Hello @Destiny
I have been in simulator for over 4 months now and preparing myself emotionally to go live and (hopefully) not loose my deposit.
I am planning to run with CMEG group, as everyone should start at some point if small account needs to be build. I will deposit $2500 so that I can get 1:6 margin buying power from the broker ($15K in total).
While in sim, I have set up exactly $15K of buying power in DAS Trader platform and also asked DAS support to adjust commission fee to be $2.95 per trade (CMEG), otherwise by default I think commission fees are around $7 and buying power over $100K. I have set up the following schema for my trading:
Risk per trade is 0.5% of my deposit, and not the buying power. So it comes to $2500 * 0.05% = $12.5, but I try to be really strict to myself and only risk $10 per trade.
My risk per day is 2% of my deposit and not the buying power. So it comes to $50 a day, no more.
Discussing #1. Risk per trade is only $10, for me that means either I take 100 shares with 0.10 cents stop loss, or 50 shares with 0.20 cents stop loss (my stop losses are always mechanical and not mental) . At the beginning I 'd been always taken 100 shares with 0.10 cents stop loss, but noticed that for majority of trades I would stopped out (especially on stocks with >$1 ATR).
Discussing #2. Risk per day is only $50, and here I am also INCLUDING COMMISSION FEES, which means I can only do 3 unsuccessful trades ($30 loss) plus around $18 commissions ($2.95 per trade * 6 trades = $17.70). For me it's very important to include any commissions and any other additional fees (ECN) into my total daily loss.
The most important point for me is to be as close to reality while trading in simulator. To be honest, the majority of days I'm red as tight stop losses prevent me from surviving pull backs...
P.S. I never look at my P/L while trading, only after all trading is done (usually in the evening when I get back from day job).I look at the account report section, where it will show you exactly how much money you earn or lost. Hopefully that was a little informative for you 🙂