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Paper trading too easy..? How to make it realisitic? Recommend other REAL simulator?
Like some others on this forum I have been recently overjoyed with my futures paper trading success, only to be let down by the discovery that TOS' platform isn't a very accurate simulator. Is there a way I can make TOS simulator's fills accurate? Or what other sim do you recommend for futures?
I wonder how inaccurate it really is? hoping I will still be able to make a little money in the real markets.
Thanks in advance
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
It may or may not matter, if your trading style doesn't depend on being within a few ticks on both the buy and the sell. Sometimes a simulator will assume your order is filled any time price touches it, which ignores the fact that in real life you will either get filled or not based on the other orders that are in the queue, which is not up to you (or the simulator.)
If you are thinking that your trades would be making you money on very small, short-term price moves, then if your simulator is over-optimistic in deciding when you would be filled, it may be overstating your potential success in a live market. The reason is that, if you are looking for a few ticks, the reality is that you may end up giving up too much of that in missing or non-ideal fills if you trade the same strategy live. If your strategy does not depend on very small moves and could stand some more slippage, then this may be less important.
I have never used the TOS paper trader, but it has gotten some criticism for this. All simulators will need to make assumptions about when you get filled, but are not necessarily that optimistic about it.
Your available options are broad and you might want to look around. Most brokers will offer at least a 2-week trial with simulated trading, and it is not unusual to be able to get a second week if you ask, so that's one way to go.
You could try one of the funding companies that, for a monthly fee, give you a chance to prove your trading ability and get funded by them. It's kind of an in-between step that is more like real trading than sim (there is an external standard imposed on your trading -- although you may or may not be a good fit for their rules -- and you have put up a small amount of real money, which adds to the stress factor.) You can look around the forum; I'm not going to suggest any, but there are plenty of threads by other traders, as well as plenty of opinions, pro and con. It's still sim, just a little more real psychologically.
Or, you could bite the bullet and go live with one of the brand-new e-micro futures. If you've been paper trading ES (S&P index futures), for instance, you could trade MES (Micro ES) for 10% of the required margin at most brokers and 10% of the size of the profit/loss. So you get off the sim wagon, which you must eventually, but don't expose yourself to sudden ruin. (Slow ruin is still possible. Just slower. )
Again, there is a lot of posting in this forum right now on this subject. You could look around for this as well.
There are many, many reasons why sim trading is not a good measure of what your live trading will be, when you have some money on the line that your can (gasp!) lose. Step away from your pure sim world as soon as possible. There's more involved than your simulator's fill accuracy.
I suggest taking small steps that do not challenge you too much, but definitely take some steps.
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