Well, I have targets of 8-9 ticks. In my youth, when full contract in 1980s was $500 a point, it was easier to make 3/4s a point for $375 times few contracts was good money, well 30 years later, ES is watered down and more expensive to trade cause it trades in quarters, I have to trade 10 times contracts to get same bang for the buck, so just doing 100 ES contracts, this old fart use to trade that in early 1990s ten lots. S&P500 use to trade in nickels at $25 a tick. I use to risk 3-4 ticks back then, price use to adhere to trendlines and support/resistance areas and often times to the tick,.....but not any more. So now I actually have to set my targets of 8-9 ticks, so up to half my trades on original entry is one tick which brings down overall average, but me averaging down on each trade makes what I make overall to be greater than what you think breakeven plus a tick as I will go eight levels down against the position. And yeap, when I have a couple losing trades in morning when I am trading greatest quantity, it very expensive, but when one back tests as much as we do, over 26,000 sample size over 13 years, you figure out when to quit and how to work to get it back next days. It is a business like the "Dollar" stores, I am making a little each day (almost), not swinging for the fences, just grind it out each day. Just learned where my edge was long ago. I am very good at long term commodities on a very unpopular way to trade however reward to risk is huge and stay in years and good enough to make ticks for day trading. Lost ego long ago when trading. I (we) day trade 40 markets between manual and automated, just small amounts, just like a Dollar store.
When driving through mountain ranges, most people see beautiful mountains, I see barcharts. People see tall buildings from afar, I see barcharts, LOL I can se barcharts with just about anything.
I have a sensible Goal of 4-6 points then cut back size, I have worked very hard to start day and not lose, I know how tough it is to learn this business, and I do try to share the knowledge I have gained before I lose it. People have to learn to accept and less greedy as far as going for sensible profits, get good and add lots.