First of all let me qualify, I'm not a FX trader, I trade interest rate futures professionally at a large firm so take what you will from this.
This is what I preach to my guys: forget PnL (obviously still manage your risk and what you can afford to lose, i'm referring to profit goals), especially daily pnl goals when you're starting out. Its crazy to do so and i'll explain why.
1. If you were taking up a sport, pool for example (sorry this is the only sport I have some knowledge of), you don't start by going to a pool hall and start doing cash games. You train, deliberately practice your skill, you do some shooting drills, shape drills etc. Now in between these training session maybe you have a casual match at the local hall, but most likely you'd get destroyed. You would however look at that match and learn from it and be better next time. You're not concerning yourself about how to win yet. The same is for trading, the first year or two your main goal is about learning and improving your skill. Now unfortunately there's no practice ground for trading as demo trading does not allow you to develop emotional skills necessary for trading but you can limit your losses to very small.
2. Your PnL goals should at the very least be monthly, I personally use quarterly. Having daily pnl's can both make you 'chase' a target when the opportunity is not there or stop once you've reached your arbitrary target. Trading is about spotting opportunities (edge if you will) and taking full advantage of it, the market isn't some orderly system that gives out a specific number of opportunities a day. My month often comes down to several big days.
This is what I preach to my guys: forget PnL (obviously still manage your risk and what you can afford to lose, i'm referring to profit goals), especially daily pnl goals when you're starting out. Its crazy to do so and i'll explain why.
1. If you were taking up a sport, pool for example (sorry this is the only sport I have some knowledge of), you don't start by going to a pool hall and start doing cash games. You train, deliberately practice your skill, you do some shooting drills, shape drills etc. Now in between these training session maybe you have a casual match at the local hall, but most likely you'd get destroyed. You would however look at that match and learn from it and be better next time. You're not concerning yourself about how to win yet. The same is for trading, the first year or two your main goal is about learning and improving your skill. Now unfortunately there's no practice ground for trading as demo trading does not allow you to develop emotional skills necessary for trading but you can limit your losses to very small.
2. Your PnL goals should at the very least be monthly, I personally use quarterly. Having daily pnl's can both make you 'chase' a target when the opportunity is not there or stop once you've reached your arbitrary target. Trading is about spotting opportunities (edge if you will) and taking full advantage of it, the market isn't some orderly system that gives out a specific number of opportunities a day. My month often comes down to several big days.
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