I was a pre-med student at Duke University. While taking a break from Organic Chemistry, I stumbled into "The Market Wizards", while walking through the library. I could not put it down. It changed my life. I then changed majors... And I changed a LOT of people's lives, for the better One random book in the library, while simply taking a break, changed the whole direction of my life... “Luck plays an enormous role in trading success. Some people were lucky enough to be born smart, while others were even smarter and got born lucky.” — Ed Seykota PS. Ed is a dick (I know; we have friends in common, and yes, I can prove it)...
Also let's say you are trading multiple futures and 1 is doing well and the other is doing bad. You could kill the bad trade early and let the good trade go on.
I try not to think of the money. I measure my performance by whether I followed my plan. Each trade has an outcome. Some good some not so good. I attempt to make only good trades regardless of the outcome.[/QUOTE] deaddog this is the smart and the proper way to evaluate one's trading. removing money from the equation dramatically limits the emotional impact of trading and gives one the ability to rationally evaluate the trade based solely on the merits of said trade. every screen trader I've ever seen has the single green or red P&L number displayed prominently on their trading platform. THIS IS A HUGE MISTAKE IMO as this causes traders to solely focus (emotionally) on their P&L which prevents them from being able to rationally process the signals that a trading market is constantly sending. focusing on P&L one might as well be trading with a blindfold on. in the early days of screen trading I had to have the coders at my clearing firm write the ability to turn off P&L into the platform. as a large position trader I would hold trades for months at a time but would NEVER look at my open position P&L or YTD P&L on my daily statements. if one makes the right trades for the right reasons the money will come.
I don't have a screen up that shows P&L. I'm a swing trader, use EOD data, set on stop entries and exits for the next day. At the end of the day I check the account balance when it's too late to react to it.
deaddog sounds like you are doing everything possible to remove emotion from your trading. there's a reason black box algos are so ruthlessly effective.