I'm a software engineer by day. I was asked to code and backtest a Forex strategy for a friend of a friend two years ago as a nixer. On completing the work, I was at loose end and in lockdown, so I decided to download some books on forex. I just wanted to get a better understanding of what the forex strategy was actually trying to do. From that point on I've spent many an evening and weekend reading up on retail trading. I developed two strategies that use a combination of fundamental and technical analysis, so I decided to open a demo account on MT4 with IG to see how they'd perform in that environment. I've been trading the S&P500, some metals, and also two of the major forex pairs with them for the past twelve months. I've backtested the technical parts of the strategies also. The strategies are far from perfect but they are consistently profitable month-on-month. The win-loss ratio is no match for the strategies I read about online, but they do return a nice profit.
I'd love to see how these strategies would fair in a live account but I keep reading negative comments about retail trading. People keep saying that you are going to lose all your money and that it's a scam etc. I've researched the differences between demo and live accounts, and I know that demo and live accounts are slightly different but I'm can't grasp where the catch is. Why will my strategies that have been working reasonably well in demo accounts flop so badly in a live account?
I'd love to see how these strategies would fair in a live account but I keep reading negative comments about retail trading. People keep saying that you are going to lose all your money and that it's a scam etc. I've researched the differences between demo and live accounts, and I know that demo and live accounts are slightly different but I'm can't grasp where the catch is. Why will my strategies that have been working reasonably well in demo accounts flop so badly in a live account?