Virtual trading before actual one - pros and cons

[Lanatsa]

To my mind that's one of the main reason why people usually start well with virtual trading and end up badly in real life trading and somehow this is one of the most skipped problem in overall.

Reason is that they do become confident if they do really saw that they demo account had really been making profits but when they do already face up the reality then things do really changed.

You know that you are risking your own money and its really hard to control on what would be the emotions do come out and its just normal. Demo and Live is totally different

and you cant say that it would really be easy to kill off emotions since this one would be the main problem once you do make a switch up.It would be good if you do trade up with
real money but on a very small manner at least you do know and deal with the real thing without spending that much rather than doing demo and after that you do go all in
with trades just because you do saw that you do make big money with demo trades.

[1715448147]

1715448147

[shield132]

I just skipped straight to using small amounts of funds.

I dumped ~1% of my portfolio at the time and started trading with 1-5% (~$1-5) amounts of that 1% to test how well I could do for profit, but I was also following signals, at the same time on a different account so I could keep track of sentiment and still make some sort of profit. I think I'd just have got bored of a demo account and 30 cents profit on a dollar isn't too bad of a win and the negative of that is a much nicer loss too.

I agree with you, that was the point of my thread to tell. I think it worth to get some experience with your bucks and this way you'll slowly adapt to higher bankroll. People usually directly move from virtual money to real high bankroll.

There's the idea of "scared money" in poker. If you're playing with money that you're scared of losing, then you have already become attached to the bankroll that you're wagering. When you are making bets or trades, you are prepared for the worst-case scenario, otherwise you would not (or, for most people, should not) have performed the action.

That's one reason why some people like to hide their balance, so their behaviors are not influenced by any psychological factors during volatile swings.A lot of people get the whole "emotionless trading" schtick completely wrong: you aren't emotionless. Instead, you're risk-averse and seeking to maximize your expected gains. This means deducing conclusions through reliable processes, and not falling for any fallacious thinking that can negatively skew one's perspective.

Good example from poker. In most cases people aren't prepared for worst-case scenario and all they hope and expect is bright future. Then, when they trade with their bankroll and in case they lose, they are afraid that this bright future may broke and want to fix it as soon as possible to make their wishes come true but this is the time when emotions rise significantly and in most cases, possibility of making their wishes come true is abandoned.

You may think that you are "emotionless" in trading but at the same time it depends on your subconscious. Maybe today and tomorrow you'll act like "emotionless" but your subconscious will act emotional and may change your behaviors. It's just logical reaction/instinct.

[MCobian]

I am a pro with virtual trading, especially for newbies who are new to the world of trading. Besides there is no risk,
because it doesn't use real money. Virtual trading makes our knowledge and abilities increase, this will be useful when
do real trading. I think cons people are just lazy to practice using virtual trading and find it unattractive if not using
real money. The conclusion is up to each person's decision, but I highly recommend using virtual trading.

[jackg]

I agree with you, that was the point of my thread to tell. I think it worth to get some experience with your bucks and this way you'll slowly adapt to higher bankroll. People usually directly move from virtual money to real high bankroll.

Yeah I just thought it was better to make it a little more explicit. I don't think it's mentioned very much that it's a good idea to move to a small amount of funds first and then start increasing.

Imo the balance you put on an exchange for trading with leverage shouldn't exceed 25-30% of your portfolio and if you lose it, you need to move back down.

I'd probably say the best option is to start at 1-5% then double it to 10, 20 and then 25 (or stick at 20) but only move up if 6/10 trades make a profit and your roi is still positive. It may seem tedious but you'll feel better afterwards than if you yolod with 30%.

[maxreish]

Why used a word virtual trading, just used its demo account.
 

 Yeah, it's kinda misleading to use virtual trading because actual and demo trading are all virtual trading.
 
 Anyhow, demo trading though is kinda helpful because we tend to practice trading, we make some realizations and learning about the right reading of technical analysis before we are going to do some actual trades. But it's quite different when we trade in an actual field.
 We are trading in actual market volatility, we can see how whales are actually reacting in actual trading, we try to control the real fomo emotions, etc.
 
 On the other hand, though practice makes perfect. But actual trading experience is the best teacher to become a better trader

[tbterryboy]

Yup that’s right, I have seen people who try virtual trading and they are giving fake $10,000 to try out the virtual, and when they try the demo they will be succeeding, but once they decide to get into the real trading they will start losing.

