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Yes you can. You will need an additional computer and an additional login (username) associated with your account. I did this almost 4 years ago when a friend of mine was trading my account live while I was developing/testing strategies on sim and I had 2 usernames - one for the live feed and the other for sim. You can find out how much it costs now to have an additional login but back then, I paid the platform+data fee for the sim feed and just data for the live one (platform fee was waived if you had 10+ round trips/month).
As I mentioned earlier, you can do it with 2 platform logins.
But the question is "will you get any benefit from doing this?"
Many times, Demo results have little correlation to real money results, meaning having a strategy that works good in demo mode may or may not work well with real money. I have run strategies in real time that fell apart, yet their backtest AND demo results were stellar.
The key is creating a strategy that produces the same results for backtest and real money trading. How do you do this? Really, experience is the key - knowing what you can and can't do.
For example, if your strategy uses 1 minute bars, and all you use to enter and exit are market orders, chances are your backtest and real money operation will be similar.
But, let's say your backtest includes tick bars and limit orders with small targets (ie scalping). Your backtest may look grand, your sim demo may look awesome, but you may lose very quickly with real money.
I always tell people a key to using Tradestation, Ninja, etc. is knowing the platform's limitations. I have just described one of Tradestation's. You can still be successful with it, you just have to learn its limitations.
So after I create a strategy, I typically put it on the shelf for a few months, before trading it live. I'll check its performance once a month. I do this by checking its backtest result over the previous month. I compare that to my walkforward development test.
This approach works for me because I know what I program in the strategy behaves the same in real time as in backtest. This is the key.
Feel free to post or PM your code to me (take out any proprietary indicators) and I'll give you my thoughts on backtest vs. real money performance issues.
@kevinkdog has provided some good tips so far. I'm going to pimp his book and say that it'd be worth picking up and reading it. Great book for folks getting started in building strats.
Just curious, I have more than 10 round trip trades but Tradestation asked for platform fees for a second user account . I do not have platform fee for the primary account as long as I maintain $2500 in the account. Looks like they have different deals all the time.
They always have new deals going on. I found that if you submit your initial account application and wait, they'll eventually offer a 'deal' to get you to finalize the account.
I still question if you really need a 2nd platform. I've been using TS for around 10 years, I have 4 different accounts with TS, am running multiple strats live automated on multiple accts, and doing ongoing development and testing. All with one platform.
Kevin, how do you trade 4 different accounts with one platform ? I trade Futures, Forex and Equities from the same platform using the same user account. My intention was to test strategies from a Sim account during market hours while I trade using the live account.
Please let me know if there is a better way to accomplish this using Tradestation.
Simple, I can select the account I want to use if I trade manually, via the order bar. This is shown below. I can also select the account I want when I automate.
I know I can't run live and demo at the same time, but that is OK. I never use SIM mode - to me it serves no useful purpose.
So, my question for you is "why do you need to SIM a strategy?" What questions are you hoping it answers? There are likely better ways to accomplish what you want. SIM is notoriously bad in Tradestation.
SIM account is strictly for learning purpose. Was trying to test few automated strategies realtime. I understand I can backtest the strategies but was hoping to see this in action using a simulated account.