I can't help you here because I have a bad habit of a) taking a break or doing something else after a good trade, and b) getting protective of my profits when I hit +$500 and leaving behind some valid trade setups.
You should ONLY be trading good setups. This is what provides an edge in trading. Why would you trade anything less than a good setup?
Something's missing in your comment about giving your profits back after reaching your milestone. What is your win rate when trading only your "good" setups?
Do your setups fail more often later in the day than early in the day?
Mine do. Early in the day, my setups work very nicely most of the time. Later in the day they often fail.
I implemented a rule early this year that I wouldn't trade after noon eastern time because of this. I now trade after that time, but not very frequently and I've learned to detect later-day traps in setups that work nicely in the morning.
Avoid midday low volume zones. You'll notice the volume that can move price reliably (key word, there) occurs before noon ET, sometimes around 1:30pm ET and between 3-4pm ET. The rest of the time, when price moves or consolidates on low volume, good setups fail or the range is so narrow you'll churn profits and make donations to your broker.
How many days a week can you reliably make $100? 3 or more? Or less than 3?
Are your losing days $100 or less?
If you can reliably make $100 a day 3 or more days a week with the other days' losses being $100 or less, then you should have no fear doing the exact same thing with 2 contracts. When you double your account, then size up again.
One more question: There are times when the market is very willing to give you a lot more than $100 on a trade. How do you handle that? As an example, let's say you shorted ES yesterday by placing a sell stop 1 tick below the 10:25am pivot low of 1116.25 and you have an initial target of 2 points. Once price takes you into that trade it's clear from the breakout momentum that the market is going to spit some extra money at you. How do you manage that situation? How many points would you have extracted from that trade and how? Using a very basic trade management tactic you should get nearly 10 points out of that trade. Do you take advantage of those situations or do you limit yourself?
I have a $50K trading account and when I was trading ES I traded 1-5 contracts. I now trade 1 contract CL, which I've been told is similar to 3 ES, and I'm close to meeting the criteria needed to size up.
Keep in mind that with your small account, a surprise news event could quickly wipe you out with more than 1 contract on.
