By Darrell Martin
Many times new traders want to know what amount is good for an initial balance. When you are learning, the best advice is to start out demo trading, as it is the cheapest forgiver of all trading mistakes. Do not underestimate demo trading. Trade it as you would your live account, including the size of your entries and exits.
Try It for 20 Days
Make sure that you can follow your rules and proper risk management for 20 trading days straight. If you break your rules, then the 20 days start over. This adds an emotional element to demo trading because everyone wants to make money trading.
Discipline
Trading like this for 20 days forces you to be disciplined before you put money at risk yet it will penalize you for not following the rules. The greed factor wants to just trade live as quickly as possible so you can make money. This makes the 20-day trial emotional when losses happen or when rules are broken. If you can follow your rules, using proper risk management, trading the same size you are going to begin trading with for 20 days straight and be profitable, then go live. Prove to yourself that you have the discipline before you put your money at risk.
Demo Trading Tricks
If you are trading FX, you can trade micro on FX for really small accounts. For example, if you are trading micros, you can have an account of $300 where every tick is around $0.10. If you are trading minis, an account of $3000 would be ideal, as every pip is $1.00.
Here is the trick for making demo seem real. You can call the company that is providing your demo account and ask them to reduce your balance to what your live balance would be. They will do it for you. Alternatively, you can do a big trade and lose money down to that balance. 
Binary Options or Spreads?
Trading binary options are very easy to learn but much more complex to trade consistently, especially if you are new to trading. Spreads seem more complex, but once learned, they are much easier to trade, control risk and maximize profits.
Great News!
Nadex, the North American Derivatives Exchange is a US exchange, based in Chicago. It is regulated by the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) and offers both demo and live trades. Just recently, Nadex has changed their demo accounts to last 40 years instead of two weeks or even one year as they have in the past. Now there is no need to request an extension. It is considered a lifetime demo account.
Summary
The key is following the advice to keep your demo account real, as it is keeping you from live trading so that it becomes real. It is an impediment to you making money and wonderfully enforces self-discipline. Few will take this advice and most will not still be trading in 12 months. Be sure to have a 12-month mindset, not a 12-day mindset.
For more free educational help with either demo or live trading on Nadex binaries, spreads as well as futures, forex and CFDs visit www.apexinvesting.com, a service of Darrell Martin.