It is just like that, and from what I understand, when they are into that virtual trading , most of them are just seeing it as a guess work and they just be hitting that buy and sell button and things are kicking in randomly and profit coming, and they think that’s how it’s going to be in the real trading.

Even if they experience loss in the demo trading, they don’t really feel it and don’t care to figure it out since it’s not real money, they are just having fun until they get into the real thing.

[DevilSlayer]

Virtual trading is important especially if you are new in the market, you will lose huge amount of money if you started with high capital with a a little amount of knowledge. For those beginners who will try to use virtual trading, make sure that you will treat it as your real portfolio. One of the problems that I keep seeing is a lot of traders are not treating the virtual trading as their real port where are just buying and selling without understanding what is it for. The good things is there are now exchangers that are offering virtual trading or what they called trading simulator in order to fully develop your skills. We can gain a lot of experiences through virtual trading so we should master our strategies first in trading simulator before we put our hard earn money or savings in different exchanges in order for us to prevent huge losses.

[Ucy]

Ofcourse.
Sometimes I think some sort of real rewards (maybe inform points, rankings, etc) on the "virtual trading" or demo could encourage people to stick to learning, and help them learn almost like they would on the real ones. The rewards should be useful afterwards, and not something that is useless to you after earning them.

[Findingnemo]

I see a lot of advice where people suggest each other to practice on websites where they can trade with virtual money. To be fair, I am in this list too among them but at the same time no one warns such people that it was it's pros and cons, more likely cons are outsiders while giving advices.

Pros: You trade with virtual money where your actions can't raise/damage your real budget, it looks like you spend money like nothing. This gives us possibility to test our skills and abilities in trading and help us further why we make mistakes and what we need to fix while considering the fact that the reason why I profit/lose is because you lose/profit.

Yeah, it sounds good but sometimes when we move on real life trading, things go wrong. We are always warned to leave our emotions outside while we are trading that includes: Not to panic sell, hold when there are harsh moments, etc. But we forget to mention another main emotion that we face in this situation: We trade with our money where we are responsible to results and these results may have huge impact on our life. Inside, in our subconscious, we worry about the results because we trade with our, real money.

To my mind that's one of the main reason why people usually start well with virtual trading and end up badly in real life trading and somehow this is one of the most skipped problem in overall.

Learning and trying there are some differences in it, if someone uses the virtual trading just to get familiar with the trading platforms means they are the one going to lose their money when they start playing with real money where as someone is learning from virtual trading with the same effort as real money involved which will enhance their trading when they go with real money.

[AakZaki]

Virtual trading only provides experience for beginners who want to trade so that it is easier to understand what strategy to use, so that real funds will remain safe. Virtual trading is just a lesson before plunging into real trading.

When doing virtual trading, you always get profit, so when trading real you get a lot of losses. it all depends on psychology. In virtual trading, psychology will not play a lot because there is no real money.

The most important thing is how to regulate emotions in trading, even a professional will lose with unstable emotions and tend to choose the wrong choice.

[Reid]

Can easily be compared to virtual gambling.
Like playing poker in facebook where that money is just from another user who sent you gifts.

You play and gamble all the way without even thinking about it.
Why? It ain't real. That is the dark side of that.
I'd rather trade with a little amount. That way, I will still be careful because I am losing real money.

[Oilacris]

Why used a word virtual trading, just used its demo account.
 

 Yeah, it's kinda misleading to use virtual trading because actual and demo trading are all virtual trading.
 
 Anyhow, demo trading though is kinda helpful because we tend to practice trading, we make some realizations and learning about the right reading of technical analysis before we are going to do some actual trades. But it's quite different when we trade in an actual field.
 We are trading in actual market volatility, we can see how whales are actually reacting in actual trading, we try to control the real fomo emotions, etc.
 
 On the other hand, though practice makes perfect. But actual trading experience is the best teacher to become a better trader

Yes, its really misleading when using up that Virtual trading word which is actually pertaining to demo trading.This actually can help out people or to those who do thrive to learn up.

It does have its cons when it comes to some aspects since you've been not dealing with actual money then seriousness of doing trades will really be not too present when you do make up some
trades since you do know that you arent risking something.

But having these features will really make you learn and able to grasp something which can really be so useful when you are already dealing with actual money.

[senyorito123]

Can easily be compared to virtual gambling.
Like playing poker in facebook where that money is just from another user who sent you gifts.

