Emini trading: Virtual acct vs Real acct
- Thread starter alias
- Start date
1) Are you trading off of a live market data feed or are you using a random price generator?
2) Are your limit orders ALWAYS at the end of the queue?
3) On a simulator, the "profit & losses" are "simulated". In a funded account, they are "very real".
4) Live/real performance WILL generally tend to be less because your emotions should bias you towards being less aggressive, especially when you hit a losing streak...... And yes, that WILL happen to you many times. :eek:
Thanks for the reply.
1) Data feed is live, I didn't see a point in simulated prices.
2) Not always
3) I don't know how the psychological part change will go. Stock day trading I seem to be (just)okay with and I'm not using money that I can't afford to lose.
4) The virtual account gives 100k fake money. My account won't be that size so I'm only trading 1 es contract at a time, I traded 2 once so far because I needed to average down.
One other thing, I have no problems taking a small profit/loss instead of letting the trade run if I think/see that something isn't what I thought. I'm not sure if this is good or if I should be staying with a fixed strategy. Thoughts?
1) Data feed is live, I didn't see a point in simulated prices.
2) Not always
3) I don't know how the psychological part change will go. Stock day trading I seem to be (just)okay with and I'm not using money that I can't afford to lose.
4) The virtual account gives 100k fake money. My account won't be that size so I'm only trading 1 es contract at a time, I traded 2 once so far because I needed to average down.
One other thing, I have no problems taking a small profit/loss instead of letting the trade run if I think/see that something isn't what I thought. I'm not sure if this is good or if I should be staying with a fixed strategy. Thoughts?
For what its worth - may I highly recommend you get some training on trader psychology before you go live. I dont want to play Dr. Psychologist here but this is a fact:
our brain is programmed to feel the pain of financial loss acutely, so that it has a better chance of avoiding loss the next time, e.g., your next trade, or even the next day or week. Its subconscious so merely telling yourself different will be futile. You need to address this because futures trading is much different than stock trading. Its a shark tank - for somebody to win, someone has to lose. Pro's know exactly where retail traders (you & me) trade and place stops. Your edge needs to be able to identify this so you are not 'the herd of sheep' that get sniped by the pros; otherwise your acct will be dismantled one trade at a time. Your methodology of course needs to suit you well and you need to know it well but that is 1/3 of the game.
I trade about 80% on sim - live feed, not replay or fixed anything. Yea fills come quicker because its a fake acct. But other than that, its as close to real as you can get.
I trade about 65-70% on live and still have alot of experience to gain in the area of mindset. That is exactly what is keeping me from that 80ish percentile of profitability in my live acct.
our brain is programmed to feel the pain of financial loss acutely, so that it has a better chance of avoiding loss the next time, e.g., your next trade, or even the next day or week. Its subconscious so merely telling yourself different will be futile. You need to address this because futures trading is much different than stock trading. Its a shark tank - for somebody to win, someone has to lose. Pro's know exactly where retail traders (you & me) trade and place stops. Your edge needs to be able to identify this so you are not 'the herd of sheep' that get sniped by the pros; otherwise your acct will be dismantled one trade at a time. Your methodology of course needs to suit you well and you need to know it well but that is 1/3 of the game.
I trade about 80% on sim - live feed, not replay or fixed anything. Yea fills come quicker because its a fake acct. But other than that, its as close to real as you can get.
I trade about 65-70% on live and still have alot of experience to gain in the area of mindset. That is exactly what is keeping me from that 80ish percentile of profitability in my live acct.