Trading Strategy #2 - "You should stay on a demo account until you're profitable"
Disclaimer: I apologise in advance... I've had an emotional evening.
“When you're learning to trade, you should stay on a demo account until you are profitable.
Whoever told you that is a fucking dumb cunt.
Am I allowed to swear like that on Steemit?
Lol, like it matters.
But seriously, it is what it is. You're taking advice from a fucking moron if they're telling you to stay on a demo account until you are profitable.
Why you ask?
Because trading is not about your profitable system or being able to read the high probability setups that are shoved down all of our throats endlessly for free on Twitter and forex forums. Heck, they're even endlessly fucking repeated on Steemit by those scumbag affiliates from the horn of Africa.
If they can copy and paste a high probability setup that would make you money, then I'm sure even you can.
But no, trading isn't about being profitable. Trading is about having the psychological fortitude...
...BALLSACK to be able to cut a shitty trade loose when your meticulously planned out trade goes to the point where the market has told you that you're wrong and you have pushed your risk to the parameters of being an acceptable loss.
Yes, shock horror n00bs. Locking in a loss is a HEALTHY part of profitable trading.
Locking in a loss is what takes sack to be able to do. Giving your money to the mysterious market.
Picturing some scumbag in a cheap suit on the other end of your screen literally laughing at you as your trade goes against you and his runs further and further into profit and being man enough to be able to swallow your pride, hand your money to him, and move on.
I just had a picture of this guy when I was conjuring up that imagery.
Yes, Trump fucking Junior has taken the other end of your shitty USD longs over the past 6 months.
Anywayyy, back to calling this demo trading bullshit out.
Trading is about having the psychological fortitude to be able to calmly follow your trade plan and take a loss if the market tells you that you are wrong.
SOMETHING YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND UNTIL YOU HAVE YOUR REAL MONEY THAT YOU HAVE WORKED MONTHS AT YOUR SHITTY 9-5 JOB EITHER CLICKING A MOUSE WHILE SOME WANKER WITH A COMB OVER LOOKS OVER YOUR SHOULDER, DISAPPEARS IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES.
On a demo account, you will never be able to understand the pressure or that emotion you feel when your trade is in the red.
Wanting to just let this loser tick down a couple more pips because surely the bottom is in.
"SURELY!"
Overlaying a stupid MACD then RSI or whatever bullshit lagging indicator which has nothing to do with anything, will tell you that the market is oversold and confirm that 'the bottom is in' to your now insane mind.
The best piece of advice I can give any new trader is to get the fuck off your demo account and to put $100 into a live account and trade 0.05 lot trades.
I guarantee that you will react differently to both winners approaching your target that start to pull back, and also to losers that just keep moving away.
These are emotions that you have to learn to manage and overcome if you are to ever be a consistently profitable trader.
Sure it's just $100, but you won't keep throwing pineapples on the ground and feel good about yourself for very long. It will force you to make a change or quit.
Get off the demo, get onto a live account and tell your shitty trading mentor that he's a dumb cunt.
Peace!
The @forexbrokr Trading Strategy Series
Instagram: @forexbrokr
Website: www.forexbrokr.com
Interesting thoughts. The psychology part of trading does not come into effect on a demo account for sure.
That being said, without learning to be profitable on a demo account and developing a working strategy it will never be possible to do it on a live account.
Start a demo, learn to be profitable and then move to a live account and work on your head.
Fun exercise, try to lose money on a demo. It is difficult to do. If you are able to figure out something that works consistently in losing money reverse the principles and you may be on your way to building a working strategy.
That sounds like fun! Totally going to try that! =D
I get that a lot and still don't agree because the profitability has hardly anything to do with strategy. It is how you apply whatever strategy and how you are able to manage your emotions to stick to it. 'Learning to be profitable' is something you just can't do on a demo.
Haha this exact thought went through my head a million times when I was struggling. I'd do the exact opposite thing and I'd still lose money overall because of whipsaws.
Getting your money management right is key to becoming profitable, not your strategy.
Nice writeup. I've blown my own account trading countless times and this is something that doesn't happen on my demo account. You feel more relax on a demo account and it won't help you grow until your own money is at stake.
Hey Paul,
Thanks man, appreciated.
There really is nothing that comes close to the emotion you feel when you're watching your money just tick further and further in the negative. It's something you can't explain to a new trader.
They almost have to lose money just so they can come to the crossroads of quitting or making a conscious effort to manage risk so they never feel that again. I know I needed it!
Yea, fuckity fuck that "never trade at a loss" mumbo jumbo.... I'd definitely rather cut my losses at a reasonable amount and move to another trade than to be holding expensive ass bags for possibly months while other markets start moving parabolic.
Like um....LTC this morning.... Lol
And curse away, makes your posts more edgy and i like that
BOOM, how about that Litecoin mate!!
Perfectly clean bounce off that daily trend line. Buyers just waiting to snap it up. Love it!
I feel better this morning after my coffee haha... But I like this anonymous account because it lets me speak my mind with no repercussions or worries. People actually respect that more than a self censored corporate account too which surprised me. A little more faith in humanity is restored!
That's what I like about your stuff too. Just a real person speaking their mind. No fucks given :)
i know you said u didnt think LTC was driven by the USD/LTC pairing as much as it was crypto related....
But it held that 38.25% confidence band/fibonacci level since its run up 4 weeks ago and that price is about $38.75 USD
that has been my buyback price when trading these last few weeks and it helped me damn near guess the bottom correctly 2 times!!!
im gonna be stalking the USDT/BTC price all night and try to sell out over $2900 hope for a 'short squeeze' on USDT and buy back some cheap ltc or btc right around the time of the snapshot block. im pretty sure price is gonna dump down about 9% from highs before rebounding to new ATH's within a couple of weeks.
once that cools down and starts going sideways, then im looking at LTC, PIVX, DASH and my longshot is safe exchange coin to make gains on BTC closer to 3rd or 4th week of august.
no real reason LTC is not capable of reaching $400 USD mid-term, i mean look what happened to ETH. still 10x potential there for ltc imho
zero fucks given i def enjoy your posts. lets make tremendous amounts of money together.....lol
I am still wary of how LTC and BTC move together. Whether LTC rallies when BTC falls. I just haven't been around crypto long enough yet to full inderstand each market's personalities.
But both LTC/USD and BTC/USD are up 3% or so on the day, so they aren't totally inversely correlated. Happy days!
$$$$$ :)
Abso-
freakin-lutely!Wow wow wow Dave, keep it PG here please.
Won't somebody think of the children!
My bad. Where's that edit button.... ;)
You're 100% right. When I was first learning in 2005 about trading, I opened an test account on Investopedia. What did it teach me? Almost nothing. It was certainly fun! But the educational value, and experiential value was about worthless.
When it is not real money, your decisions will not mirror your actual decisions in a real case where you have money on the line. It is when you get burned, with money on the line that you learn something. You do not learn unless you have been burned.
Recently, I dumped some great investments. I was in profit even, and I wanted to continue to hold them even. If I was still a greenhorn, I would still be holding them. It was the times I got burned which taught me enough when to sell.
Yep, this.
This is very relevant to my personalty at least. I was burned and it forced me to a crossroads between quitting or learning to manage risk and emotions properly so I NEVER felt that margin call feeling again.
I still remember that feeling and every time I want to lose control, it stops me. Humans don't like pain so the brain will stop you from doing something dumb again. It's how we're built.
The only value in having a demo account is to familiarise yourself with the platform. It does more damage than good to continue trading it. Gives false beliefs in your abilities.
Yes, exactly!
A demo does nothing for your actual trading.