That's a slippery and dangerous slope, bud. If I think about how much I left on the table every day, then I would start concentrating on it, and chasing. I know this because it happened to me when I started out. Nowadays I'm happy with what I take out. Psychologically, it's better for me not to think about it. This is not a game for a person to maximize. That is a normal job. This is not normal. Then again, that's just me and my .02
To clarify I am using the term 'points' to mean 'cents' in CL. Ten points = ten cents. One CL contract making 10 points = $100. And 200 points in the example I gave equals 16% of the days maximum. Pal, you are in the category of can't know or don't want to know. Its a free world.
I keep such stats. I assumed most successful traders do, as well. Knowledge is power? If all days could be like yesterday, I would average > 200 points...
Some have alluded to it in this thread but I'd like to be more specific. I currently trade a strategy that has 90% wins, but has a rr ratio before stops of 9 to 1. That means one bad trade can wipe out a lot of successful ones. I am currently developing the elements of a strategy that has a rr ratio before stops of 1:2 to 1:4 but only has a 40% to 60% win rate. That means that I have on average 50% winners but the results of the winners are larger than the losers. A completely different kind of experience. Part of the choice is your management skill set and your tolerance for emotional highs and lows of these two different trading strategies with their different profiles.
I kept track of all the swings for a while & know how much there is out there to capture, but for some reason it doesn't seem real easy to capture them. If you're wrong on 1 or 2 trades to start the day then you have to capture a couple swings just to breakeven & then be right on the next one if you want to get ahead. So if one guy knows all the metrics of the market, and another guy doesn't it doesn't really matter. The guy who's more accurate & the better gambler is going to have the most money at the end of the day regardless of whether or not he knows how much is available.
Interestingly, you refer to Monday June 13 (2011) where in CL the price gyrations provided even turnarounds between successive swings, thus helping to facilitate clear reverses from upswing to the following downswing (and vice versa). I am encouraged that in this thread there are a few who tally what the market daily offers in maximum points. From studying this you can construct, eventually, better answers for more accurately taking a greater amount from the daily pot. A player should not be intimidated by the fact that he or she is leaving behind the great majority of what the market (eg CL) offers each day. But where is the contribution from others who may talk the talk about their success and don't look at the maximum a market offers? Lets consider scales of performance set against the maximum a market daily offers. The only purpose of ET is to achieve progress. So taking CL, to capture 40 to 65%+ of the daily maximum is expert, top level play. You are rich. You know the architecture of price. You have an intimate understanding and long experience of how price works and how to use it. If you can take, on average, a portion of the maximum anywhere between 40 and 15% per day you are an excellent player. You too are rich. Now if you can take around 10% you are doing very well and can make yourself rich. What does that translate to in average net points per day? It would be roughly 100 points net per day. But you need to conserve all (or most) of your gains in order to increase your position play, progressively, from the minimum of one contract. Finally lets consider the lowest tier of performance. Here you may simply be learning and improving. But even doing around 100 points net per week would put you on the road to your dreams. Bear in mind, though, you have to conserve your net gains to allow, gradually, increasing your position size play.