Paper Trading Doesn’t Work

D.R. Barton says “paper trading” doesn’t work. He’s right. Here’s a much better way:

  1. Develop and back test your system or strategy. This can be done with computer software or by hand, looking back at charts.
  2. Do real-time testing on live data. Keep track of points won or lost and not dollars and cents!
  3. Instead of paper trading, use real trading, in very small size, to practice. Stock traders can trade 10 share lots. Commodity traders can trade e-mini contracts and forex traders can trade mini forex contracts.
  4. Once you have been consistently profitable, only then can you ramp up your trading size.
  5. Ramp up slowly!

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