I would advise against it. I hide mine entirely. I want each trade to stand on its own merits and not be influenced by the rest of the day. But, I am human. I do check my pnl tab throughout the day. Most of the time it is just to confirm execution prices, as I know where I am at on the day because it is easy to remember the figures as you are trading... unless you are taking a bunch of trades.

Mike

+50 ticks on three trades. Done for the day

I've started to notice something over the last few days. My profit targets are too small. I've been looking for ten ticks most of the time. This seems to work pretty well, But I am also leaving money on the table.

Yesterday and this morning, I spent some time looking at targets. Turns out 20 ticks is pretty reasonable to expect from my normal entry. Often its more but truth be told, I don't know if I can sit through a scenario where I had 20 ticks of profit on the screen, then watch a pull back to my entry price or perhaps more and then see a 50 tick runner go from there.

So, what I am going to do Monday is get my regular ten ticks, then look for 20 the next time and if that is successful, I'll stop trading and then look for another set up, mark my entry price and then see how it behaves in terms of looking for say 50 ticks. Of course its not the same just watching, but perhaps it will make me think about the psychology of have 20 ticks of profit, waiting through the pull back and then seeing a bigger run happen. I've never done it before and so it could be an interesting experiment.

This will happen AFTER my normal trading of course. No way I will experiment with live trading.

The overall goal is to arrive at fewer trades, maintain the same stop I have currently, make more money per trade and reduce my risk by reducing the number of times I expose my capital to the market.

I believe it was Mark Twain that once said, "I am more interested in the return OF my capital than the return ON my capital". That being said, calculated risks are necessary and beneficial.

Another goal is to begin learning where and when to add size. Don Miller said "Its never about how many pots you win....rather its how much you win when you're right". I am beginning to sense that certain trades should be pressed. In other words, multiple lots. There are degrees of set ups. Certain set ups are better than others even though they may look the same to the casual observer. For instance, a set up that has a new daily high along with a deep retracement could potentially serve up a really nice runner back to the high or more of the day. This trade could be entered cautiously at first but as it progresses, more lots could be added on the pull backs. I realize this more advanced than I am currently able to execute on, but as I am seeing it happen each day, it deserves some attention in terms of watching to see how I would execute if I had an account size to accommodate the increased risk.

I think I will set up a spreadsheet to track this type of price action and subsequent trades along with the average ticks available. All after normal trading is over of course. Can't interfere with priority one at this point.

+50 ticks on three trades. Done for the day

I've started to notice something over the last few days. My profit targets are too small. I've been looking for ten ticks most of the time. This seems to work pretty well, But I am also leaving money on the table.

Yesterday and this morning, I spent some time looking at targets. Turns out 20 ticks is pretty reasonable to expect from my normal entry. Often its more but truth be told, I don't know if I can sit through a scenario where I had 20 ticks of profit on the screen, then watch a pull back to my entry price or perhaps more and then see a 50 tick runner go from there.