The Forex Demo Account

The Value Of Simulated Forex Trading To Currency Trading Success

As a novice you will probably begin trading by opening a Forex demo account and your first few trades will be paper trades, or simulated Forex trading, as you learn how the market works and how to use some of the trading tools. It is not long however before you are ready to move on and to put your paper trading days behind you. But is it such a good idea to leave paper trading behind you? Many successful Forex traders today are discovering that continuing to trade on paper from time to time can be both helpful and profitable. Problems often arise for traders when they find themselves with a losing trade. Despite the fact that losing trades are an everyday part of trading life, you are always going to be affected by a trading loss and there is often a strong, albeit often subconscious, urge to recoup the money you have just lost as fast as possible. This frequently means that you go right back into the market but, because you are in a losing frame of mind, your next trade often also results in a loss or a less than spectacular gain. For many traders the answer to this problem is to follow a losing trade with a paper trade. In this case you trade seriously and in exactly the same way that you would trade normally but run the trade on paper. You study the market indicators, open a trading position, put a stop loss order in place and then track the trade. As the trade progresses you move your stop loss order as the market moves and, finally, you close out your position when your market indicators tell you to do so. This paper trade might result in a profit or a loss but, as the trade is only being made on paper, it doesn’t matter one way or the other. The importance of this trade is that it allows you to clear your mind and to put your previous losing trade behind you. Even if this paper trade results in a loss the affect is positive because you are happy knowing that you have not actually lost any money. Having run this paper trade you are now ready to leave the world of simulated Forex trading and return to live trading and can open a new trading position in a winning frame of mind.