Market Basics
A demo account is your broker's real platform with practice money in it. This paper shows you what it shares with a live account and what it does not, what one real trade looks like on it, what it can teach and what only real money can, and how to open one on your platform.
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A demo account is your broker's real platform with practice money in it. The prices on it are the prices a live account sees, the buttons are the same buttons, and an order does exactly what it does for real. What is missing is the money: the balance was typed into a form rather than paid in, and nothing made on it can be withdrawn. And with the money goes the one thing a live trade is really about — how you behave when the number on the screen is yours.
Here is the real trade of 3 September 2026 as a demo account showed it. One lot of the euro against the dollar was bought at the open at the ask — the price you buy at — 1.15881, and valued at the close at the bid, the price you sell at, 1.16259. A pip is the fourth decimal place, so that is 37.8 pips, $378 at one lot — the same number a live account would show, because the prices came from the same feed and the ticket did the same things. The Trade tab set aside the same margin — the part of the balance held back while the trade is open — $1,159 at a leverage ratio of one to a hundred, where the broker lets you hold a hundred dollars of position for each dollar held back. The only difference is the balance it was done with: ten thousand practice dollars, and the $378 stays on the demo.
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