Why did you trade up to four? Did you lay them on one at a time, as you liked a trade better and better? Did you average up or down? Or did you simply like some trades to begin with more than others? I doubt you over-traded in terms of frequency. At $5.00 per contract round turns, I have spent thousands of dollars in a day on commissions, you really can just go nuts.


And I don't think you should worry about not letting profits run just yet. I think it is actually more valuable, as you are developing a style and fishing for a niche, to be constantly taking tiny trades everywhere, rather than riding individual trades indefinitely, like an emotional rollercoaster.


It's much easier to develop a statistical sample of something that happens quickly a great many times. It is only by doing it a thousand times, that you will really get a feel for where you should let them run.


Most smart, well-capitalized people leave the little warbles to the little guys, so if you can beat them, you can grow your strategy out into something longer term from these seeds. Even if you can already predict a 4-hour move based on something everybody else is missing or not reading quite right, there's really almost no way to know if you are not getting lucky.


Also, don't get too used to thinking game selection isn't important. When you haven't really sorted out yet what makes a game good, and therefore you can't sort between them, it may seem that way.


Other than that, I am surprised at how good what you did sounds on the surface. You are already ahead of where 95% of people give up years before they even get to.


I guess the only thing I am tempted to caution is don't get caught in the counter-trend game, and be careful not to let the duration of your trades (or the size) start to grow.


Oh, more. Yesterday was a classic trend day, and the way I trade, and the way a lot of people trade, you can't help but catch it. So I would be angry at myself if I didn't catch that whole late down move. But by the same token, it's a very delicate business. You can guarantee yourself exposure to the entirety of every large move by buying whenever it starts to go up, or selling as soon as it starts to go down, and hanging on. But on most days you will get chopped to bits if you don't have a little more texture than that.


But so far as "a lot" of people trading that trend, look at the two counter-trend "tails" in the afternoon, one into 3:37, and one into the close. You can get a very good idea of the ambient population of trend traders from the size, and intensity, of these types of tails.


Finally, the way I usually measure my profits is how many points I made relative to the day's range. I'm shooting for a 1 - meaning 15 points on a day with a 15-point range - but I rarely get there. If I do better than a 1, I know I got lucky If my commissions are as high as a third of my profits, I am usually a little disappointed, but when you fish you use bait.


If you get a 1, I would say you over-exposed yourself. Don't shoot for a 1. You can make a fortune trading only once every several days. I did best when I lived in California, and my most important outer decision was whether or not even to go into the office. I rarely went in on Mondays - because the market hadn't screwed people's minds around enough yet - and I basically knew on what days my special counter-trend trades might set up, or not, before trading even began for the day.


But what I would recommend is sticking to scalping small trends, and performing this type of sit-it-out discretion in regard to whole weeks or months or seasons to be trading or not. If you have a computer in your house and time on your hands, it can be tough not to let your entertainment trading get out of hand, I imagine. Having a 15-minute drive is the best thing that ever inserted itself into my mtehodology. But maybe I'm just projecting


eLROY