Demo Trading Account
The Deal With Demo Trading and How to Get a Free Account
First off, what is demo trading? Demo trading is the process of trading live without real money on the line to ensure that your trading strategies are profitable in the live market. In other markets, it is generally recognized as an essential step to profitability, but in Forex trading, there is almost no talk of it.
This leads new traders to ask whether demo testing is really important, or whether it is just a waste of time. After all, how can you make money when you’re testing “on paper?” Some new traders look at demo trading this way and think, “Well, if I were profitable on paper, wouldn’t I just be upset that I hadn’t invested real money and won real money?” Of course, this is an attitude founded in impatience and overconfidence. What these traders should ask themselves is, “If I lost money on paper, wouldn’t I be relieved I didn’t lose money in real life by investing before I was ready?” Starting out with a Forex trading demo account is a wise decision regardless of your level of comfort with options.
For some reason Forex traders look at demo trading as optional. However, almost all Forex brokers provide demo testing platforms to new customers. Most brokers offer unlimited demo testing. It's extremely easy to get a demo account.
Forex trading tends to appeal to gamblers. If you are in this for fun and you are not treating investing as a business, then you do not really need to demo test. If however you are treating your trading as a business, you need to have a business plan and take every aspect of your Forex trading seriously. You wouldn’t sell a new product to the public without testing it first, would you? Likewise, if you expect to profit from trading, you should not use your trading strategy live without testing it first to ensure that it works in real life.
Benefits of demo testing before trading live:
- Learn to use your trading platform properly without losing money because of simple navigational errors and other avoidable mistakes.
- Test your new broker to make sure this is the broker you really want to invest your money with. Does the platform work well? Do orders get executed as you would expect? Does the customer service team respond quickly to your inquiries? Do you have all the features you need? Get answers to these questions before real money is on the line.
- Test your trading strategy live. This is not the same as testing it on historical data. Make sure it is still performing well in current market conditions, and that you are able to make the same decisions in real time you would have made while backtesting. This adjustment can be more difficult than you might think.
- Get a chance to learn how to schedule your trading into your real life before you lose money. It is not uncommon to have a great system which backtests well, but which poses difficulties when you try to use it live. Maybe a lot of your trades fall during your workday, or take place overnight. Demo testing gives you a chance to learn how to deal with the scheduling problems and get them sorted out before you start investing with real money.
Demo Testing is Essential to Success
If you do not demo test, it is basically a guarantee that you are going to fail sooner or later as a trader. The same goes for skipping the step which proceeds demo testing—back-testing. Trading without a well-developed and tested strategy leaves your fate entirely up to chance, and Lady Luck is not a forgiving mistress.
Master just a few of our Forex strategies by practicing them on a Forex demo account from one of the best Forex brokers and you will be successful. Your Forex account will grow and you will earn a substantial income as long as you follow the winning Forex strategies correctly. These are some of the best Forex winning strategies on the internet.