How many points is reasonable?

Quote from logic_man:

Traders' only decision is whether to get in or get out of the market. Everything else is out of their control. If I "decide" one day to make 5 points and I don't, is that because my "decision" wasn't decisive enough? No, it's because my trades weren't in synch with the market's direction. I don't see how that is "some kind of bullshit", it's more of a recognition that the world isn't oriented around me and my desires.
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you do realize that they invented the globex just because I am short of stature and don't like shouting don't you?

It may not move 5 points everyday, but it will if it's a day I decide to trade.

but all kidding aside, my point was, if you're looking for a five point move, it can be found on some time frame

so to reiterate, day trading tends to be a young man's game, in which case I agree with you, hard to get it if it's not there

as I get older, I trade slower, sometimes even the weekly charts are too fast for me, but usually, you can find a five point move somewhere, if you can endure a severe drawdown, which most day traders can't (at least I know when I was daytrading I certainly couldn't endure the kind of moves that go against me now.)

like the man said,

If I bet a hundered dollars
Trying to make a dime
Let me fall
Let me fall
Don't let me fall
 
I was interested in what was reasonable purely for the reason to determine whether I was on the right track. I had a worry that my efforts which were considerable to get to this point was vastly under achieving. I was looking for confirmation from experienced traders.

I now get the impression my general level appears to be acceptable, albeit c0l$il seemed to think otherwise, but interestingly enough, after being pressed on several occasions for what he thought was reasonable, c0l$il refused to respond on this matter.

Anyhow, I was very impressed with the responses to date.
 
To the OP.

You may compare what you trade to any other instrument.

A trading system can be applied to any market if it is liquid.

If you appraise ES, you can evaluate what I am about to say.

Margin is the capital you have to trade.

Market movement is measured relative to margin.

On a wristwatch you can see how the daily range is setting up. Use first hour of the RTH.

As you see on ES you can see the 11th, the 8th and the 7th all of June. Three first hours of the day are on the table.

As you can appraise, each of these hours offers you 1/3 or more of your margin requirement.

I always know by the prior close, what I am going to extract the next day beginning with the open. I press a key or use a mouse to enter on the beginning of the first bar.

You can see my results of the first profit segment by looking at the first hour of each day.

You see more than 1/3 of margin being given to me by the ES market each day.

If a person uses 50K margin and sweeps monthly (I sweep weekly), you can appraise the monthly sweep as being about 3.2 million a month if compounding. I sweep to give the money away after extracting it.

As an amateur retail trader I just stay a small fish. I deal with 10 POA's. These accounts are used to solve local problems.

Trading is about taking the market's offer. I go in at the beginning of the first bar. as the hour goes by, my monitoring and analysis keep me on the correct side of the market. for the last three days, 1/3 of margin is made at the rate of 1/3 per hour. Three days gives all of the margin. By having twice the margin each three day period, over 22 days in a month you can see 50K becoming 3.2 million each month.

For many reasons most people do not do this type of extraction. Often people are inclined to use themselves as a standard against which they measure all others. I feel that a person's heritage will be what prevents him from not using himself as the standard. The market's offer is the standard. That is why I asked you to use the last three days and just time the first hour or so.

Don't worry if you are prevented from doing this monitoring and analysis. Most people cannot see the markets.
 
Quote from themickey:

I trade the SPI in Australia via a SIM account only and my system is indicating I can average around $600 per week on 1 x contract.
This after all slippage, drawdowns, commission etc.

That's around about 5 points per day.

Comparing this say with ES or any other futures index, is this reasonable or low or high by your estimations?
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I would never ask such a question nor will i read the replies..

Why place arbitrary limit on your imagination?

The sub 4 minute mile was such an artificial mental barrier, no one could break it why? Everyone knew it wasn't possible. Except for one man.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-minute_mile

Why place mental limits by asking "what is possible" before you start? Your ability will determine what is possible, not someone elses.
 
