In case demo account is provided we can practice our trading in a simulated environment without losing real money. This will enable us to become good traders.
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I guess they know you’ll learn only if you lose real money, they want you to be a winner mate:)
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I think its to do with setting up the necessary infrastructre. A demo account is similar to a live account in all ways except that all the trades, cash balance, positions are dummy.
A demo environment can be setup in 2 ways:
a) By creating a dummy market where the feeds are broadcast, counter orders are shown in the system, basic RMS is setup etc. This way it’ll feel like live markets letting the user get an experience of how it’d work in the real world scenario. This would however incur quiet a cost, considering the efforts taken in setting up such a system. I’ve seen a lot of my friends using these demo accounts from the US only to view charts and other such free features !
b) By providing access to its live markets through a demo ID & Pw. Regardless of it being a demo id & pw, remember that it still puts load on the broker’s servers. The situation is such that if the broker creates too many demo id’s then it ends up putting loads without any revenue and if it creates too few and shares it with everybody, then everytime one logs in, the other one logs out. Also the practical problems of user id’s getting blocked etc.
I think the reason it works in the US, is because of the maturity levels of both people and the markets.
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The foreign brokers you are talking about are basically CFDÂ (Contract for Difference)Â platforms, the people who let you trade currency, commodity, all international markets in one platform.Â
Here is the thing, most of these platforms don't actually send your orders to any exchange. It is illegal in most of parts of the world to trade on them (including India).Â
Most of these platforms run what are called as closed loops, they stream data feed to your platform and when you send an order the platform provider takes a counter trade to yours. If you make a loss, they make a profit. To ensure you make a loss, they end up giving insane amounts of leverage, 1: 200, 1: 500, and 1:1000. A few ticks against you, and you go bust.Â
In essence, they are running a video game.Â
How do you get people to try out this video game?Â
Give a fancy trading platform with fake money. The bet is that if you try the demo, you would probably transfer real money and start trading. Since there is no exchange API's and all, the cost of running such a platform is ridiculously low. A couple of servers can serve thousands of clients.Â
They even go to the extent of things like, you put $1000, they will put another $1000 in your account.Â
So comparing a brokerage who is a member of the exchanges and regulated by SEBI to a CFD platform is not  a correct thing to do.Â
That said, :) we at Zerodha are working on building a demo trading environment. Since there is cost to run it, we won't be offering it free of cost for more than a couple of weeks.Â
Cheers,Â
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Lots of foreign broking firms are providing demo account so that investors and traders can practice their trading skills. So why can’t Indian broking firms provide demo trading accounts.
If foreign brokers can provide then Indian brokers has to provide. Whatever maybe the cost at the end of the day your making the clients more professional rather than trading blindly.
Sir, I am not a broker. You please ask your broker why he isn’t providing… I just told you the reasons why I thought brokers weren’t proviiding demo ids
Nithin one more ans to be given on the question live feeds to Ninjatrader? Not looking any costly datas
Even i had the same doubt. And thanks for explaining it clearly…
You can trade with a foreign broker.
Advertising of trade is based on the fact that you can earn easy money here. People who believe in advertising believe that they will make money quickly and without loss.
If you have a demo account, then a large percentage of people will understand that making money on Forex is not easy and just leaves.
Brokers are not profitable to provide demo accounts.