Is paper trading gold useful at all, or should I skip straight to demo?

It is useful for quickly screening whether a visual pattern recurs often enough on gold to be worth developing, before the time cost of a full demo test. It should never be treated as evidence a strategy is ready to fund.

Why does my gold strategy look better on paper than on demo?

Paper trading applies no spread, no slippage and no execution delay, and is often done with hindsight. Demo trading routes real orders against a live spread, so a gap between the two is expected and usually points to costs the paper-traded version never charged.

How much does spread alone cost a tight-stop gold strategy?

On a stop of $2 to $3 per ounce, a $0.15–$0.35 London/NY spread already represents 15% to 30% of the planned risk before slippage or commission are added, which paper trading does not capture at all.

Does a demo account fully replicate live gold execution?

Closer than paper trading, but not perfectly. Demo feeds sometimes understate slippage and requotes around the 13:30 UTC data window and the 21:00–23:00 UTC rollover, so a small live allocation is still needed after demo before trusting full size.

Should I keep paper trading and demo results in the same journal?

No — keep them in separate records. Blending a cost-free paper-traded sample with a cost-bearing demo sample produces an expectancy figure that describes neither method accurately.

PAPER TRADING VS DEMO ON GOLD

Paper trading and demo accounts measure different things on gold: paper trading marks hypothetical entries on a chart with no bid/ask spread, no slippage and no order execution, while a demo account routes real orders against a live XAUUSD spread and real-time price movement.

Because gold spreads run $0.15 to $0.35 in London and New York hours and $0.50 or more at rollover, and because slippage on stops during the 13:30 UTC CPI/NFP window can reach $0.50 to $3.00 per ounce, paper-traded results systematically overstate expectancy on tight-stop gold strategies.

The practical sequence is to paper trade a new gold idea first for fast, low-cost screening, then finalise the rule set and demo trade it for a full sample under real execution conditions, before ever considering a small live allocation.