Exactly, and you are asking a lot of yourself to get it right over and over again, quickly, using the 60 moment chart. I suspect your account size might be the limiting factor. If it is, you will find it very difficult to take the longer intraday moves, because the looser stop means bigger losses. And bigger losses to a small account will wreak havoc on your psyche. Hopefully I am mistaken and you have plenty of dough to trade with. If that is the case, then the suggestions about trading for the bigger move are what you need.
started trading 9 months ago ... contrary to most of the traders, i've started to learn about psychology ~ trade execution and moneymanagement, both being totally new to me and often suggested as most important; that's why i did a lot of small trades and learned to deal with my major problem i.e. taking stops; also have put a lot of effort on my tradingjournal i.e have learned my weaknesess as a trader; now i would like to get into further detail of developping a tradingsystem that i would like to keep as simple as possible; so far, it's based on s/r levels, yesterday's & today's H,L,C, weekly H,L,C; i use apart from price, volume, MA's,regression channels and ATR (volatiliy); divergences between S&P and other indices; also looking for a stochastic ... paulus
Nice work on the psychology component. You didn't mention the $ component, which is totally your business and not mine. It sure seems like you are looking at a lot of things to help you capture 1-2 points on the ES. I don't daytrade very much, and now never the ES. It required too much focus for me when I did it last year and trading was not nearly as enjoyable. I trade stocks and shoot for the trend using a simple price crossing a popular average method for entry and stop loss. There are some excellent threads on 30 minute breakout trading. Also there are some threads on ma crossover methods. I have a thread on trading the 15 min 200 sma for stocks. Other than trading extreme breaks bar to bar, it doesn't get much more simple than the 15/200.
I don't like it any better than you, but 10 trades is one handle. So trade once for every ten you are now trading and add 1 handle to the stop and as many as you dare to the target. There's not a system out there that if you trade without stops you will eventually get wiped out. So if you trade without a target you will eventually have a big winner. At some point you are going to look in that p/l window and say, "Man, that's a lot of money!" and that is my good place for taking a profit." All the mistakes are made in the head. That's when you somehow think the trade you are in is different from all the others, and this one must be cut short, or exited before the stop is hit. ( I think we're all well past pulling the stop.)
The issue is really this: why start out with targeting 1-2 pts in the first place? Hopefully you're not targeting smaller moves just because there is a greater occurrence of smaller moves during the day -- that is just an "illusion of opportunity". The way you learn to catch larger moves is the same way you learn to catch a single point -- just sit and watch the market, day in, day out. The only difference is in what you're looking for -- finding the larger moves is akin to squinting your eyes and letting the 1-2 point moves blur away into noise, and waiting patiently for those bigger moves to show themselves. They don't occur as often, but there are patterns to watch for on larger time frames. Do realize this: the players going for the bigger swings often watch for the same things those scalping for single points are watching -- only the first group might use those moments to enter the trade in the opposite direction. For example, you mention using S/R levels or yesterday's highs and lows as entry points; S/R level breaks provide great entries in the same directionif you are going for just a point or 2 (the mere run on the stops will probably net you that much). However, S/R levels are very difficult to use if you are trying to expand your targets -- you almost always see your first 2 points evaporate as those broken levels are retested. The better risk/reward trade for those seeking to capture a large and immediate move is to fade those breaking stops, rather than chase them -- the trend lately on almost all time frames (intraday, daily, weekly) is for the market to lunge in one direction before making a prolonged move the opposite way. On the other hand, I often see S/R levels as targets that I want to reach while in a trade, meaning I try to be long or short well before it reaches that critical point -- the fact that a level has broken or not never changes my bullish/bearishness -- I stay long, short, or neutral before and during the break. How the market behaves after the move, however, is a different story entirely. I'm not here to say that one way to trade is better than the other (okay, maybe I do lean towards one direction ), just that raising your targets isn't a matter of "trying harder" or "doing more", it most likely involves trading in a manner completely opposite to what you may be doing now. If you're comfortable with tight and quick trades, by all means stick with that, but just be careful when you start to think that you can go for more, you may need to change your stripes completely. Good Luck!