• "Let your winners run; cut your losers short." Position management! Place your trades with a SL/TP bracket in place. • "Make hay while the sun shines." (Clubber Lang) There will be minutes, hours, days and weeks and *years* when your proffered style of trade will be disadvantaged -- Develop an empirical standard for acceptable trading environment, and do *not* trade outside of that. • "Trade without memory." Trading is often compared to athletics -- so ask your favorite quarterback about how they feel about their last pass: they don't give a crap! It's gone! Whether it was an interception or a touchdown or an incomplete, it's gone. The only scrimmage that matters is the one about to go -- the only pitch that matters is the one headed towards home plate right now. The only trade that matters is the one going on right now. If you're not focused on *that* one, then sit on your hands. {soapbox on} A very-related last note: Baron wrote (above) that "Willpower is a muscle..." Compare that thought with something posted some years back: "you can't trade with your mortgage payment..." Whether tick-scalping, selling option spreads, or [EOD] trend-trading, I have always traded to *earn* my mortgage payment. But I worked to do it *specifically* without emotion: mechanically, "rules-based trading" -- ending with a coded algorithm. ...So maybe a re-write: If you don't have the willpower to focus *only* on the trade in front of you, SIT ON YOUR HANDS. Let some go by. Scrub your mind. Go for a run. Do the dishes. Read the news. Evaluate your trades from your trade log, study/refine when you did better from when you did less well. Write down your results!! But Do NOT Trade. {soapbox off}
That is exactly the reason not to have targets (maximize the ones you take) - other than say a MOC time target.
I do a 50% hard stop at a target and 50% trailing stop for my manual trading -- it takes a lot of mental energy out of managing a winning trade. But I found it almost impossible to backtest trailing stops for my algorithmic trading, and had to move away from them.
Quitting after a daily target is a horrible idea in any business, not just trading. When things work, they usually work well and then you have periods when nothing works. If anything, best to do the opposite. Quit when there's nothing going on.
Never trade profit and loss. Trade opportunities. If you get tired or if you're emotionally impacted by a win or loss, it is reasonable to stop. But as standard, stopping simply based on obtaining a profit target is a bad idea IMO. Some days you just get opportunity after opportunity thrown at you with the market literally begging to give you money. These are the days you need to clean up.
Also according to 80/20. 80% percents of the returns happen 20% of the time. You better be here during the hunting season and prepare for hibernation. It's not required to be 100% behind your screen. Just keep an eye on it from time to time. Plan in advance and be ready. If not automated ...
Err... The 80/20 isn't a trading rule as such. That's similar to the whole "markets trend x % of the time" estimate
A trading rule ?! LMAO ... You’re trading binary options ? Anyway ... 80% of the time ^SPX returns are less than 1% Or 30 Pts. Yeah I know you make billions scalping ticks, Day in day out.
Your post implied that you make 80% of your money from 20% of either your trades or your time. At least that's how I read it