Greetings to you, guests and regular subscribers of my blog! Where do you think it is better for a recruited soldier to develop combat skills: in a training center or in an attack on an elite regiment of the enemy? “It is hard to learn - it is easy in battle,” said the brilliant Suvorov. But there is another opinion … Do not worry, we will not go to war. Today our meeting is devoted to a simple but important topic: how to open a demo account on the stock market.

It would seem what could be easier?

Many traders (and experienced specialists, oddly enough) advise beginners almost immediately to start trading in the stock market by opening a real account. They substantiate their position by the fact that trading with real money disciplines and the quotes on the demo account seem to be very different from the real market.

Both arguments are at least controversial, and also harmful. Not only is it difficult to work out your trading system without experience on a demo, but you also need to learn a lot of nuances related to the trading program, be it Quik, popular with Russian brokers, or Fusion, developed for the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

The process of opening a demo account with different brokers is not the same, but it is always much simpler than the real one, which is primarily due to taxes. T.N. Forex- “kitchens” work without registration with the Russian tax authorities, so even a scan of a passport is not always requested.

Another thing - stock market brokers who are tax residents in Russia. Even a demo account with some of them can be opened only by calling the manager after filling in the application. A common problem is a long wait after sending a request to open a demo account. This is especially true for a Finam broker.

It also happens that after the first application for opening a demo, a letter with a login and password does not come at all. Then the application must be repeated, sometimes 2-3 times. However, for the first steps in the stock market, Finam is not very suitable for a different reason: it is too complex in structure, site navigation; the range of services offered and requires some experience.

Open a demo account in the Russian market

Much simpler in terms of both navigating the site and the registration process for a demo, BCS broker. It is only necessary to fill in the simplest form:

After that, an SMS with a confirmation code will be sent to the specified number, and a letter with a login and password for the Quik terminal will be sent to the specified e-mail address. You can start trading on a demo account.

It is very important that BCS allows you to trade on a demo using the full version of Quik, while many brokers offer the Quik Junior training program instead. The main (if not the only) difference between the two is the flow of quotes. Quik Junior models stock market trading programmatically and receives quotes from the derivatives and foreign exchange markets from the Moscow Exchange training servers.

This circumstance leads to the delusion that it is impossible to work out the trading system on a demo. There is a way out and it is very simple: open a demo account with a broker who offers him to download a fully featured Quik, which displays true quotes in real time.

Sberbank also allows you to open a demo account yourself, which does not require any personal information other than a telephone. However, unlike BCS, only the Quik Junior training platform is available, and it is possible to use the demo account for a maximum of a month. Therefore, in terms of useful skills, the opportunities offered by BCS are much more valuable.

By the way, Finam has its own FinamTrade terminal, with which you can get demo access to the Moscow Stock Exchange, but only for 5 days and only once.

Open a demo account in the American?

Well, what can advise traders who are interested in access to the American stock market? Here it is important to distinguish between trade in instruments that circulate on world exchanges and access to these exchanges themselves.

In general, very good reviews about the Ukrainian broker SGD Trade. This broker just specializes in providing access to the New York Stock Exchange (New York Stock Exchange or NYSE). There are 3 trading platforms to choose from: Fusion, ROX, and Takion. For beginners, trading on the Fusion platform is usually recommended. Before you open a demo account with this broker, you need to register a personal account. It’s very easy to do this:

There is no need to indicate a real phone and skype: no one will contact you through these contacts. But the e-mail needs a valid because there will come a letter with a password for a personal account. An e-mail will be used as login. From your personal account, you can get 15-day demo access to one of two trading terminals.

Unfortunately, the third terminal (and this is Fusion) is available only when opening a real account. At the same time, the arguments in favor of such short-term demo access are so unusual that they require special mention:

Like this! It turns out that you need to hone the trading strategy immediately on a real account. And the problem is not what the SDG-Trade broker thinks so, but that most of the stock market brokers seem to think so. Otherwise, how to explain that some do not allow to download a working version of a trading terminal for a demo, others limit the trading period to 30 or 15 days, and still, others do not allow opening a demo account?

Brokers who do not impose rigid restrictions, we must also search. By the way, BCS does not indicate anything about the limitations of the terminal functionality on a demo account and the time frame. Finam provides a demo version of the ROX terminal, which connects to the ROX Demo America server. Access time is not limited, but quotes can be very far from reality.

Afterword

Comparison of conditions for opening a demo account in the stock market and the Forex market will definitely not be in favor of the former. If you can use a demo account for an unlimited time on Forex and see market quotes, in the case of the stock market the user always gets a number of restrictions.

This is all the more strange because the terminals for professional trading are much more complicated, and there are much more nuances in concluding transactions.