VIRTUAL stock trading

Does virtual stock tradeing really make you a better trader in the real market?

yes and no. It's different when you are using real money.

The first step in learning trading has to be to paper trade. That way you can make mistakes and not get hurt. However, Thierry is right, the psychology is different if you're just on paper. You can do careless stupid stuff and not care and not learn.

So I always advocate the second step, trading real money with very small sizes. So you can feel the pain of mistakes, but not get too hurt.

Only after paper trading and trading very small amounts is it time to go to live money trading.