I'll be journaling my trade method here, which I've traded live for over a year and practiced for a year before that. It's a very simple trend following system using just a couple technical indicators. It is not day trading. Invariably many of my trades last only a day, sometimes only a few minutes, but a good trade will last maybe several days, maybe longer. I don't have a profit objective when I enter a trade. My objective is basically as much as I can get. I do use a trailing stop and move it to follow the market when it's going my way. I use a weighted moving average, which is the same for all trades and markets, combined with a bar chart anywhere from 15-30 minutes depending on the market. More volatile markets get shorter time intervals. I look for closes above/below the WMA to initiate long/short positions. I risk $500 per contract, per trade. As soon as an order is filled I'll set my stop. For instance one market that I trade a lot is soybeans. One penny of movement in soybeans is $50 profit or loss, so when I initiate a position I'll place my stop at ten cents, or $500. Ditto for corn, which I also trade. These two are the only markets that I regularly trade, but in the past I've traded many others the same way. Natrual gas, gold, s&p, and any of the major currencies. It works with all of them. With more volatile markets like gold or crude oil, I'd risk $1000 per trade.
Ok, first trade. Overnight Nov soybeans gave a buy signal at 1750. Yesterday I had a buy at 1730, then got stopped out overnight at 1740 for a 10-cent profit. The market went down to 1735, then set up for a new buy at 1750. So I'm currently long from 1750 w/stop working 1740: