Tracking your results, demo trading, and going live
• Track your Trades
Keeping track of your trading results is very important to evolving and improving as a trader. If you don’t know where you’ve been than you cannot possibly know where you’re going. By keeping a detailed record of all your trading parameters for each trade you can look back and see what you did right and what you did wrong and then learn from your mistakes. Every professional trader in the world achieved a high level of success by learning from their failures, just as it is in any other profession. It is very important to keep a detailed log of your trading activity because in combination with your detailed trading plan, these are the two primary weapons that traders have to battle against emotional trading mistakes.
• Demo trading and going LIVE
Demo trading can be a great tool to practice and hone your forex trading strategies before going live. However, be aware that there is no emotion at all when you don’t have any money on the line. Since trading success is all about properly managing your emotion in the markets, you cannot really practice this most important aspect of trading until you begin trading live. However, for newbie traders, demo trading is a necessary tool to learn the ins and outs of the market and how to properly implement whatever forex trading strategy they decide to use. Demo trading can also be useful if you find yourself losing on a regular basis in the markets, sometimes it’s best to sit out and practice on the sidelines instead of over-exerting yourself in the actual game if you are too tired or not ready.
All forex brokers typically offer unlimited demo trading these days. So take advantage of this tool and use it wisely and when necessary, however, don’t assume that you will experience the same success once you being trading live as you might while demo trading. Demo traders typically experience good success because there is inherently no emotion involved with demo trading, keep this in mind when you switch over to live forex trading; it is at this point that the real game begins.
