bone, Good post. I can respect and understand you reasoning with this as well. At times, I want to use a profit target and let the trade go to that target and just sit back wait. But the problem with hard profit targets is knowing where to take profits and most traders do not know this or feel comfortable waiting for it to hit.
I agree with @dozu888 on this. We are trading meaningless noise. Otherwise, there would be no need for stops.
Think it depends on duration of winning trades, if very long term, once it gets to "BE", no touching till reversal. If couple days do 2 lot, one for target and other let ride till time to reverse. Don't have to reverse, but good area to get out. If getting out intraday, targets and wide trailing.
Well, we’re swing trading. And there’s a reason for that. Furthermore - we’re trading inter and intra market spreads NOT outright flat price. And there’s a probability based reason for that. IMHO the only way to “day trade” modern markets without automation and a very high performance ECN is to be very selective and take only a few high percentage shots per day. If you’ve got a mouse in your hand and you’re staring at an order book all day - you’re better off taking a couple shots with size than trading 200 round turns per session. The idea is to build account equity.
There are two best uses for the micro market: 1. For a modestly capitalized trader to learn how to swing trade, and 2. To test an automated strategy in a live market Mere mortals are not going to manually scalp 100 round turns per day with a mouse and survive much less build account equity. You’re competing with Tower and DRW and Jump and Citadel and Peak 6 and Geneva and on and on... Big $$$$ automation, Big $$$$ ECNs, Big $$$$ data mining and algorithms.
Yeah, if you’re an independent who’s scalping and day trading with a mouse - that is the longest of long shots. Best of luck with that. And there was a time in my own past when I would trade a few hundred thousand Eurex and LIFFE Round Turns per month. Day trading. Stupid size.