Is a demo account waste of time?

[i am nobody]

In demo environments, you don't influence the market while with real trades, you do. That's a big difference.

What is influencing the market? Make it move 0,001% or make it move 10%?
And what is a big difference depends on what your average profit per trade is. If you make 0,25$ a share it might be a problem, but if you make 5$ a share the problem is already 20 times smaller.
What will you do if you influence the market and have to get out quickly? Kill your own trade by making the market crash? If your orders influence prices significantly you should trade smaller or trade something else.
In forex the markets size is billions a day. If you buy a few million it will even not be noticed. I bought in past 10-30 million in seconds.
In the ES there are more than 2 million contracts a day. If you buy even one hundred contracts (0,005% of volume) it will not be noticed. Will be filled in seconds.
In many stocks daily volume is so high that buying 1000 shares is not noticed.

 

[dbphoenix]

Very good analogies. I hope dbphoenix understands what we are trying to say now.

I know exactly what you're trying to say. I've known people who've struggled with this for twenty years and made little progress because of psychological issues. I will say again, therefore, that if fear is a problem, you need an airtight trading plan, thoroughly-tested and consistently-profitable in sim before you go live with real money. If you don't, you stand to lose a great deal of money.

But it's your money.

 

[Turveyd]

I know exactly what you're trying to say. I've known people who've struggled with this for twenty years and made little progress because of psychological issues. I will say again, therefore, that if fear is a problem, you need an airtight trading plan, thoroughly-tested and consistently-profitable in sim before you go live with real money. If you don't, you stand to lose a great deal of money.

But it's your money.

I don't believe in air tight trading plans, beating the fear via live trades is the only solution.

 

[dbphoenix]

I don't believe in air tight trading plans, beating the fear via live trades is the only solution.

It's also one major highway to bankruptcy.

 

[Turveyd]

It's also one major highway to bankruptcy.

Not if you sensible about, yes if you believe you need 100k or your under funded then for sure, but add $100 per month when required and its fine, wayyyy better than demo.

 

[d08]

What is influencing the market? Make it move 0,001% or make it move 10%?
And what is a big difference depends on what your average profit per trade is. If you make 0,25$ a share it might be a problem, but if you make 5$ a share the problem is already 20 times smaller.
What will you do if you influence the market and have to get out quickly? Kill your own trade by making the market crash? If your orders influence prices significantly you should trade smaller or trade something else.
In forex the markets size is billions a day. If you buy a few million it will even not be noticed. I bought in past 10-30 million in seconds.
In the ES there are more than 2 million contracts a day. If you buy even one hundred contracts (0,005% of volume) it will not be noticed. Will be filled in seconds.
In many stocks daily volume is so high that buying 1000 shares is not noticed.

If you trade size then spread the orders out, this is common knowledge - you don't just submit one large order.
Most traders do not trade the ES and therefore have less liquidity at their disposal. Nor do they go for $5 a share windfalls.
What I'm saying applies to most equities, most futures and a number of currencies.
You do not understand that the volume of 2 million contracts is for the whole day, at any given moment there might be only 10-20 contracts on offer so an order in the hundreds would definitely move the price, especially in the quiet hours (12:30pm to 1:30pm).
If your goal is to get the average price for the whole day then yes, daily volume matters.
Sure, I can buy a large position "in seconds" as well but I know that I will be moving the price with my order and that translates to the bottom line. The goal is not to get filled at any price but to get filled while remaining relatively invisible.

 

[dbphoenix]

Not if you sensible about, yes if you believe you need 100k or your under funded then for sure, but add $100 per month when required and its fine, wayyyy better than demo.

I'm reminded of the hot-doggers I knew in '98-'99. But I've known hundreds of beginners since then who preferred to just jump in rather than put together a reliable trading plan. They're all gone.

She has a choice right now between being profitable in a few months or wasting years just trying to reach breakeven. But it's up to her.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood . . .

 

[Turveyd]

I'm reminded of the hot-doggers I knew in '98-'99. But I've known hundreds of beginners since then who preferred to just jump in rather than put together a reliable trading plan. They're all gone.

She has a choice right now between being profitable in a few months or wasting years just trying to reach breakeven. But it's up to her.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood . . .

99% fail or give up, so thats to be expected.

Most demo traders, prove they can make demo money, get over confident, role large money in, to discover its not the same then blow it, in my experience.

Demo is like learning to drive a car by playing GTA to me.


But feel free to stay demo and keep hunting this reliable trading plan, if only it was that easy.

 

[dbphoenix]

No, developing a thoroughly-tested and consistently-profitable trading plan is not easy. It's difficult. And time-consuming. Which is why few beginners do it. Which is why they nearly all fail.

Demo trading without having gone through all the preceding steps is no better than masturbation. But if it's the final step before trading live, it is useful and not "a waste of time".

 

[Turveyd]

No, developing a thoroughly-tested and consistently-profitable trading plan is not easy. It's difficult. And time-consuming. Which is why few beginners do it. Which is why they nearly all fail.

Demo trading without having gone through all the preceding steps is no better than masturbation. But if it's the final step before trading live, it is useful and not "a waste of time".

Thats your opinion, nothing more or less!

My opinion is your chasing something that isn't real, its about experience, 1000nds of hours infront of a chart, demo is better than nothing, live is better than demo.

Take a few risks from time to time, maybe you might learn something.

Prefer to waste money than time, demo to me is just a waste of time.