how different is the real world trading from a trading on a simulator?

[spindr0]

There's no fear in simulated trading. If you lose 10 grand, no biggie. You can risk more, make more, and tolerate larger draw downs

When hard earned money is at stake, there are real consequences and therefore, decisions are different.

Simulated trading is good for learning but eventually, you have to pick up the scalpel and cut for real.

 

[increasenow]

Quote from Andrico:

What is the fundamental difference between trading in a virtual account and the real world trading?

I have an optionsxpress virtual accout and a real...also a Futures trading account with another broker...In my opinion...virtual trading does not help at all!!!!!!...it is just good at giving you a false impression of real trading...here is an example:
On 9/29 I bought about $1,000 worth of QQQQ puts in my "virtual account"...I actuall forgot about it...I checked my virtual account yesterday and the position grew to $5,000 plus!!!!...WOW...YEA!!!...BUT...it was all fake...NOW, would I have forgot about a real trade on the line and let it run...NO!!!!...I most likely would have traded out that day or the next with a much smaller profit...so...they are not equal...real $$$$ changes EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING!!!...again...just my thoughts...

 

[dagnyt]

Quote from increasenow:

.virtual trading does not help at all!!!!!!...it is just good at giving you a false impression of real trading...

It depends what you want to learn.

Sure, it lacks the 'feel' of real money and the psychological barrier that prevents traders from making good decisions with real money.

But, if this broker is new to a customer, it's a good way to learn to use the trading platform, preventing that customer from confusing buy vs sell orders.

It also allows the newbie to learn how to enter spread or combo orders, to learn how to use any risk management tools supplied by the broker, how to exercise an option, etc.

There's much more to simulated trading that seeing how much money you can make.

Mark

 

[OddTrader]

Good day traders,

I am a newbie in training. I was wondering if you can shed some light on the following question:

What is the fundamental difference between trading in a virtual account and the real world trading?

I was trading with a vaying success on a simulator and planning to finally step into the real world in a couple of months. Is this a huge difference? There must be some, because some results I've seen on the simulator are so strange. For instance, at Investopedia website there are couple of guys who consistenly (at least since the beginning of 2008) earn 300-500% per quarter. There is one, who started this May and turned 100K$ (of virtual money) into 72 million just buying index funds options !!! And he wasn't just lucky, you can see the history of his trades from the start. It's quite consistent. And this is especially strage given the fact that at that website you can't even write options, only buy them.

Thanks in advance,
Andriy

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[botpro]

There must be some, because some results I've seen on the simulator are so strange. For instance, at Investopedia website there are couple of guys who consistenly (at least since the beginning of 2008) earn 300-500% per quarter. There is one, who started this May and turned 100K$ (of virtual money) into 72 million just buying index funds options !!! And he wasn't just lucky, you can see the history of his trades from the start. It's quite consistent. And this is especially strage given the fact that at that website you can't even write options, only buy them.

Maybe these few guys can figure out the sequence of the random numbers,
ie. can find from the past sequence the initial "seed number" of the the random number generator,
and so can know what numbers will come up next as they can foreplay the sequence on their own computer...
It would mean a not well written simulator...