I believe having a fixed monetary or points goal is counterproductive. Your performance is largely affected by market conditions and on some days the trades simply won't be there. Being too focused on a set number might make you force bad trades or step away from the market during extremely good conditions after you've met your goal. For successful traders who have a viable strategy, I believe the best goal to have is to just avoid making bad trades and oversizing on questionable positions. The money will take care of itself. And if you don't have a viable strategy, no set of rules is going to help.
============= Urkel-trend trader; Like trading goals but they are NOT predictions; also like some trading goals i think i have a very high probability of reaching. Like some that maybe are miracles. LBR group says miracles happen everyday; true ,maybe not to the same person everyday, every year. Again not a prediction; also include goals like 72; 72 hours a week work, & consider this work also. Congrats on your best mid month last month; prefer trends more than ranges [sideways trends ] also. Actually i probably call a big range a trend ; most stock-ES.YM trends start in mourning. session . 1 great downtrend, 1 great uptrend;, in ES,YM has started this year in afternoon; it may be a semi accurate oversimplification but plenty of truth there. Also trading with TREND; mourning entered daytrades give you MORE TIME for trend to bail us out-profit , wisdom is profitable to direct.
Never ever trade because you feel you have too! That's a need that is emotional, not logical. This is how self-destructive habits are formed. From my experiences, the days I felt that I needed something from the market were the days I lost discipline - and - more often than not, lost substantial amounts of money. The trades I was taking were not quality ones - I was forcing myself to do things that were not in my own best interest, i.e. the correct behavior is to be flat because there was no quality in what I was seeing occur. What works for me is just being a passive bystander to market action 95% of the time. There are situations where all the factors come together and you just have to be patient and wait for them. Good trades are natural and random at the same time - you cannot predict them nor can you structure a goal around how much they will pay you.
After trying it out for about three days, I had enough, my trading became too aggressive and I found myself overtrading to meet this higher goal. I know now for certain it is easier for me, psychologically, to trade more contracts than to trade for more points per contract.
I agree with your comments. I also trade ER2. My daily profit goal is something I am able to obtain in the first hour of the day. It is small enough that it can be achieved in the worst market.
my goal is to try and make some money every single day, if i can good, if i cant, big whoop...there's always tomorrow, innit. usually i can by the way
{soap box on} Not to get killed and have money for the mortgage. End of story. If you have more ambitions like a ferrari or riches and fame you are likerly a very shallow/ignorant person and need to learn more about values in life and the mortality of men. Funny thing - you may end up getting all you want just to die early in cancer of pain or have you children never to speak to you again... etc etc.. {soap box off}
First you must define your purpose. Then commit to persistent continuous action towards its attainment. Then you can define your trading goals. This is not a question that can be answered by any of us. (And if we do answer it for you, you have not yet defined your purpose) Look inside for answers to this question. DRT