Paper Trading Goals

When should be my goals performance wise when paper trade?

For instance, I trade ES, and my goals are $400-500 per week, one contract. 4.25pts per trade I try to earn. 2pt (+/- a tick or so) stop loss per trade.

Lets say Monday and Tuesday I meet my weekly goal. Should I continue to trade the following days just to build confidence, practice, winning percentage, return percentage, testing methods, or discipline?

I am thinking yes, but wanted to get comments here first. But what i am concern with is continuing to trade after I reach goal, and take some losses and not reach goals.

Or should I just keep on practicing and take a setup whenever it arrives?

I would really appreciate any help on this matter. Yes, I know its not real money, and can't test real emotions, but I am testing my real emotions and I am serious.

Thanks

 

If you have positive expectancy but stop trading as soon as you reach your weekly profit target, your average weekly profit will be less than your weekly target.

Also, different days of the week are on average different. Your strategy may work better on a Friday than a Monday.

 

live trading is a different beast - you have real money in play - meaning your emotions will typically get the best of you.

my 2 cents - figure out how to lose your emotional attachment to money - once you are trading live with real money, you will notice a big change in how you make decisions, build solid confidence in your strategy, work on being consistent - if you are consistent, profits will come - take all setups that meet your trading plan's guidelines and log what happens when your setup works and doesn't work

there is a lot more, but this is a descent starting point

Also,

JTrades is correct:

 

buy a $5 graph paper notebook, learn how to draw this chart and start hand charting from 830-3 15 cst, you will learn more in the next 6 months than the next 5 yrs without it http://www.cmegroup.com/education/interactive/marketprofile/
learn this on your own the way the author did and look for the 3 points mentioned here
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?p=3978562#post3978562

 

Thanks,

I apologize, but I don't understand. What is your adivce?

 

Thank you Ammo,

Great post.

This is exactly how I trade. I draw lines of price directions and places where people may want to do business, then make a decision at these places. But I must admit I need more practice with drawing lines (support, resistance, trendlines, supply and demand lines). I been gone from the ES Chart for months working in the field.

One question for you, how do I add Market Profile (VAH, VAL, etc) to ThinkorSwim platform? I been trying to figure this out. I don't use indicators, emas, none of that stuff. All I want on my chart is price, lines, and Market Profile.

Thank you.

 

style/drawings/studies at top right of screen if you are looking at an es chart, click studies,add studies,go down to profiles,click and choose tpo or volume, spx has no volume so use the tpo

 

With paper trading, I insist that my clients track each trade's max drawdown. It's a very important metric.

Every trade you will ever make is going to be underwater at some point in it's lifecycle. If you can manage to paper trade for an extended period of time it is a much more fruitful exercise than simply back testing then going live because you are conditioning yourself to live ( or not to live ) with the volatility inherent in the markets you are trading and with the stop-loss levels that your system uses.

And please set your stop-loss levels at the time of trade entry.

I give my clients a couple of different spreadsheets to choose from which were designed expressly to track paper or sim trade performance metrics.

 

Thank you ammo,

Can I see Daily Value Areas and Volumn Profile on the ES chart as well when I perfor the action you sent me?

Thank you

 

Thank you bone, I appreciate your help.

I have already conqured the stop-loss levels, I sat them at time of entry and move to trade management.

I trade real time day to day with rules. Lots of people say "trading paper is not real emotions", but let me tell you if you are serious about making real money and you have a certain metric performance to meet before you can go live, the serious person will be discipline to reach those performance metrics.

Few questions for you please

1. Can you please share the spread sheet so I can track my performance metrics?

2. When do you allow your clients to move to live (real money) trading?

3. When do you send them back to paper trading after trading live?

Thanks