paper trading

can anybody give me some advice on the best way to start paper trading? should i use a trading platform that does it for me? or a charting platform? or do it in a spreadsheet like guy is doing the single print tests?

That really depends phylup.

If you are watching the markets all day long and have fixed signals that you want to record then you can use the paper (simulated) feature in your trading platform. What trading platform do you use? If you don't have one then I highly recommend ninja trader (www.ninjatrader.com). It gives you realistic entries and exits and also has a sim feature that trades in parallel with your real trades if you want to test another stop or target level while trading a particular strategy.

A lot of the charting packages also allow or facilitate paper trading. eSignal has a replay feature so you can practise trading on previous data and it will record how you are doing. You can run this at higher speeds than the market (e.g. 60 times so you get to practise a whole day in a few minutes).

Spreadsheets on the other hand are also good because you can add extra columns of info which you can then select/sort by to see how your strategy is performing versus other factors at the time of entry. For example, you can record the exact value of each of the indicators that you are watching when you enter the trade and then after X number of trades have been made you can use the spreadsheet filter/sort to see which trades performed better and which indicators are more valuable for that particular strategy.

Whichever way that you do it you must remember that it needs lots and lots of hard work and hundreds of hours of study to get your system right. This is not a task that you can take lightly and think that you will be successful overnight. Remember that the reason that you are paper trading is to test if you can be successful with whatever method that you choose. This is a test and there is a better than 50% chance that this test will fail. You then need to start again and re-examine the test and start from scratch. So remember that your paper trading may have many many false starts and only when you have got it right should you move from the paper to the real McCoy.

Strategy Runner has paper trading as well.

Is Strategy Runner by Pats Systems? The same guys that do J-Trader?

Do you use the paper trading option on Strategy Runner? What sort of reports does it do for you? How do you find it?