How do you determine daily profit target?

povstanets · Sep 25, 2015

How do you determine daily profit target for 1 ES contract? Also, would your odds be better simply trading 2 contracts with that same target so your in the market less?

And how do you guys deal with bad days, do you have trade number limit before quitting? Do you have a daily loss limit?

tiddlywinks · Sep 25, 2015

Why do want a daily target? On days like today, you'd probably have missed major moves. The kind of moves that makes a week or a month in a single session!! And on less volatile days, you'd just struggle because the action, range, movement, whatever you want to call it, just ain't there.

How bout just trading well? You do not get to choose the cards that are dealt. You do however get to play the hand as best as you can. In Blackjack, splitting aces is almost always the correct way to play, but it does not guarantee a win. Taking a loss because you didn't split the aces is just, bad playing.

Given that, what is a bad day?

povstanets · Sep 25, 2015

tiddlywinks said:
Why do want a daily target? On days like today, you'd probably have missed major moves. The kind of moves that makes a week or a month in a single session!! And on less volatile days, you'd just struggle because the action, range, movement, whatever you want to call it, just ain't there.

How bout just trading well? You do not get to choose the cards that are dealt. You do however get to play the hand as best as you can. In Blackjack, splitting aces is almost always the correct way to play, but it does not guarantee a win. Taking a loss because you didn't split the aces is just, bad playing.

Given that, what is a bad day?

I really don't want to lose more than 6 points or $300 in a day starting out, but that said if experienced traders think I should be down 12 points and keep trading then I'll give that a shot, just wanted opinions on the smart way to do go about that.

As far as the daily profit target, yeah I paper traded 1 contract today and was up almost 500, but then I got bored and wanted to learn more too so I traded towards 4pm where it was more indecisive and lost most of that, so thats where I could see a profit target really helping. But your right in that if I had a target of 200 today I would have missed out on the other 300 so its a hard call and I see your point there, but on the other hand I see that I lost all my funny money.

Visaria · Sep 25, 2015

don't have a daily profit target. do have a daily stop loss. have a weekly one as well. and monthly. and quarterly . and yearly too.

J_Smith · Sep 25, 2015

povstanets said:
How do you determine daily profit target for 1 ES contract? Also, would your odds be better simply trading 2 contracts with that same target so your in the market less?

And how do you guys deal with bad days, do you have trade number limit before quitting? Do you have a daily loss limit?

If you trade 2 contracts you can lose twice as much - agree?

You want to set a daily target in a market where BIG corporations spend millions and millions of dollars to develop automated trading to take minute profits every few seconds - are you really sure you want to take on these people with a few textbooks and a few dollars in your account!

And now you are talking about being down 12 points in a day!!!!!!!!

What might help you, is, think of a river, and how water can not flow up, but can meander in and out of all the crevasses as it finds its way down to the ocean.

This is not a futures chart, but it is close enough to give you an idea of what you might be better off looking at, as I have no idea what you are looking at now to come up with throwing away 12 ES points per day to the real professionals - for, the ES is their home ground and they don't think twice about beheading the small little retail traders who decide to pay madame guillotine a visit

Hope this helps you come to your senses?

As for bad days - never let them happen, every day is a trading day - win or lose!

J_S

Turveyd · Sep 25, 2015

Profit target, nooo take what you can get, some days it's easy, some it's impossible, so milk the good days.

The loss is tricky, I was down badly ish today, but 1 trade turned it around pretty much to just slightly down.

If the market isn't suiting your method, then stop and watch till it is, in profit or loss, just do the same.

d08 · Sep 25, 2015

Trade when the trades present themselves, not on some arbitrary time value.

lawrence-lugar · Sep 26, 2015

d08 said:
Trade when the trades present themselves, not on some arbitrary time value.

I agree. -- But a (great) trader must also have foresight of the future...and place a trade based on his 'crystal ball'.

ops:
One can't sit on the sidelines forever waiting for the so-called stars to align.

povstanets · Sep 26, 2015

Visaria said:
don't have a daily profit target. do have a daily stop loss. have a weekly one as well. and monthly. and quarterly . and yearly too.

How exactly would a monthly stop loss work though - like what happens if you hit it - you just go on vacation until the next month?

d08 · Sep 26, 2015

lawrence-lugar said:
I agree. -- But a (great) trader must also have foresight of the future...and place a trade based on his 'crystal ball'. ops:
One can't sit on the sidelines forever waiting for the so-called stars to align.

Not forever but a long time, that's for sure. Recent 2 months have had more happen than the whole year of 2013, trade statements should reflect that.