Trading a ZuluTrade
Demo Account
     
 
Making The Most Of
Your Free ZuluTrade Demo Account
Perhaps the best tool available to you, the ZuluTrade
user, is the free ZuluTrade Demo account. Even if
you have been trading live for months(or years) you
should still be using a demo account for testing a
screening new signal providers. I have demos
running at all times and in this article I hope to tell
you exactly how I use the free demo accounts and how they
make my job of screening signal providers infinitely
easier.
When I start looking for potential new signal providers
to add to my portfolio I use a 4 step screening process
that I call pyramid screening. The idea is to start
with a great many signal providers and weed some out at
each step along the way until I am left with very
few. My hope is that these very few will fit in
with my portfolio and my overall plan.
The
first step I take is to simply look at statistics for
hundreds of traders. I will obviously week out the
ones who are -45000 pips or have 86000 pip draw
downs. I am looking for anyone who looks good at
first glance. Someone who is a winning trader, has
a reasonable maximum historical draw down, has had their
account open for several weeks(or months), and has a
fairly even equity curve. Anyone that meets my
criteria in this step is immediately moved to my first
demo account for further review.
Once I have a trader in my demo account, and they are
placing trades, I can see how they manage their
trades. I can find out if they move their stops
away from their entry to keep from being hit. I
look to see if they pyramid (add to) losing
positions. I can also look at the details for each
particular trade and see where they place their stops and
targets. If you don't have a trader in your demo
you will not be able to see any of this info. You
will only be able to see open, close, and
profit/loss. A lot of traders get weeded out at
this step. This demo account will probably have to
be reopened time and time again because you will go broke
on this account regularly as poor traders constantly will
make a short stay in this account.
Any traders that have passed the last 2 tests will be
added to a second, separate demo account. This
account should have only a few traders in it and
they should be winners. This account should be
traded exactly as if it were your live (real money)
account. Perfect practice makes perfect
execution. I generally allow traders to trade in
this account for at least a few weeks with close
observation. If I don't find any reason to remove
them from my portfolio they make it to the final step in
the process. They are moved to my live account and
begin to trade with real money.
Once a trader is trading in your live account you
should be pretty confident about who they are and how
they trade. Its still a good idea to check in on
your account daily or at least a few times a week.
It is possible for a good trader to go bad so it is
always a good idea to keep an eye on anyone who is
trading with your money. I like to keep
a spreadsheet of traders that I decided were not fit
to trade in my account and a reason why next to the
name. This saves me a lot of time rechecking
traders and allows me to screen for
new traders every month or so without
taking up a ton of time.
Please, if you're not already, start using a free
ZuluTrade demo account.
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