Podcast:
“Going Solo” From Demo to a Live Account: Lessons from the Air
In this video:
00:26 From a demo account to a live account
02:23 Flew a helicopter solo for the very first time
04:59 4.3% net gain out of five trades
Are you ready to go solo in your FOREX trading? Maybe you are already flying solo. Let me share more with you right now.
Hi, traders! It’s Andrew Mitchem here, the FOREX Trading Coach – and today, is Friday, the 4th of July. So, for all of you in the States, Happy Independence Day, and I hope you’re having a fantastic holiday.
And I want to talk about “going solo.” Now, what I mean by that is that in FOREX trading, going solo really means going from a demo account to a live account. And it’s a question I get asked so many times. People say to me, “Hey, Andrew, look – when’s a good time to go from a demo to a live account? When will I know?”
And I suppose it’s different for everybody. But some of the main points would be:
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You would know. You’ve got to be comfortable when you go live. It depends on how much maybe education you have, how much knowledge around trading, how long you’ve been trading, the results you’ve been achieving — and how dedicated you are to your trading because the dedication is a really important aspect of FOREX trading.
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Take your trading seriously. When you are on demo, it’s very, very easy to become very blasé about your trading and just say, “Oh, it doesn’t matter if I lose that trade,” or, “The trade can stay open over the weekend. It doesn’t matter it’s not real money.” And having that whole – not gambling approach – but that sort of Monopoly, “it’s not real” type of approach. And it’s very, very dangerous.
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Demo the amount you’ll trade. Another thing I’ve talked about so many times is that so many people open an account on a demo with a huge sum of money – let’s say a $100,000 account – knowing full well that when they go live for the first time, their account may be let’s say $1,000 or $5,000. It’s very dangerous, in my opinion, to open up a huge demo account – because it makes FOREX trading and making money potentially look too easy. My advice would be, if you know that you’re going to start with, say, a $5,000 account when you go live (and you have $5,000 saved up to put into that account), what you should do is when you still on demo make sure you trade the $5,000 demo account. Because then, when you make the transition to live, there’s nothing you need to do differently.
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Trust yourself and don’t give up. Now, for me, I did the demo to live thing years ago – like, 10 years ago. But yesterday, I flew a helicopter solo for the very first time. It’s a great achievement — and I feel very proud to have done that. But, much like the trading, it’s taken a lot of dedication, a lot of heartache, and almost giving up: “Can I do this? Can I not? Can I actually master this skill of control of this flying this helicopter?”. So, there’s been some self doubt along the way.
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Find great teachers. Also, there’s been the need to seek good education. You know, I’ve gone to the very best instructors that I could find – I’ve got a fantastic instructor. He’s given me a hard time, and he’s pushed me and pushed me, and given me lots of extra work to do. Having said that, he’s also shown me the right way to do things.
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Do nothing different.When I went solo yesterday, yes, I was slightly nervous — in the machine by myself, having to take off, hover, take off, do a circuit, etc. –by myself. I had some guidance with him on the radio talking through,
