Like in anything it helps to have realistic goals. For those that have goals set: 1) Do you have a daily or weekly goal in terms of money earned or percentage gained? 2) Is it based on percentage or a dollar amount? 3) If you don't mind, how much capital are you working with, and if it's leveraged, how much? 4) How often do you hit your goals? To be fair, I'll throw out my thoughts... I'm shooting for 1% per day of my total capital. If I don't feel the vibe, I sit on the sidelines so there's a lot of days where I have zero trades. On days I do trade I'm somewhere in the .5 - 2% range. I feel very fortunate the current market fits my trading style. I'm waiting for the wheels to fall off. Thanks.
First off my background. I'm a college student with a job I work at about 25-35 hours a week. I work at home and my classes dont start until after 1pm so I can trade for the full market day. My trading account started out at about $26K back in July. I'm at Scottrade(yeah I know) and I work mostly in the $5-$15 range so my margin req is 35%. I try not to set goals for the day. I used to have a daily $ goal but i think it gave me more pressure than I wanted. That being said I like to make about $500 a week. I see it more as a target to keep a smooth equity curve than a hard goal that I need to make. Now I have also moved from daytrading to swing trading and so far I'm up nicely. So far my trading has paid for my first quarter and it looks like winter quarter has been taken care of courtesy CPST. Percentage and dollar goals are good for some but I dont particularly care to wake up Friday and think I need to make up for a slow week by overtrading.
Congratulations on your outstanding discipline. Too many, I think consider the markets like an electronic Las Vegas and trade solely for the 'action'. You'll go far in this business with that type of selective attitude, imho.