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When I first started trading, I jumped in SIM. I was so bored of it and just wanted to trade real money so I did, and like most people I failed miserably, then I went back to SIM. I remember the first day I went back to SIM on October 30, 2018, when I entered a trade, my heart pounded just as hard and as fast as it did trading live. I still get physical reactions from trading in SIM because I know what I do in SIM (using real e-mini S&P data) matters in the end and the decisions I make in SIM and the process I practice will transfer into my live trading. I take it very seriously, obviously. So it isn't the case that fear and greed are necessarily muted in the laboratory- not for everyone, at least.
Do what you think is best! Just wanted to give you an alternative perspective.
I think traders can learn from sim. But I doubt they can learn much if they've never experienced live also.
But if you trade live much, you will find out what losing really feels like. You very likely will end up losing quite a lot of real money, much faster than you were willing to. This means something when it's actual money that you worked for and hoped to increase. I'm sorry to tell you, but you won't have much idea what trading is about unless you go through this painful experience.
I may be wrong in your case, but I doubt it. Read enough serious trading journals and you will see whether it's universal or not.
I don't think someone who has only lived in the la-la land of riskless sim has any idea of what managing risk actually is all about. So being live is an essential experience.
But live trading is not just some nice "learning experience." People lose their shirts, lose much more than they can afford to, lose their life savings. That part is not so nice, and the the risk is there.
Think about this as you do sim, and when (not if) you go live, be alert to the difference. Once you know it, you can use sim productively because you then may take it seriously. You may need to find out how serious trading is first.
Linda Raschke has a trading manual that shows some nice 310 setups. It also has a lot of other great swing trading setups, money management stuff, etc. and its free. She used to have a pdf download on her website. If it's not there you might be able to find it floating around somewhere. I think I have it on one of my old laptops so I might be able to dig it up for you if you can't find it.
Here is an interesting 6e trade I took on sim, opposed to live, due to the fact that the setup was outside the scope of my trading plan. But I found it too compelling to not take a paper trade and go to school...
Basically there was HTF support at ~13900 where the bottom of that 5 min. chart trading range is (highlighted by that yellow-dotted swing line). This was after a failed globex breakout lower. I had a nice opportunity to get in at the lower part of that trading range, near support (HTF and 5 min.), for only a few ticks risk. Exited on momentum slowing, although this is probably good for a couple pushes up. +40t and off to the 9 to 5.
Trade 1: It looked to me that CL was breaking down off the the early high and so I took a short. Price worked down in a wide-ish bear channel, which quite frankly, confused me and lead me to take the trade off early.
Trade 2: I took another short at this point. I believe there was some profit taking off the larger bear bar and it would also be a good point for trapped longs to cut losses. Again I took the trade off too early.
Trade 3: I took a long after CL pulled back from a nice little rally off of a double bottom and...took the trade off before a nice little rally...ugh.
RTY, -8t:
Trade 1: I took a short on a lower high and got stopped out...ugh! Stop was too tight obviously and I missed a massive move in the direction of my trade AND took a loss.
Trades 2-4: Just a bad read of price action with these trades.
Ended the day with a very small profit but there are some glaring issues. I need to make sure STOPs are placed at reasonable levels and I need to let things run out a little bit. I suppose these issues are a result of a lack of clarity and inexperience. So I'll be headed back into paper trade to work out these issues.
I spent the day scalping. My rationale for only taking scalps was I was burning through mental capital on exits and I figured that if I could take quick profit I could easily move onto the next trade, clear and focused. I'm not sure if this is the right way to go long term, but it worked out today for a modest profit.
I also switched up how I entered positions. I would wait for price to pull back from the close of the previous bar and enter as it moved back through the close of the previous bar. I used context and price action to determine appropriate signal bars. I left some opportunities out there for what seemed like high probability scalps. This was mostly when the follow through bar was strong. I didn't capture any of those trades. But I was mostly focused on defense today.