Quote from themickey:

I was interested in what was reasonable purely for the reason to determine whether I was on the right track. I had a worry that my efforts which were considerable to get to this point was vastly under achieving. I was looking for confirmation from experienced traders.

I now get the impression my general level appears to be acceptable, albeit c0l$il seemed to think otherwise, but interestingly enough, after being pressed on several occasions for what he thought was reasonable, c0l$il refused to respond on this matter.

Anyhow, I was very impressed with the responses to date.
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You were correct, Since this came up for you as a question from within, why would you switch to find your answer somewhere else?

You have to just help yourself understand what you see.

Appraise.

The market is "telling" YOU the size of things.

You do coding. The market is "telling" you what system to code in. So you look at the code (language) you use and find out if it is the correct one. In your case, it is NOT.

You have a choice. Make the correct choice. IF you do not, do not expect any change in your software performance.

The person who disagreed with you, just decided to make you do the deciding instead of him doing "your" deciding.

The thread began by you opening up to us. You stated how you were abrigating reasoning things through. You said you wanted to become just average and like everyone else.

Someone told you you did not have to be average. He also said you had to think for yourself.

I told you about the ES market for an hour of three days. I paraphrased the market's offer to you.

Anyone can look and see what I said about the market. The market dictates and is never wrong. Give it a listen.
 
Quote from 50/50:

I would never ask such a question nor will i read the replies..

Why place arbitrary limit on your imagination?

The sub 4 minute mile was such an artificial mental barrier, no one could break it why? Everyone knew it wasn't possible. Except for one man.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-minute_mile

Why place mental limits by asking "what is possible" before you start? Your ability will determine what is possible, not someone elses.
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Right, but before Bannister ran his sub-4 minute mile, someone else ran a mile in 4:02 or something similar.

So, before we go saying that the OP can get 20 points per day, how about we find someone who's getting 19, or 18 or 17?

Also, I've got to ask if all it is is a matter of mind over market, why aren't you guys all richer than Buffett? Why are you placing "artificial mental barriers" on yourselves?

The barrier is the market, not you.
 
Quote from logic_man:


So, before we go saying that the OP can get 20 points per day, how about we find someone who's getting 19, or 18 or 17?
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why, what do i care what any particular individual can do? how does his/her performance reflect on my ability?



The barrier is the market, not you.
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right. i care not what you do, OR CANNOT DO it's what i do. i will not let your limitations become mine.
under no circumstances
 
Quote from jack hershey:



The person who disagreed with you, just decided to make you do the deciding instead of him doing "your" deciding.
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Thanks for that Jack, you hit the nail on the head.
 
Quote from 50/50:

why, what do i care what any particular individual can do? how does his/her performance reflect on my ability?




right. i care not what you do, it's what i do. i will not let your limitations become mine.
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It's all well and good to say that and it sounds all heroic, but doing it is something completely different, which is why you are on this message board saying it rather than already doing it. Which is also precisely why there is no one on the planet who is getting 20 points per day in the ES or why there isn't only 1 trillionaire with the rest of the human race maxed out at millionaire or less, picking up the scraps that one person leaves us. There are cognitive limitations on each of us as members of the species homo sapiens. The exact boundaries vary, but not in such a way as to give any one person such an advantage as what you are implying can be had.

Besides, in trading, everyone follows their 'dominant strategy', which is to do what they would do regardless of what others will do, so by saying "I will not let your limitations become mine" you are basically only saying what every trader ALREADY does. Even still, no one is able to so outperform the market as to reach the levels you're implying are possible.

So, go ahead and try. I'm not trying to stop you from trying, I'm only trying to tell you that you will not get 20 points per day, even if you stayed up 24 hours day/7 days a week from this moment until the end of your life. Even if you left a complete record of all your attempts and your children and their children and their children continued your efforts, it would not happen (at least not on a percentage basis. By the time your great-grandchildren were trying, 20 points might be the equivalent of 2 points today).
 
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