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Good to hear as I think that is bad advice as well to switch to a completely different product. After sim trading for about 5 months ES, I finally funded and am starting with MES for only 1 contract to see how I can handle the real money loss. You have to start somewhere. But my advice is to start slow and build confidence, but by all means start! Good luck!
Paper trading without the actual skin in the game is only good for little while to test new system setups, data feeds, get your brain used to new environments, beyond that, it may just be a waste of time.
Real trading has many factors that paper trading does not offer.
You now have Micros, perfect way to start getting your skin in the game. Start with Most liquid instruments, develop a solid plan of success/scale up, issues/scale down and you may do well.
Don't listen to people pushing for you to trade oil or other semi/liquid instruments. There is a reason why Prop firms only allow new traders to trade the slowest, most liquid instruments first until they can prove themselves.
Trading should be boring.
The emotions of being in the real trading mode will at first interfere with your judgement, that needs to be taken care of first.
Trading: Emini ES, Emini RTY (TF), Crude CL, Eurex DAX, Euronext CAC40, EuroFX 6E, and Hang Seng HSI
Posts: 47 since Mar 2011
Thanks Given: 125
Thanks Received: 61
Prior to any real money trading...you need to look at your backtest results of your trade strategy and then compare it to your simulator trading results.
There will be differences between to two but worry greatly if one is positive while the other is negative.
Make sure your backtest results are the same trading instrument as your simulator trading results.
Also, I would recommend using a 3rd party professional trade journal software to do the quantitative statistical analysis of your simulator trading and real money trading so that you'll have better stats than just profits/losses.
Lastily, stay at 1 contract on whatever it is you're going to be trading because real money trading will expose everything about yourself that simulator trading and backtesting can not reveal. It's very common for someone to have a positive expectancy in backtesting and they then perform well on simulator trading but then perform poorly in real money trading. Too many trade journals out there shows such as fact.
I feel like your self-confidence is not where it should be otherwise you would not be asking this question. Please do not get me wrong I do not want to bring in any negativity but it is a question you basically have to answer yourself. Because the market is highly competitive as you may have experienced in SIM. To me it is not a matter of how long you have been doing SIM rather than how confident you are in yourself and in your method. And I can highly recommend having a plan in place what you are going to do if things will not go your way. You have to be comfortable with what you are doing at all time. If you are then go for it.
Any switching the market is the last thing I would do. You have been watching this market, you have developed a sense for it, am I right? So why would you start that all over again. Keep doing what you are doing and do self evaluation. To me this is the only way to get better.
