurately reflect the effectiveness of order execution and you can't measure slippage. Not to mention the fact that you are avoiding the emotional pressures involved with real trading and you may subconsciously want to cheat yourself. When do you think you ought to start for real? And do you want to limit yourself to futures?
"an amatuer counts the dollars he could have made while a professional counts how much he will lose on each trade if he strays from the rules" To those worried about Jmowery, I think even if he blows up the guy will learn some valuable lessons. Heck he is young, he has no mortgage, kids, wife to support so the pressure is not on him from that standpoint. Also the money he is trading has a different value, when you are 18 2k seems like a lot but as you get older it is not as significant. I say go for it, the kid has a lot of confidence and reminds me of myself. You can't come into this game as a pessimistic and expect to make it. Using a 10 point stop he should be able to get about 35 trades off before blowing out if he can't trad ea lick, but the experience will be more than worth the 2k tuition.
congrats once again to all those who play the no risk overnight long futures system for free money$$ NO FEAR
Thanks. Yesterday afternoon I did not post a trade. I was short when we rallied into the close and took a 20 point loss. Gotta post the lossers too :eek: Should have a tight range today going into the fed announcement. Thats why I am fading this gap up.