SPECIAL EDUCATION INCARCERATION

Start Small – Set a Weekly Goal for Only ONE Contract. When day trading futures, options, or forex, you can use leverage and trade multiple contracts on a rather small account. If you are thinking about trading the futures market, then you can easily find a broker who will enable you to trade one contract of almost any futures instrument that is our there – such as e-mini S&P, e-mini Russell, currency futures, interest rates, commodities, etc. – on a $2,000 account.

I teach my students to set a weekly goal of $300 per contract. So, if you want to make $3,000 per week, then you need to trade ten contracts. It’s possible that your broker might agree to let you trade ten contracts with $20,000 in your trading account, but if he won’t – or if you don’t have $20,000 in your account at the moment – don’t worry. Just stick with me, and I’ll show you how to get there.

How to Achieve Your Weekly Goal. The key element to trading success is having a sound trading strategy, and it must be one that works effectively in a variety of markets. You will dramatically increase your chances of success in trading if you’re able to trade in multiple markets. Now, understand that when I say “multiple markets,” I do NOT mean different types of currencies! This is a common misconception. What I’m talking about is TRUE diversification, which means watching the two U.S. Stock Index markets, one or two currency markets, commodities like the grains, interest rates, and/or a foreign index market, all at the same time. Here at Rockwell Trading Inc., we teach our students to watch six different markets every single day.

Another obvious key factor is profits; to achieve your weekly goal, you’ll ideally have a high average of wins per trade. It goes without saying that your average win should be at least 50% higher than your average loss, preferably even twice as high.

• The strategies that I use and teach call for a profit target of $300 per contract and a stop loss of $200 per contract. You’ll notice that the profit target is greater than the stop loss. That’s the beauty of it: all you’ll need is one win, and you’ll have achieved your weekly goal of making $300 per contract. ONE WIN!
• Just as an FYI, this is why “scalping” is so much more difficult. Most scalpers try to make $10 - $20 per trade, so you would need 15 – 30 wins per week to achieve your weekly goal. Which do YOU think is easier? Making one profitable trade or trying to make 15-30 profitable trades?
• “Sounds Good, But What About Losses?” As everyone in trading knows, losses are a part of the business, and you can’t avoid them. If that’s something you have trouble accepting, then you’re in the wrong industry. However, there’s a huge difference between losing big on a regular basis and losing small in a controlled trading plan. Our trading strategies assume a certain amount of loss, and we prepare our students accordingly. You already know that you should keep your losses small; we simply teach you how to keep them smaller that your average wins.

Let’s go back to the scenario I mentioned above: you have a trading strategy that produces $300 in profits for every win and costs you $200 for every loss. Now, if your weekly goal is $300, and if your first trade was a loss of $200, then you need to make two winning trades to achieve that weekly profit goal.

• Let me take this a little farther and actually break it down for you: you’ve lost $200 on your one losing trade, and then you make $600 on your two wining trades ($300 each). Your net profit = $400. Goal achieved. It’s as simple as that.

Of course, you’re not always guaranteed a week with only one loss. Let’s look at a week that started off with three losses. With three losses, you are now down $600 ($200 each). So, how many wins do you need to have before you achieve your weekly profit goal of $300? Three wins. Just three wins will result in $900 ($300 each). Subtract the $600 you lost on the losing trades from the $900 you won on the winning trades, and your resulting net profit is $300. Goal achieved. Again, simple as that.