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One of Big Mike's suggestions is to make daily goals for yourself and these should be about how you trade, not what you make. I believe that sounds worthwhile and I think I know how to do that but I would appreciate it if any of you have done this could you provide some examples to make sure I am on the right track? Thank you.
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
I'm not sure exactly what he meant but it's probably along the lines of keeping a journal and writing down not only your trades but also documenting why you took a trade and what you where thinking and how you handled the trade. In doing that you are better able to identify your weaknesses and as a result you will be able to focus on correcting them.
Just the simple act of putting this stuff on paper will greatly help you in addressing whatever issues you may have. It's along the lines of when you write something down you will have a much better chance of remembering it....you know what I mean.
Your daily goals should be focusing on fine tuning your trading by eliminating problems you are currently experiencing.
If you have multiple issues/problems you can just focus on one at a time so you don't overwhelm yourself.
Too many people set a dollar amount as a goal. As a general rule, I think it is better to not do that, at least in the beginning when you are striving just to be profitable at all.
So I suggest people put more effort in identifying their strengths and weaknesses, and then come up with one or two items to place all their focus on for the following day. At the end of the day, grade yourself on how well you accomplished these very specific objectives. No need to add new objectives until you are consistently scoring highly on these.
It is important to be very specific. For example, don't say "Follow my plan". Instead, pick very specific items like "Only trade with the trend" (even better is to specifically identify how to trade with the trend by your definition).
Another specific item would be "Do not take more than 3 trades". A lot of new traders tend to drastically over trade. By forcing yourself and knowing ahead of time that you are only allowed 3 trades, and that if you take a 4th trade for any reason whatsoever that you are a complete failure at following the simplest of rules, then it will really help you practice patience -- a critical lesson in trading.
Your trading experience is listed as: Intermediate
You'll have to ask yourself:
Am I consistently profitable?
Am I consistently unprofitable?
If you are consistently UNprofitable, I would say you should set a daily maximum loss target.
If you hit that, stop trading for the day.
You might also just trade in simulation for a while.
If you are consistently profitable I would ask others here what they make for profits on the NQ.
Be sure to make sure they trade the same number of contracts simultaneously as you do. If you are
long 1 or short 1, and someone else trades long 2 or short 2 and you don't know, you'll have an
incorrect answer.
As a trading one-liner I'd also say:
Take what the market gives you.
If you are looking for big moves, they're just not going to be there everyday.
On the days the market really moves you'll make a lot.
On the days the market doesn't move much you'll make little if anything.
In the beginning we desire a certain result from our trading. To be consistently profitable, and to make x amount of dollars. We can measure by the week or the month and say that at the end of this period we want to be profitable and remain profitable for next week or month and so on.
A good way to measure our performance is using a detailed journal.
In the beginning just write down in your plan how much you desire to make. Over time you will need to adjust that to how much you are able to make, and this will be more in keeping with your ability demonstrated by your detailed analysis of your trading and your results over time.
For example;
I have found that many traders want to make $400 a day from their trading. That is a lofty figure for a beginning trader and it also misses the point about consistently good trading. If you are trading one contract, this is going to be a pretty daunting task. You will go through a lot of hoops (frustration, disappointment, strategy adjustments, reality checks) as you try to get that number each day. Also, how many trades will it take? And how many winners are you able to get before you get a loser, and how many losers do you average per x amount of trades. Over time you will discover a certain rhythm to your trading, and a certain exhaustion point. By this I mean a certain point in your trading where you loose focus and start to lose. During the trading day you will have a peak point where you will be on fire, and a valley. So, once again, that journal is crucial. These are some of the hard facts you need to know about yourself as a trader.
The reality is that you do not need 40 ticks a day. You do not need $400 a day. What you need is to be able to consistently trade successfully until you hit your wall. For many new emini futures traders getting 4 ticks a day consistently is a tough task.
Your journal and analysis of your trading is crucial to help you determine your true consistent ability. Most traders will adjust down to be more in keeping with their ability first, then up as their ability and proficiency increase.
So set your goal in ticks. Once you are able to get x ticks consistently, then the magic of leverage will take you to the next step until you hit the next plateau or wall in your trading. This wall may depend on the liquidity of the instrument, the time of day as you increase your lot size, the amount of slippage on both ends for that lot size, and your psychological stamina as you make the adjustment to the new numbers.