You play and gamble all the way without even thinking about it.
Why? It ain't real. That is the dark side of that.
I'd rather trade with a little amount. That way, I will still be careful because I am losing real money.

Losing a lot of money is a very stressful thing, so everybody should be more clever about it. Trading won't be compared as of gambling if you knew exactly the reality of the game, because skills and patience should be together. If you don't have that capability, you'll end up wasting huge amount of money. Becoming professional trader isn't easy, you need to work hard for it and never make the same mistakes again.

[Wexnident]

Virtual trading is just a way to familiarize yourself. It really isn't considered experience imo, especially since the one factor that most traders fear, "risk", isn't involved. Virtual trading could be simply said as something that let's you be used to how charts/markets/movements etc. work, and you being used to them means that you could understand a lot of things quickly compared to normal. Simply saying, it's like the visual form of a huge amounts of text, presented in an image form. It's like explaining the process of photosynthesis in all text form being presented once again in picture form, which let's you understand things a whole lot easier.

Yup that’s right, I have seen people who try virtual trading and they are giving fake $10,000 to try out the virtual, and when they try the demo they will be succeeding, but once they decide to get into the real trading they will start losing.

It is just like that, and from what I understand, when they are into that virtual trading , most of them are just seeing it as a guess work and they just be hitting that buy and sell button and things are kicking in randomly and profit coming, and they think that’s how it’s going to be in the real trading.

Even if they experience loss in the demo trading, they don’t really feel it and don’t care to figure it out since it’s not real money, they are just having fun until they get into the real thing.

They don't put in effort in virtual trading, not their money, not their business so to speak. This is why they think of real trading as something similar, though it mostly just involves them lying to themselves that "this is easy, I was able to earn 100% profit in virtual trading in 2 days blah blah gibberish".

[Goltigal]

Personally, I can say that when trading on a virtual platform, I got used to a little how to behave.

[aesma]

Virtual trading is just a way to familiarize yourself. It really isn't considered experience imo, especially since the one factor that most traders fear, "risk", isn't involved.

Being familiar with a trading engine is better than not being familiar with it, wouldn't you agree ?

Now about the risk, that's true, so you should try to simulate it also.

For starters, do the virtual trading with the same amount you would use IRL. No sense in trading 10 BTC and 100K$ if in truth you will be trading 0.01BTC and 100$. That could have an impact on fees for example.

Then you could "risk" something else. Let's say there is something you should do but don't because it's a chore, promise to do it if you lose the money. Like exercising every day, or go see an old family member you don't really like, or something like that. Then there is an incentive to not lose, not take too much risk.

Just an idea.

[imstillthebest]

i have thought of this before but if i have though of it why not others ? im not a trader either but for a real trader or to those who are starting , this step is not been skip by them but they priotize this  . they think of way of how to handle it  .

 my guess is that they start with real money and avoid virtual money when they are going to practice  , that sounds risky but its okay because they can benefit of it later on and they can recover what they have lost on thier practice's  .

[Ridwan Fauzi]

The first thing that I do when I'll entry to the market I've known the direction of the market itself, it means, I am not gambling for my money. Regardless I get profit and lose at the end I will never regret it but I will just take it as my experience later.

The second thing that I always do is set the profit target and stop lose for my risk, I mean I must set the amount of money that I can afford to lose. The both strategy has led me to make my day trading always comfortable. And you have to know, demo account will never you aware when you trade, it's really different. So, if you have intention to start trading you may be good if you use real money.

[Beparanf]

Ofcourse.
Sometimes I think some sort of real rewards (maybe inform points, rankings, etc) on the "virtual trading" or demo could encourage people to stick to learning, and help them learn almost like they would on the real ones. The rewards should be useful afterwards, and not something that is useless to you after earning them.

In my country, it is advisable to use virtual trading first before risking the total investments, it is mainly in stocks market, sometimes it only focus on the familiarization of the brokers feature and possible price of the companies they wanted to buy. Those who really have zero knowledge in trading should be thankful that virtual tradings are available to be able to earn. I used it when I start in stock market but no in crypto since it's almost the same in use the difference is the companies and volatility is more in crypto. Those who are truly serious to learn and wants to avoid risk should use it.

[Shasha80]

What must be remembered is that practicing trading using virtual trading does not guarantee that we will immediately
succeed when doing real life trading. But in my opinion the percentage of success of people using virtual trading is
greater than people who jump right in do real life trading. So I am one of those who support virtual trading.