Psychology

A demo account is useful, but you need to be aware of its limitations, and knowing the differences between demo and live trading will help you judge when you’re ready to go live. What demo can teach you Watch someone trade demo for a few weeks and you’ll see genuine platform mechanics being learned: how to place an order, set a stop, and use the different order types on the interface you’ll eventually trade on for real. It’s also a reasonable place to test whether a strategy’s logic holds up, because you can see whether the setup you’re looking for shows up with any regularity and whether the rule set makes sense once it’s applied to real charts, not just in your head. Screen time is screen time, and pattern recognition built on demo charts is still real pattern recognition. ...

Ask most traders why they’re not profitable yet and you’ll hear about strategy: the wrong indicator, a system that needs more backtesting, a market that’s stopped behaving the way it used to. Look at the actual research on who wins and who loses, though, and strategy barely gets a mention. The regulators and academics who’ve measured this properly, across different decades, different countries, and completely different market structures, keep landing on the same answer, and it isn’t a strategy problem. ...

Part of an ongoing trader interview series — the same set of questions put to different traders, covering background, psychology, strategy, and lessons learned. Originally published on Traders Questions. I’ve been trading for around 4 years now. Mostly DAX from Frankfurt/London Open, occasionally NASD, EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDJPY. About me Brit, living in South Africa since 2009. Past work in electronics and IT. What was your journey that led you into trading? ...

Part of an ongoing trader interview series — the same set of questions put to different traders, covering background, psychology, strategy, and lessons learned. Originally published on Traders Questions. Nearly full time trader — but have a farm and a deli business to run too. About yourself Started trading approximately 12 years ago but scaled back due to other commitments. Re-entered the field 3-4 years ago, experienced difficulty in the first year, then achieved steady progress. Now generates income through trading activities. ...

Part of an ongoing trader interview series — the same set of questions put to different traders, covering background, psychology, strategy, and lessons learned. Originally published on Traders Questions. Pete is a trader from Snorm’s chat group with over 5 years of experience. He actively trades DAX in mornings and DOW/NASD in afternoons. A bit about yourself What was your journey that led you into trading? Pete sought an independent business venture after running a company with employees proved stressful. He wanted work he could manage alone with “possible unlimited rewards.” ...

Part of an ongoing trader interview series — the same set of questions put to different traders, covering background, psychology, strategy, and lessons learned. Originally published on Traders Questions. Grant is featured as part of the trader interview series from Snorm’s trading chat group. He’s noted for a structured approach to trading that facilitates backtesting and comfortable trade execution. A bit about yourself What was your journey that led you into trading? ...

Part of an ongoing trader interview series — the same set of questions put to different traders, covering background, psychology, strategy, and lessons learned. Originally published on Traders Questions. Steve describes himself as a full-time trader with extensive experience coding trading tools. His primary objective involves developing automated systems so he can dedicate more time to leisure: “My number one goal, with trading, is to create a robot to do all the trading for me.” ...