When I first started trading I would stop for the day after my profit target (or stop loss) was hit. If my profit target was hit I would have some confidence going into the next trading day. If my stop loss was hit I would call it a day and not try to "get back at the market" in order to recover my loss. After trading full time for 2 years I now view each trade separately. The results of a previous trade have no bearing on the current trade. The market isn't doing anything "to me". I am a willing participant. I have a profit goal for the week but don't stop trading once that is hit. There were many times when I would leave money on the table and of course some where it would have been better to stop after a profitable trade. But that is just the nature of the game. I am a discretionary trader. I don't trade everyday but I am ready to trade every day. I don't know what a "good day" is until the trading day is over. Maybe that afternoon trade would have made the difference between a good day and a great day. I am a football fan and recently saw an interview with Brett Favre. (I had the chance to watch him in practice. You can actually hear the ball zing when he throws a rocket ball - and the sound when it hits the receivers hands - ouch!!). The interviewer asked about the way Brett gives 100% on every play - trying to make a play out of nothing. Brett's answer was interesting. He said that over a season there are a few plays that will determine if a team goes to the Super Bowl. His thinking is that maybe the next play is the one that might make the difference so he'd better give it his all. As I review my trading records some of my biggest gains have come from just staying in the game after I could have closed up shop for the day.
If you're discretionary, you gotta take care of yourself. Part of discretionary trading is knowing when to press on no matter what. Also, knowing when to call it a day. Goals are a two edged sword, if too easily accomplished regularly, then attaining them becomes drudgery. (losing it all on one trade in the afternoon sounds like the serious problem, solve that one, and I doubt you'll be asking anyone when you should quit for the day.)
i'm at a prop firm. i know i trade for 7.5 cents/share from 9:30 to 10:00 and my numbers after 10:00 are pretty much breakeven. So if i'm up $5k to $10k by 10:00 , i'm done for the day. If i'm trading after 10:00 it's usually only to try and make back my losses.
8hcap; Because of my notebook + chartbook I do most[not all] of my daytrading in the mourning. Pays better. You might record your times + get the same results. I trade smaller & less if equity trend is down. I do use moving averages to help with profit. I do enter some swing trades in afternoon some.
Absolutely, postively don't cut yourself off if you are having a good day. Set a pull back level or something so you don't give too much back but don't cap your upside. My best day ever the branch manger actually came to me and said, shut it off, go skiing, your done. I said, but I'm feeling it man....he said, I know and your pushing and your gonna feel like shit if you give it back. So we agreed if I gave 20% of it back I would knock it off. I tripled what i was up that morining by afternoon. It's those up days that cushion the down and B.S days when all you do is the pay the man commission.
Was putting "daytrading" and "mourning" in the same sentence a Freudian slip? You do your daytrading in the morning. I do my daytrading and then the mourning.
I do not "close shop" when I hit my "target" because I don't have one. For me, the more I am up, the more likely I am to be even more up if I keep trading, and if I am down, it is almost always wise for me to take at least a 15 minute break. Usually, when I lose, I didn't get enough sleep the night before, or I had a fight with my wife, or I am worried about something... When I come to trade, I lose myself in the sea that is the market from the opening bell. When things click, I am going both long and short with total ease... nitro
i agree, you have to keep trading when you're doing well. if you're gonna stop, stop when losing. it's counterintuitive, but so is so much of this game.
Lets put it this way. First of all...I don't know how long you've been trading... but if you've been trading long enough...you'll know when you make most of your profits and when you tend to give back those profits. Simply, if your trading history reveals you tend to be profitable in the morning and tend to give it back in the afternoon trading session... and your having a profitable day in the morning... me personally, I would stop trading and not venture into the afternoon trading session. Another way to look at it... If your at a loss in the morning when your normally profitable...it's a good time to call it quits for the day when you are aware of your own trading statistics to lose in the afternoon. The same in vice versa. That is...if your normally losing in the morning and become profitable in the afternoon...than it's obvious that trading in the morning is not a very good trading plan nor good for your bank account. Then there are traders that are profitable no matter what time of day it is and their trading history reflects such. These traders are the ones that when they are up nicely in the morning...it's in their best interest to keep trading...milking the cow. Trading is intense...reason why so many traders are mentally tired by the afternoon trading session and tend to make more mistakes. I'm one of those types of traders (mentally tired by the afternoon trading session)... and if I'm having an intense but profitable trading morning...I call it quits prior to lunch and take it easy the remainder of the day (reading a good book, paper trading via a realtime simulator to test some new trade setups in hopes of improving my afternoon performance, going out to do some personal errands so that I don't have to do such on the weekends and so on). If I'm having an easy but profitable trading morning...I may do one trade in the afternoon with a reduce contract size to protect those morning profits if I'm wrong. Every trader is different so it may be time well spent for you to review your trading history or trading journal to see if there's a consistent pattern to when you make money and to when you tend to lose money. If there is...you have an edge that's easily exploitable. NihabaAshi