[jasont]

It is good to see a number of points brought up which were not being discussed. Why are traders of the belief that once they achieve their target they must stop? There are many things one can do upon reaching a daily target depending on one's ultimate objective.

For those not wanting to spend their whole day trading or cannot concentrate for 6.5 hours per day, they may choose to end the day after reaching their target.

Someone else may wish to reach their daily target and then start the day again as though they hadn't made a dime and input their max drawdown size etc as if it was a fresh day.

Someone else may wish to cut size traded for the rest of the day, someone else may wish to increase size for the rest of the day.

What one does after they reach their target is completely up to them but it does not need to mean one stops trading which is the choice everyone seems to think is the only one.

Again I must re-iterate what one pulls out of the market isn't determined by the market itself. Why is it people think to make more money they need to make more points per contract?

[zdo]

Harlequin re “Your trading style and personality will have an influence on whether or not daily goals are suitable for you.
If you have a style that offers many signals a day then a daily goal can help to stop over trading and loss of focus or concentration.
If your style is to wait for the market to come to predefined levels then sometimes the market will not offer you an opportunity to trade and when it does the market will decide how much you make not the goal you set yourself.” I agree and here is some expansion about the type of system being important as to whether daily goals are advisable or not. If one is trading a trend following system, it is categorically imperative to stay for the outlier profits. Trend followers must go for absolute returns, not benchmarks! But, for example, a discretionary swing trader who must also more carefully manage / mangle his or her ‘sychological’ capital (see Denise’s posts), might be advised to at least consider daily $ targets during some parts of his own or his systems' development.

Basically, every type of trading has its axioms and platitudes. Unfortunately, beginners get slammed with all of them at once, instead of having them matched with the (usually unspoken) type of system the advisor is basing his suppositions on.

jasont re “Why is it people think to make more money they need to make more points per contract? ” One possible part of the answer is that most traders, especially those that post on forums, operate under sizing constraints. Single lots, which imo is the most difficult, inflexible way to trade, is what makes them think that way…

[aidaweb01]

When I started out trading I figured I needed targets. Initially I figured 5.9% per month would be a great target, because, when compounded, I would double my money year on year. I hit this target a couple of times and then I used to stop trading and do something else. The next month I wouldn't make the target and so I figured I needed to re-adjust the following months target in order to catch-up.

When I realized that setting these sorts of defined targets didn't work for me, I found a weight was lifted from my shoulders. I'm still working on it, but without targets, my trading is now much more consistent and it feels a lot easier.

Targets work for some, but for others it adds a pressure that they can do without.

[electroniclocal]

By setting daily targets you are trying to predict the volatility of the market. I set my working hours and take what the market gives, remembering of course, that every time I trade, I assume risk.

[traderpsyches]

Agree -it is a great disservice of many educators too teach defined goals in the way that they do. They leave out what the mkt is giving, the need for judgment and the fact that numerical goals r really a psychological mechanism to be used judiciously and consciously.

DKS