Paper trading

Paper trading runs a strategy on a live, real-time market feed but routes its orders to a simulator instead of a real broker. You see how the strategy behaves in real time, orders, fills, positions, and P&L, without putting any capital at risk.

It sits between backtesting and live trading. A backtest replays history; paper runs in real time, so it surfaces timing issues, data gaps, and behavior a historical replay can smooth over. Because fills are simulated, paper is a check on behavior and timing rather than a precise estimate of real fill quality.