Now, I would have thought this thread would have grown legs and run, as it touches upon the essence of intraday trading
I am interested in this thread growing I wish I had something meaniful to contribute but I am afraid I am here to learn for the experienced.
I agree 100% but I think you're being kind when you site the lack of a closed system as the cause. I believe it's due more to a lack of experience and the skill that comes with experience. If you risk what you're trying to make you need to run >55% just to breakeven (not including opportunity costs). If you claim to risk 10 on 2 contracts, take 1 out at b/e or thereabouts, then go for 20-25 on the last one, well, the math is still against you, and in a big way, unless you're going to tell me that every one of your winners nets the 2nd objective..... Taking one out at b/e or thereabouts and moving the stop to b/e is not managing a trade - I would argue that it's a failure to address your fear of being in the market, or in other words, a failure in managing yourself. And the only way you're ever going to develop the skills to manage a trade properly is to face down these fears. Of all the challenges involved with learning how to trade, this was by far the hardest one for me to conquer. But the only way to get the math on your side (and win) is to stay involved in the big moves and let the market do the work for you. And this means getting comfortable sitting through retraces, learning where to put the stops, when to let the market take you out, etc. Having said all that, there's nothing wrong with adopting a partial strategy while you're learning. In fact I'd highly recommend it because there's no substitute for market time, and the easiest way to get it is to bring a trade to b/e ASAP, then do your best managing the last part. Once the risk is gone you should be able to relax and think clearly, and this makes for a very fertile learning environment. However, once you hone your trade management skills you're going to realize that an all in/all out approach is the best way 90% of the time. All of this is independent of timeframe too. All timeframe does is determine frequency of trades.
I don't have anything fixed, not targets or stops. The market is going to tell me when to get out every single time I get in, there is no way it cannot do that. Once I learned to collar a trade by what the market does it was a whole lot more relaxing to trade, no worries about my entire overlay of thought and how it was going to match up to the market, just set the collars with some TA and let the Tradestation alarms wake me up if I get filled so I can look for another entry. I liked to fish when I was a kid, trading feels similar nowadays. With fishing you put the bobber out there and watch for a nibble and try to turn it into a bite, after that either the fish gets away or you bring him into the shore, either way is fine because at the end of the day you might have lost some bait but you have enough fish to eat on.