{"id":40852,"date":"2015-07-05T05:22:10","date_gmt":"2015-07-05T12:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brookstradingcourse.com\/?p=40852"},"modified":"2019-05-19T22:30:43","modified_gmt":"2019-05-20T05:30:43","slug":"going-for-points-vs-structured-good-trades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brookstradingcourse.com\/pt-br\/ask-al\/going-for-points-vs-structured-good-trades\/","title":{"rendered":"Ask Al: Going for Points vs Structured Good Trades"},"content":{"rendered":"

BPA trading room Q&A: May 8, 2015<\/h2>\n

How many points would you say a beginner should shoot for in a day and in a month? On average, how many are you able to make in a month, looking at what is realistic?
\n[Slang info: To “make your nut” is to break even, anything beyond that is profit. Historically, the ‘nut’ is thought to refer to the wheels of a wagon or carriage; when a carnival or circus set up in a town, officials would take a nut from the carriage wheel to prevent the performers from leaving without settling outstanding bills.]<\/p>\n

Audio duration: 4min 34sec \u2014 Scroll down for image
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Audio transcript<\/h2>\n

Going for points vs structured good trades<\/h3>\n

\"Ask<\/a><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t look at it in terms of that. We hear traders sometimes talk about my nut \u2013 what is my nut? Did I make my nut today? Traders know what an average day for them is, and every trader is different. And for some traders, it might be two or three points; other traders, it might be 10 points; some traders, it might be 15 or 20 points. And everybody has a different expectation of what average is for them. And if you\u2019re starting out, I would never be thinking about points because points is another word for money, and if you\u2019re thinking about money, you\u2019re gonna mess up and you\u2019re gonna lose money.<\/p>\n

What I would be thinking about as a beginner is \u201cDid I take a trade that made sense? Did I manage it properly? What would I have done differently? Did I get out too early? Did I get in too early? Did I get out too late?\u201d Those would be the things that I would be thinking about. I would not be thinking about \u201cDo I really need to make three points today?\u201d Because if you start focusing in on profit targets and goals, you\u2019ll be so consumed by making a certain amount of money that you\u2019ll end up missing trades that you should be taking, you\u2019ll end up taking trades that you should not be taking, and you\u2019ll lose money.<\/p>\n

I think that it\u2019s much better to focus on doing the right thing. You can pretty much buy or sell anytime during the day. Ninety percent of the bars of the day are in channels or in a trading range. And when that\u2019s the case, you can buy or sell if you could scale in and manage your trades correctly. Ten percent of the bars of the day look like this: a strong break up. You have a strong break out here, and then we have a strong break out here. So of the 81 bars that we look at right here, we have three or four strong break out bars, and then 75 trading range or channel bars.<\/p>\n

Trade management<\/h3>\n

With trading range and channel bars, you have a lot of flexibility if you manage your trade<\/strong> correctly. You can pretty much buy or sell \u2014 at any time \u2014 if you manage your trade correctly<\/a>. And even if you sold down here [bar 8] and sold more up here [bar 30], you would have gotten out with a small profit. Even if you bought up here [bar 29\/30] and bought more down here [bar 60-62], you would have gotten out with a profit. So to me, the focus should be much more on how do I structure a trade, and then once I\u2019m in the trade, how I manage the trade. And that should be your only thought all day long. And never look back and say, \u201cOh, I messed up or lost money. I got to make up that lost money.\u201d No, you \u2014 you don\u2019t do that. You just try to stay calm, stay peaceful, be respectful of yourself, accept that you\u2019re not perfect, that you\u2019re going to make mistakes, and that\u2019s just part of trading, and don\u2019t dwell on it. Just accept that it\u2019s going to happen, and just try to make yourself better.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just like how you should be in life in general. You should always be trying to make yourself better in every way, try to become a better person. And you\u2019ll be happier. The people around you will be happier. With trading \u2013 same thing \u2013 just focus on doing the right thing and don\u2019t have any regrets. As long as you\u2019re trying hard, you should expect nothing more than just trying to be good \u2013 just trying to do the right thing.<\/p>\n

How many points a day?<\/h3>\n

So, in terms of the number of points, really good traders, a lot of times, think about points in terms of an average day\u2019s range. So one trader might take more swings and fewer trades, might say, \u201cOkay, the average range is 12 points. I usually try to make about half of an average day\u2019s range in a day.\u201d Another trader might say, \u201cI scalp like crazy and the average day\u2019s range is 12 points \u2014 I usually try to make one-and-a-half to two times the average day\u2019s range in a day.\u201d<\/p>\n

And I think a trader could be thinking about it anywhere in that range. However, as I said, I don\u2019t know of any successful trader who\u2019s thinking, \u201cOh, my gosh, I got to make $3,000 today, or I got to make $5,000 today.\u201d Traders \u2014 all they think about is \u201cDid I manage that trade correctly?\u201d and that should be the focus. \u201cWhere is my stop? Where is a reasonable target? If it\u2019s not performing the way that I want it to perform, how do I get out? Do I get out now? Do I give it more time?\u201d And you never know with certainty, at any time, whether or not what you\u2019re doing is right, but you just rely on your read, you trust your read, and you don\u2019t worry if you lose money. The reality is you\u2019re going to lose money. Some of the time, you read wrong or the market takes a low probability path. You are right in your read that it most likely was going to do X and instead it did Y, and that\u2019s okay. That\u2019s just part of trading.<\/p>\n

Al Brooks<\/em><\/p>\n

Information on Al’s Online day trading room<\/a><\/p>\n

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BPA trading room Q&A: May 8, 2015 How many points would you say a beginner should shoot for in a day and in a month? On average, how many are you able to make in a month, looking at what is realistic? [Slang info: To “make your nut” is to break even, anything beyond that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[159],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-40852","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ask-al","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail","9":"override"},"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"BTC Admin","author_link":"https:\/\/www.brookstradingcourse.com\/pt-br\/author\/richardhk\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brookstradingcourse.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brookstradingcourse.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brookstradingcourse.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brookstradingcourse.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brookstradingcourse.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.brookstradingcourse.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40852\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brookstradingcourse.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brookstradingcourse.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brookstradingcourse.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}