Lets use this thread to state some goals that we want to work towards in 2021. 1. I will have a 30K in a day net gain after all fees and commissions by end of 2021 2. average trade size double 3. Cut my losses much better 4. Expand into trading an emerging mkt 5. Hire a part time data person but consistent hours per week to run data 6. Automate parts of my strategy. it will not be full auto or anything like that
30k a day or for whole year? With what risk capital? Achieving Sharpe of 1-2, with less than 10% drawdown on my entire portfolio would be good for me. And no more fiddling with algo strategies that are stable and consistent. And enjoy the ride. Also, find ways to reduce costs and slippages.
no 30k in 1 day at some point in 2021 with less than 100k in the account and not a retirement account a trading account.
I won’t comment on your goals but the first part of your plan is excellent. You have a specific goal and a time frame to complete it in. It is very measurable and at the end of the year you’ll be able to report if you succeeded or not. I assume you have some actionable steps to be able to accomplish this goal. This one is a little less specific. It is measurable to you because you know your average trade size. A little less specific again. How are you going to measure better. Again very vague; What markets, when will you hire someone, what are you automating and by when? The thing with a plan is it should be specific, measurable and have a definite time frame. The 4th requirement is that it is reasonable and achievable.
The thread was more about people like yourself and me posting a trading goal not necessarily to critique everything and anything about others goals but do what you want but in the spirit of what you stated let's see your trading goals?
My trading goal is exactly the same as last year. My goal is to follow my trading plan exactly. I don't set a monetary goal because it is not something I can control. And such a goal would lead to possibly changing the way I trade. Before I enter any trade I know the answers to the following questions. What am I trading and why? How big a position I want to take? What price will I pay? Where will I exit? If I follow the plan exactly it is a successful trade. If I follow the plan exactly and lose money I consider it a successful trade with a bad outcome. I just plan for what I can control.
You brought up some good points but here is what I have found about daily trading over the years. Monetary goals. like a daily gain goal. I have gone back and forth with this and here is why. when i am down say 300 by lunch and i say ok. i am going to work my way out of it becausr i hate to lose by thr end of the day. i dont mind losing a trade but I hate being a loser at the close. my point is 90% of the time when i am digging my way out of a hole or trading losses i find that i usually get back to even. once you have an edge that is a great place to be but the edge is not always identical at every spot where you see it. if that was true then sizing up would be a no brainer quickly until your position size was big enough to reduce your edge. Position size does monitor your money gain or loss. i have a definite edge over 1000s of intraday trades. however that same edge at times made a point and sometimes it made 20. the problem is the variance of my edge returns which cannot be tweaked much because that is what the market takes or gives however to size up into my edge because the market dictates the points gained can be excessively risky because is the edge is not defined by every single trade being a winner or batting 100% so you must have lots of excess cash available when sizing up because you need to survive to get to you average net return of your edge. this can be expensive. Back to your post about money goals. if i am down say 60
im not sure what happened to my last post but my point is digging out of a loss of 300 or 200 or 50 bucks to even is actually setting a goal. my goal is to get back whatever the market took from me so far and to at least end the day with a scratch. this is in a way a form of goal setting with a monetary amount. i dont set monetary profit goals but lately after digging my way all the back from being down inam thinking they might help with my overall performance.
Sounds like we have 2 completely different trading styles. I rarely look at P&L when I’m trading. I’m not saying your strategy isn’t the best for you only that we are on different pages. Firstly, I swing trade stocks. My time frame is daily with a hold period of days to weeks. If I day-trade it’s because I got stopped out on the same day I entered the trade. I focus on specific set-ups and if they don’t appear; I don’t trade. I would be afraid if I was trying to get back to break-even I would take suboptimal set-ups increasing my risk. I accept losing trades and drawdowns as part of the process. I only need a win rate of 40% to make what I consider a decent return of 30% annually. I’d like to optimize the trading process; find the optimal trade size, risk reward, gain loss, and portfolio diversification for my style of trading but I’m so far from being able to define the criteria that I haven’t been able to set a goal with specific and measurable results. I’m working on it.