According to the instrument you are trading, a good benchmark that would fill all of them, would be to consider the range and the timeframe and then you can judge you efficiency out of how much you remove from it. Remember the market you trade has no idea as to what your goals are, they are simply personal and have no bearing as to your efficiency. I assume you want to be efficient and just not "feel good"...be all that you can be. Michael B.
K-Rock if you would not mind I would like to ask you some questions to get a better understanding of your situation. What do you pay in commissions? Do you pay retail commissions or do you lease a seat at the CME? How many trades do you make each trading day? Would you like to trade more actively? Are you a professional trader? The reason I ask these questions is if you are not an active trader you probably should not have a daily profit goal. For example if you only make 1-5 trades a day having any daily profit goal will be stressful on your trading. Instead you could flip it and make a daily goal of not losing a certain amount per day. I personally need to make money on a daily basis! It is not an option. At the end of the trading day if I lost money I did something wrong. The market always provides me opportunities to have a profitable trading day. The reason for this is during any trading day I make 30-150 trades a day. By keeping my losses small I am able to be profitable a majority of the time(trading days). I would not be a successful trader if I limited my trading activity to a handful of trades a day. My personality does not fit that style. Do you feel comfortable with your trading style?
a specific amount of money is what u r asking for.......wrong motivation.......going wrong direction...........instead, the goal should be to advance your system/s to the level that you can step in anytime the market moves and capture positive points........most of the time.........losses are unavoidable......keep them few and far between and life is happier......find your edge....your highest probability entry signal........take it everytime you see it..........most important of all, control your emotions........don't think after system is in the completed stage........thinking is for development stage.......after system is ready to go, quit thinking........just take the signal like a robot....or signals..............never listen to news.........it is irrelevant to daytrading emini's.......if your system is one to write home about....... goal should be to take all signals......and follow the rules..........no rules, no money.......eventually......
The market has spoken. It told me to stick to my 2 pt., net, daily goal per contract. Therefore, consistency and increasing size appropriately will be the key for me. However, thanks for the constructive feedback.
Wise decision. Why go for more points? Just keep increasing your size, until market tells you that your positions can not be instantaneously filled. Once you get to around 50 contracts a clip (which ES should be able to handle), 2 points is around 5K per day (about 1 mil per year). That is exactly what I am doing right now, not at that size yet, but working on it. redduke
I've taken a few pokes at you. But I note your repeated theme: e-minis, complete consistency of play, using an accurate methodology, taking your signal for each move. This is very good advice to amateurs. Do they realize just how much you are telling them?