Sim to live
You have practiced on a simulator since Order Filler Lesson 12, and placed your first full sim trade in Local Lesson 15. At some point the question comes: when do I switch to real money? This lesson gives you a way to answer it with evidence instead of excitement, and a safe way to make the switch.
What sim can and cannot teach
A simulator lets you learn the platform, practice orders, build your routine, and test whether you can follow your plan, all without risking money. That is enormously valuable.
What sim cannot fully copy is you, with real money on the line. Every lesson in Seat Holder, from loss aversion (Lesson 1) to tilt (Lesson 3), gets stronger when the losses are real. A rule that was easy to follow in sim can suddenly feel impossible. That is normal, and it is why the switch should be small and gradual.
Signs you are ready
Readiness is about process, not profit. A lucky month in sim proves little (Lesson 6 and Lesson 10 explained why small samples mislead). Look for these signs, measured from your journal:
- You have a written, one-page trading plan (Lesson 12), and it has stayed stable for a while: no major changes week to week.
- You follow it consistently. Your journal shows rules followed on nearly every trade, over many weeks. Pick a target in advance and hold yourself to it.
- You journal every trade and run your weekly review (Lessons 8 and 9) without skipping.
- You respect your limits. When the daily loss limit or max trades was hit, you stopped. Every time.
- You have measured results over a large sample (Lesson 10): win rate, average win and loss, expectancy, and max drawdown, from many trades taken under the same rules.
- You know your money. The account will hold only risk capital (below), and you know your per-trade risk and daily limit in dollars.
- You have checked your broker. Runner Lesson 13 showed you how to look up a firm on NFA BASIC, and the CFTC’s Learn and Protect pages explain how to check registration and spot red flags.
If any of these is missing, keep practicing. Sim costs you nothing but time.
Only risk capital
NFA’s guidance for anyone starting futures is clear: trade only with risk capital, money you can afford to lose, beyond what you need for necessities, emergencies, savings, and long-term goals. NFA also warns that futures trading is highly volatile and very risky, and that losses can be larger than you expected to commit. If the money in your account would hurt to lose, it is the wrong money.
Start at the smallest size
When you go live, start with one micro contract: MES or MNQ. You met the micros in Runner Lesson 5, and in Runner Lesson 6 you compared their dollar value per tick with ES and NQ. They are the smallest of the four contracts in this course.
Starting small does two things:
- It keeps mistakes cheap. You will make new mistakes live that you never made in sim. Better to make them at the smallest size.
- It lets you learn the feelings at low stakes. You get to discover how loss aversion and tilt feel with real money, while the dollar amounts are still small.
Stay there until your live journal shows the same rule-following you had in sim, over a large sample. Then, and only then, follow the scaling rules you wrote in Local Lesson 9.
Expect a dip
Your rule-following may slip at first when real money is involved. If it does, that is not a sign to quit; it is information. You may go back to sim for a while, or reduce how often you trade, until the process is steady again. Returning to sim is not failure. It is the process doing its job.
Key ideas
- Sim teaches the platform and the process; it cannot fully copy real-money emotions.
- Readiness means a proven process: a stable written plan, consistent rule-following, full journaling, respected limits, and results measured over a large sample.
- Use only risk capital, as NFA advises, and check your broker on NFA BASIC.
- Start live at one micro contract (MES or MNQ), the smallest size in this course.
- Scale up only by your written rules, and go back to sim if the process slips.