Paper Trade 170 Assets

How the practice trading desk works

The trading desk is where simulated orders are placed. You choose an instrument, choose a side, choose a size, and the order is filled against the simulator's current price. Guest fills and results are recorded in your browser. Account orders execute through the server and cash, positions and server-recorded trade history restore across devices when the service is available.

One order type is supported today: the market order, which fills immediately at the shown simulator price. Limit and stop orders are explained in the glossary but cannot yet be placed on the desk. Position sizing is entirely up to you, which is deliberate — learning to size a position is one of the few skills a simulator can teach almost as well as a live account.

What to practise on the desk

• Fixed-fraction sizing: risk the same small percentage of the balance on every trade and see how the equity curve smooths out.
• Stop discipline: decide the exit before entering, then check in the journal whether you actually honoured it.
• Entry timing: note the price you intended versus the price you received on a fast-moving instrument, and record the gap in the journal.
• Concentration: run a week with five positions and a week with one, and compare the drawdown.

Limits of any simulator

A simulator cannot reproduce slippage on illiquid instruments, brokerage fees, overnight financing, tax, or the specific emotional weight of losing money you actually need. Treat practice results as evidence about your process, not as a forecast of live returns. Past simulated performance does not predict future real-world performance.

Orders supported by this simulator

• Market order: fills immediately at the shown simulated price. Simple, but in a fast market the price you see is not always the price you get — in real trading this gap is called slippage.
• Limit orders are explained in the learning material but are not available in the current simulator. Practice orders execute as market orders at the shown simulated price.
• Closing a position: sell some or all of an existing holding. You cannot sell more than you hold or open a short position. Completed buys and sells appear in portfolio trade history.

A practice routine that actually builds skill

Trade less than you think you should. A beginner placing thirty trades a day learns nothing except how to click; a beginner placing three trades a week with a written thesis and a written exit learns something from every one of them.

Every session should end with the same three questions written down: did I size this the way I said I would, did I exit where I said I would, and would I take this trade again knowing only what I knew at entry? Answering those honestly over a few months does more for results than any indicator.