What a demo is genuinely good for
A demo answers mechanical questions quickly and safely: where the order ticket is, how to attach a stop, what happens when you close half a position, whether the charts are readable on your screen. Those questions are worth answering before money is involved, and a demo answers them in an afternoon.
What it cannot teach you
It cannot teach you how you behave when the money is real. Every trader discovers that a losing position feels entirely different when the loss is theirs, and no simulation reproduces that. Demo results are consequently a poor predictor of live results, and confident demo trading is a well-known route into overconfident live trading.
Demo fills are also usually better than live ones. Slippage, requotes and widening spreads around news are simulated loosely, if at all.
A sensible first month
Use the demo to learn the platform, then start live with an amount you would be genuinely relaxed about losing entirely, at the smallest position size the broker allows. The goal of a first month is not profit - it is finding out whether you can follow your own plan when the numbers are real.
- Learn the platform on demo, not the strategy
- Start live small enough that a total loss is survivable
- Write down why you entered before you enter
- Check the costs you were charged against what you expected