As for trading the ES, agree that there are in general only on average 3 to 4 very decent trades per day that have the odds to show 5 handles per move. Like D says, sometimes you get a beauty that goes further but we can not depend on those to maintain a nice daily handle average. Now naturally we run into whipsaws that skew the number of trades per day. Also some of us might like to book a certain number of handles and reconsider the situation, depends on the individual. Futures trading is about keeping what the mkt gives you before it evaporates. I prefer to do a bit more size and shoot for the Gold setups. 5 Gold setups are all you need in ES, double cross, early range breakout or early fade of initial pop, 1-2-3-4 reversals, hook continuations if working the retraces..............REVERSALS in ES are where the action is unless we have a trend day like last wednesday, those have been rare since QE2. Lets hope the fed talks a powder and leaves us alone to our own poison.
There appear to be three classes of potential traders with regard to "profits weren't huge". 1) Traders who accept less than huge profits. This includes the person who wants to grind out $200/day, all those who wish to trade for a "living", and others after easier money but without the ambition to build a personal fortune. This class are doomed to failure, either immediately or through grinding out for years without making any serious financial progress - or as you would term "anything less than total victory is an eventual journey back to defeat". Ultimately the lack of huge profits is the result of not having a sufficiently accurate methodology and the ambition to build and deploy one. 2) The big dreamers of huge profits. The big ego guys who turn up at the exchange with a $10k account and claim that they will rule the pit. Those who spend more time procrastinating about trading than doing productive work. Those who spend all day on the Internet discussing their system, the markets, everything else but who achieve mediocre results if at all. Includes many hobby traders and those who aren't yet trading. May not have the necessary abilities or motivation. 3) Traders who have the ambition and drive to work towards trading at a high level of skill and understanding, with world class trading and a personal fortune as the goal. Appropriate levels of intelligence, hard work, and dedication required. Some of these people will discover that despite their efforts they do not have a temperament suitable to trading. Those who have the temperament and the other abilities will be very successful.
Really? Well in that case, can you post the system you are referring to, the mother of all systems? "Please, just let me break even"
How did you extrapolate my saying, all technical systems are basically the same, to my having the mother of all systems? I have posted charts of my system before, go look them up.
Do you really want to say all technical systems are basically the same? You've said it twice here now, if you say it a third time you may have to take irrevocable ownership of the silly thing.