Which trading goal is best and why?

[sulli]

Quote from spike500:

The best and only goal is to take what the market offers. Sometimes it's huge, sometimes it's poor.

I agree.

To the original poster:
I would suggest basing your daily goal on volatility. The goal would be to extract a percentage of what is available on the timeframe in which you trade.

This method allows you to evaluate the efficiency of your trading. It allows you to strive for a greater percentage so that you are not stuck aiming for example 2 pts a day.

 

[ElectricSavant]

Two things..

• Setting goals makes for miserable trading.
  
• How does the market know what your goals are?

 

[Urkel]

So goals are terrible for trading, but downside limits are essential....

 

[ElectricSavant]

Uncle Points....

Quote from Urkel:

So goals are terrible for trading, but downside limits are essential....

 

[ElectricSavant]

Now the mechanics of each individual trade and the reasoning behind trade management....is completely different than money management.

Get the terms straight

• Trade Management
• Money Management

 

[lwlee]

I have a slightly different approach. I think in term of ticks. Set the barrier of success low enough so that it can be achieved on a daily basis. Even on those days, when you feel like shit, you should be able to hit that goal. For the ER, I set my goal to 10 ticks.

Everyone should have a goal but they should have the discipline to be patient and forgo a day or two of trading if there are no setups.

 

[nononsense]

Quote from ElectricSavant:

Now the mechanics of each individual trade and the reasoning behind trade management....is completely different than money management.

Get the terms straight

• Trade Management
• Money Management

Sound point, but why talk about "Trade Management" and not "Trading Strategy"?

Money management is for people WITHOUT a (working) strategy, i.e. for losers.

 

[ElectricSavant]

This I agree with.

I do not find a valid use for popular "money management martingale type" strategies, other than to rank several trade set-ups and allocate funds according to the rank, which these do not teach.

Optimal F, Kelly Ratio, FRM....etc...do not work. But again, if you have several set-ups within your strategy, one can rank the probabilities and bet more with the higher set-up.

find an edge first...

Michael B

Quote from nononsense:

Sound point, but why talk about "Trade Management" and not "Trading Strategy"?

Money management is for people WITHOUT a (working) strategy, i.e. for losers.

 

[5yrtrader]

I think you should change your target to at least 2 points a day or at least 40 points a month. Goals can be restrictive too.

 

[jorgeamado88]

Quote from spike500:
The best and only goal is to take what the market offers. Sometimes it's huge, sometimes it's poor.

I'm an equity trader myself, but I totally agree with spike500 here. My personal goal is 5% return on my account per month, and sometimes I crush that target, sometimes I go negative. As long as the general trend of your equity curve is sloping the right way (up!), you're not a failure and can concentrate on improving.

I always try to measure myself up against what the markets offer - I can have negative days where I'm still quite happy with my performance, because my methods sometimes produces losses and I did "the right thing". It's not every day that everything moves like it should, and you shouldn't beat yourself up over that.