Read part 1: 3 reasons to practice with the Forex Simulator (but NOT on a demo account).
Practicing Forex trading in real-time on a demo account can be very time-consuming.
First of all, you can easily end up just wasting your time waiting for some market action. Another downside of any Demo account, and real-time practice in general, is that both are only possible during an active trading session. But NOT during weekends (when most of us have the time to spare!), as the Forex market is closed.
To most efficiently use the time you have allocated for your trading practice, you need to use the Forex Simulator, which not only works in online mode, but also lets you practice offline. And it is the offline practice where the principal benefits of the Simulator are most easily visible.
First of all, you have full control of your time. You can practice any time, anywhere. No Internet connection needed. You can always find market action offline.
Another major advantage of the offline simulation is its superior quality of the market modelling.
Trade servers can have ten (or even more!) new price quotes each second. On a demo, you can only get a snapshot of it, depending on the quality of your Internet connection. Whereas in the offline mode, all the price data is available instantly. So the Simulator models the market meticulously, rendering all the ticks with an accuracy of up to 1 ms.
But the most important benefit of offline practice is time saving. The Simulator can reduce internal redundancy in market data, so that you can concentrate in your practice only on essential market action.
Let’s explain this on a very simple example. You have placed an order and monitor the market development – but the market is clearly treading water. On a real-time demo, this would be just wasted time. But not with the Simulator, where you can use Fast Forward modes (2X or 4X) to quickly get to the point where market action resumes. Doing this, obviously, saves your real, physical time.
We have explained 3 main benefits that you get while using the Simulator offline. But this is not all. Online and offline simulations perfectly complement each other, giving you an extra benefit.
Read the following short case study.
ONLINE + OFFLINE = SYNERGY. EXAMPLE: case travel
You’ve set off for a trip. Waiting for your flight at the airport, you decide to practice – not to waste your time. It’s a workday afternoon. Internet connection in the lounge is very good. Obviously, you are using real time simulation and trade the US session. No doubts, practicing live is always interesting.
When your boarding is announced, you have to stop. But before turning off your laptop, you download some historical market data. One month of real high-quality tick-by-tick data takes about 200 MB. You arbitrarily pick a month and just have time to complete the download before you need to go.
On the plane, having finished your lunch, you still have several hours of flight ahead. You decide to resume practicing. At first, you decide to continue with real time simulations – as the plane offers you Internet connection.
You pay for an hour of access, but very soon you realize that the market is not moving anywhere. The Asian trading session is boring today. So you decide to stop wasting time on the calm markets and quit.
You know you have better option to use, namely offline simulation. You open the historiical data file you have downloaded at the airport and randomly pick a date. This time you decide to practice on the European session – the Simulator gives you an option to start from the beginning of major trading sessions.
You continue for some time, and then you suddenly realize that you remember this month! The famous rate decision defined the price action for the whole time. What a surprise. There are 7 years of price data available for 15 main currency pairs, and you managed to pick something that you recall all too well.
Things do happen. But this is not a showstopper. First, you spend some time practicing trading around that same famous rate decision. You use slow motion modes that Simulator provides. Wild price swings before and after the news are a wonder to behold!
Next, you simply download another file – the tick-by-tick price data is free. And you still have paid Internet access time left. This time no more surprises happen and you continue your practice.
After landing, you have a connecting flight ahead and a layover of 3 hours. Shopping for souvenirs kills some time, but you still have plenty of it left. You decide to do some more practicing. You connect to the WiFi in the lounge and use the real time simulation again. This time you are more lucky and the market is moving…
With our (fully realistic!) example, we showed an additional major benefits of the Simulator: supporting both real-time and offline operations. We can use each simulation mode when it is most suitable for us. That makes our time use very efficient.
it may even seem that with offline and online simulations supported, there are simply no other options left to improve the efficiency.
Fortunately, there IS more to it!
With a unique new feature – Timeshift – you can save real time in online practice as well. Read part 3.
Part 3. What is Timeshift in the Forex Simulator and how it saves you time in online practice.
Hello,
Do the offline forex stimulator support objects like horizontal or vertical lines
Hello Nnakude,
No, we don’t support any custom objects plotting at the moment.