Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced investor in  stocks or index funds in Canada, these tips give you sound advice on how to buy stocks online and show you how to put them to work in 2023 and beyond–without practice accounts.

Tip: “Practice accounts that let you buy stocks online without real money may seem to be a convenient way to learn investing, from how to focus on index funds in Canada or blue chip stocks or even aggressive speculative stocks. But they can lead investors to take an investment approach that puts their money at risk.”

The online brokerage industry has been getting a lot of attention and goodwill by offering “practice accounts.”

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Practice accounts are supposed to be identical to real accounts in all but one respect: you buy stocks online in them with imaginary or “play” money rather than the real thing. The industry says this gives would-be traders a free opportunity to learn how to trade online without risking any money. That’s not the same as learning how to invest.

To us, this appears to be a misstatement—an example of the essence of marketing, which is to describe a feature in such a way that the prospect comes to see it as a benefit.

Using practice accounts to buy stocks online can distract you from a long-term investment strategy

Practice-account users aren’t learning how to invest in index funds in Canada, blue chip stock or any equity. Instead, they are just learning how to enter orders to buy stocks online. Rather than an educational experience, practice accounts are a little like play-money sessions at Las Vegas, where gambling novices can learn to play casino games without risking any real cash.

In the casino, players are learning how to play the game. But they aren’t learning how to win, because that’s not possible. In the end, they can’t overcome the statistical advantage built into casino games that gives the house an edge. They’re really learning how to avoid losing their money any quicker than they choose to.

Using an online broker’s practice account, you can learn how to buy stocks or, say, index funds in Canada; and how to double-check your order before submitting it, so you avoid obvious but common mistakes, like buying 10,000 shares when you only meant to buy 1,000; and so on. In doing so, you can choose what stocks to buy, but the only feedback you’ll get on your choices is the price changes they go through after you buy.

However, there is a large random element in short-term stock market results. It will take months or years before you know if your choices are likely to provide attractive long-term returns. In fact, the real test will come only when you see how you do in the next bear market.

Practice accounts encourage behaviour that benefits brokers

Public-relations efforts on practice accounts often refer to them as good places to learn about day trading and options trading, which are big money earners for online brokers. Most non-professionals who get involved with day trading or options trading wind up losing money if they stick with it long enough. In that respect, they are a lot like casino games.

The big risk with practice accounts is that you’ll try out a risky and ultimately unwinnable investment approach, like day trading or options trading, and hit a lucky streak. This could embolden you to take money out of safer, quality stocks and index funds in Canada and put down serious money on high risk strategies. By doing so, you expose yourself to greater risk just when your results are about to regress to the mean and deliver losses instead of profits. We advise you to focus on selecting high quality stocks (and index funds in Canada) and holding them.

Bonus tip: Lower costs make online trading attractive, but investment quality makes money

There is a random element in day trading, which can be profitable for short periods. But you can’t reliably profit from it over the long term as one would with, say, blue-chip stocks or quality, conservative index funds in Canada. In fact, most short-term traders wind up losing money. By the time their beginner’s luck fades, many are trading in dangerously large quantities.

Frequent trading can also lead you to buy lower-quality, thinly traded stocks. The danger arises from the fact that the bid and ask spreads of many of these investments can be so wide that the share price will have to go up significantly before you’ll even begin to make money on a sale.

You can make trades quickly in online trading, and that cuts your commission costs. However, for successful investors, this is a bonus, not the object of trading stocks.

It is far more important to focus on high-quality, well-established companies and how they fit in your portfolio. The longer you hold these stocks (or index funds in Canada that hold them), the greater the chance that your profits will improve, as well.

Have you used practice accounts to buy stocks online?

Note: This article was originally published in 2009 and is regularly updated.