Monthly Unemployment & Economic Reports 10.02.2015

By: Justin Smith, Cannon Trading Commodities BrokerDemo Trading. Also known as simulated trading, paper trading, playing with Monopoly money; whatever you’d like to call it, a demo can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Every Futures broker dreads having this conversation with their clients, as it is necessary with every new trader; however, much to a broker’s chagrin, every new trader will say that they already understand when in fact they rarely do. Let me assure you, if you’re a new or even sometimes-intermediate trader, you probably don’t. You may understand one popular issue of the conversation but odds are if you have been paper trading for five years waiting to be “successful” or to “understand the futures markets” in the simulated world before moving on, you have less of a chance of being successful in the live futures markets because you’re setting yourself up for failure (if you ever do, in fact, trade in the live markets). You should seriously consider speaking with a licensed commodities and futures broker before diving in.For the uninitiated, demo trading is the practice of trying out an online trading platform on a simulated basis-in a free demo trading account, you’re granted simulated funds, you’re placing simulated orders in the markets and you’re shown simulated profits and losses on what your trades might have done for you if you were futures trading on a live platform with live funds. First and foremost, it’s a wonderful technological tool for testing out a platform to see if it will suit your trading methodology. It can also be used to try different trading strategies, but problems arise when one equates simulated trading too much with live futures trading.