OK, so you hit your daily goal. Do you stop trading or keep going? I'm really at a loss about the best way to handle this. Some days I keep going and do very well, and some... TIA for ideas. Ansare
Daily goal? Whats the point of this, you'll never get better if you stop at some arbitrary goal. Keep going, taking each setup as it comes. If none come into your systems parameters just sit and wait.
How is crying an appropriate course of action in this case? If you just hit your daily goal, start over. Pretend your day just started and you're back even. If your trading is generally profitable, you may as well squeeze as many "days" into your year as possible.
a daily goal works great for some people. trading from home gets mighty boring after 7 hours, and i find its harder later in the day unless you are scalping tics. Just increase your size and goal as you grow. If you are really consistent, like say 4 out of 5 days per week, you will eventually get really rich without the boredom. i personally can't make money every day, but i had 2 friends at bright about 10 years ago that made money every single day, and called it a day when the goal was met. These guys made big money (by my standards anyway).
If you're hitting your goal and then losing, the problem is not related to goal setting but to your strategy's performance in dfiferent times of day. It's best to take every setup, though if your setups fail after 11:30 except on highly volatile days, obviously you should stop... or risk less capital learning to trade different setups in different times. What I do though, is tighten up. If my goal is $1000 and I hit it, I don't want to see $850 or less on my screen - when I do, I quit.
Just because it is called day trading, there is no rule that says one must trade all day, every day. I do not have a daily goal, but my goal is to earn 500 points ES every 500 trades. If I trade the ten-year or crude (rarely) if ES seems dead, I adjust. 3 ticks ZN = 4 ticks ES = 5 cents CL If I HAD a daily goal, I wouldn't quit just because I reached it (can't imagine Michael Jordan calling it a day because he reached his "goal" of 40 points), and I would not necessarily feel badly if I did not make the goal. You cannot tap oil from a dry well--some days are just not volatile enough to pull out some arbitrary amount of profits. I would be reluctant to quit early unless there was a good reason (plans, time with family, time for fun, afternoon delight, etc). Even with the VIX down, the markets are more volatile than they were for years, when the S&P some days wouldn't move eight points full circle. Who knows how long it will last?
Thanks for the many interesting replies. Fascinating how many different takes there are on this. Wish I could say "THAT'S the one that makes the most sense for me," but everybody had good points. I thought the most thought-provoking reply was the one about doing the same thing as when you hit your max daily loss.