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Thanks for all the replies guys but I guess I should have mentioned that I currently work full time but may be retiring soon. So I am not planning on trading live until I retire and can trade during regular market hours.
I know I still have some work to do, I need to prep each day for the next, finish my trading plan and continue building my chart library. I review each day and create charts of trades I would have taken had I been in front of the computer.
You should go Live as soon as you think you are good enough. You have to be exposed to the reality of trading, and probably get some slaps (no pun intended) to notice your weak points. Work on your own memory, pattern memory specifically, not your chart library, except if you are a swing trader (60M timeframe and longer). How long until you retire?
The answer is: the sooner the better.
The more you stay in the comfort of non emotional trading i.e. paper trading, the harder it gets to trade. It is better to start with trading micro futures (for example MNQ is 2$ index point) than paper trading. Unless your designing an automated trading system that requires its time for research and dev and simulation , which obviously by your question is not the case, Id recommend real money and real trading with micro futures or a small amount of stock shares depending what you trade.
The only way to learn to trade is to trade and not paper trade. Experience the trading , the greed, fear , the wins and losses, mistakes, execution friction and technical issues.
See how hard it is to make money after expectancy and fees and grow from there to 2 micro contracts then 3 ... then maybe to the mini contracts (same as to grow size with shares). Once you get to the state you can honestly say your making money, only then you will know you can. This will never be achieved by pretending.
Unfortunately, until you are trading live you have no idea what your emotional state will be when you are in a live trade.
Simulated trading can be good to try out things and to get your ideas about your strategy, tactics and methods clear, but when there is money on the line, to be won or lost, everything changes, and any emotional detachment or control you learned in sim goes out the window.
So, no, don't rush into live trading, but do go there, and use only funds that you can accept losing, because there will be losses. Being able to handle your reactions to losses (and to wins, for that matter) has to be learned by doing, in the real environment of real trading. There is no substitute for it.
Bob.
When one door closes, another opens.
-- Cervantes, Don Quixote
Nobody can do it like a robot (even Latvians ) . As long as there is a functioning brain there will be emotions. The main problem is that most of us don't know what emotions will come up and how to handle them in trading situations, both losing and winning. That's why going live as soon as possible is better than playing with the demo. Learning to identify stupid decisions and dealing with the consequences is cheaper and less painful with less money.
Once you start trading live your emotions will really start to mess with you. This is the reason you start small. At the same time you really need to focus on emotional control and I think this is where many. new traders fail. They develop a system that works in sim and it would work live if they let it but they don't. They lose a little then start chasing trades that are outside their system. Sim trading is not the same as live trading for any amount. So when you do go live double down on the discipline and maybe find a support group.
Quit paper trading as soon as possible. Demo trading is used to learn the system, software, risk management, etc. And should be terminated as soon as the basics are in place. Beyond that,I think it is actually very harmful. I know there are some trading mentors who suggest demo trading for at least 6 month to "learn the system on a very intimate level". Or to become so mechanical in execution to eliminate emotions. IMO a super bad advice.
You can try this.
Once you believe you have some sort of trading system and more importantly the ability to control your emotion. What you can do is reward yourself a living trading week after a GREEN sim trading week. Using the same trade management. Continue to trade live if your week P&L is green. Go back to Sim if you have a RED live trading week. Do your journal here and focus on your mindset and your thought process
) . As long as there is a functioning brain there will be emotions. The main problem is that most of us don't know what emotions will come up and how to