How to painlessly go from demo to live account in 4 simple steps
Many traders show great results on a demo account but fail when they start live trading. We made a full analysis of this problem and selected 4 crucial steps, which will help you switch to live account as comfortable as possible.
1) Trade Like it's real
When you know you are not trading with your real money, emotions are much less involved, and you can make all the possible mistakes. It is dangerous because everything you do on a demo account becomes your habit. When you open up a demo account, forget that it is a “demo” account.
Treat it as a live account with your real money in it. Enter the trade with a strategy, plan, risk management and etc. Your demo account's size and leverage should be exactly the same as your live account would be. Do not open a $50,000 demo account if you plan for a $1000 live account.
2) Demo trade until you succeed and then trade more to repeat your success
When you repeated your success enough times to build confidence and discipline, then you are ready to go for live trading. If you repeat your success on a live account.
This means you are disciplined enough, you are able to control your emotions, and you have mastered your trading skill. If mistakes are made on a live account, take a few steps back, complete your knowledge, demo trade to gain some experience and master your trading system.
3) Keep your demo running
Always remember that when you make mistakes in a demo trade, you can't afford to duplicate that error when trading with real money. Even after you decide to trade live, demo trading can be very valuable. You can test strategies and set-ups on demo accounts before you try them out with real money.
4) Consider trading competitions
One of the problems with demo accounts is that you have a very little emotional connection with virtual funds. For this reason, there are contests for demo traders, where we give cash prizes to the winners. This makes demo trading a bit more realistic experience, and also a good practice.