The official goal is 2% average growth over all trading days. If you look at the old progress report, you can see that I was close to 2% average, even though i had many losing days. I know a guy who trades with 50 ES contracts on a daily basis. So if I am successful, I have a LONG way to go in my scale up process. Obviously there is an upper limit, but I will push the 2% as long as possible. I am trading 1 or several micros per position, up to a maximum of 1 micro per $1000 in the account. So right now, I can trade a maximum of .5 micros. At $10,000, I will be able to trade 1 E-mini, if I choose. The micros are great for baby steps, but they cost almost twice as much as an E-mini to use. $.74 per RT per micro x10 = $7.40 vs $4.10 RT for E-mini. So I am motivated to get to the E-mini as soon as possible.
Okay good I'm glad you're back. Yes the fees are double in micros, but remember the path, I'm sure you do and the "as soon as possible" part is more of form of expression then anything. I tend to read everything literally. I'll send you invisible vibrations that you can hear in your head but not in your ears. I'm looking forward to this.
I found this pic again on my computer. I find it highly motivational. My account at $5k still feels like a tiny acorn, but this kind of growth is my goal: That looks like a $1,000,000 account to me... or 200x growth from my newly rebooted acorn of an account, starting with "just" $5k. But just like that oak tree, I must grow this account ring by ring, day by day, trade by trade, with patience, wisdom, and amazing discipline. This is the essence of my journal: How to grow steadily - taking advantage of the opportunities in the market, but doing so carefully and safely. Good trading is certainly a unique and challenging balance, a blend of high-probability trades and fierce money management. Capital preservation is the priority, but profits are a close second.
Done for the day. Up over $100. I stayed away from the NFP report as it usually kills me. And I know if I keep trading, now that I have met my daily goal, I will probably screw it up big time. Have a great long weekend!
Back again also - Wishing you the best Theo! You are off to a great start - I plan to start the new $75K Evaluation with Earn 2 Trade next Tuesday, 9/8 and start my first journal at Elite Trader to record its progress as well.
Thanks, I'm coming from a spot forex and stock options background. Spot forex was patchy. Ups and downs, no consistency. I've been profitable with options. They work much better for me than spot forex. I just buy puts and calls, mainly for defined risk. I've looked at futures, tried it on the CME demo. Even using micros I was amazed at how quickly you can lose money! What I've also seen is that, if you know what you are doing, then you can make 2% on average a day, I'll agree with you on that. How would you recommend I start with futures? I'd have an account size of around $3,000.
Just trade 1 MES (Emini micro), and see after 1-2 months or at least 50-100 trades if there is any consistency in your results. If the results are good/very good, you can slowly increase size. Once it is clear that you dowell you can compound and will trade in a few month 100 ES contracts at the time without any problem. But major huge problem is consistency. PS:I do not understand why you stop trading when your daily profit is made. Your trading system is normally generating trades all the time, so don't stop trading. Take all generated trades. If you think you can protect your profit by stopping when the profit target is reached, you are wrong. You never know if the next trade will be good or bad, so stopping after the daily profit is in is not protecting you at all. If you test a trading system, you test all trades generated by the system. If then you skip a lot of these trades in live trading, you cannot trust anymore the stats of your backtests as you don't trade like you backtested. Friday you made your $100, but I am sure you could make much more. So you changed your risk reward ratio from your backtesting in a negative way. The only way to make good money is to let your profits run, but you cut them off. Most traders make money mainly from their big profitable trades, and these trades you don't do. And if you do them, you cut off your profits for your $100 target which is just the opposite of what a professional trader would do. It would be interesting to see your trades from friday and compare them with what the market did. Can you post them?
I took several trades yesterday and today, but I am down about $10 from Friday. Oh well. I am not worried. I have many more trading days ahead, and the current market volatility is certainly a bit higher than normal. This is certainly preferable to the large losses suffered by the Buy & Hold crowd in the last 7 days - who have certainly used more than their quota of cuss words and "hopium" and Prayers-to-Powell to "Stimulate!" Monday was a holiday, and yesterday was anything but normal. We had a HUGE windstorm in Utah with 90 MPH+ winds at times. My neighbor lost 4 large trees. One almost hit her house. While I traded with the wind howling, expecting the power to go out at any moment, I have to admit I was a bit distracted. Next time I am distracted, I will just not trade. @Pkay I recommend you paper trade for at least two weeks until you are profitable 5 consecutive 5 days. Then trade live with one micro contract. Use the MES because it has more volume and consequently less slippage. Do exactly what you did on sim. Once you have 5 consecutive positive days, then try 2 micros per trade. I recommend a maximum of 1 micro per $1000 in your account (what I am doing), so stay with 3 max for now until you get to $4,000 and go to 4 micros. @virtusa I stopped when I met my $100 goal on Friday because I have another job as a real estate broker. But even if I were trading full-time, setting a goal and stopping when reached works well for me. I have learned that often as the trading day progresses, volume gets smaller and the moves have less consistency and more chop - so I don't do as well. Also, my "stupid" factor certainly increases by the second as the day wears on. And going forward, I will rarely post trades. I have refined my methods and don't need to dissect them any longer - just execute with precision and honor my tight stops. Also, I just don't have time to get detailed any longer with my journal. But thanks for offering to help.