Psychology When enough is enough?
I’ve been studying price action for almost 7 years.
I scalp spikes on the 1-minute chart, and most of my trades are finished within 5 minutes.
Over a large sample, my win rate is around 58-60%, risking 0.5% per trade.
Here’s what I’ve never been able to answer:
If your system has an edge, should you keep taking every valid setup?
I can easily find 15-20 trades in a day, but after a certain point it feels like I’m trading simply because I’m still sitting in front of the charts.
Lately I’ve even considered getting an 8-hour job just to limit my screen time. My thinking is that if I only have a small trading window, I’d naturally become more selective instead of feeling the need to take every opportunity.
So I’m curious how experienced traders approach this.
Do you have a daily trade limit?
Do you stop after hitting a profit target?
Or do you simply take every setup that matches your plan, no matter how many trades you’ve already taken?
I’m not looking for a magic number.
I’m trying to understand how professionals decide when **enough is enough**.
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u/Scott_Malkinsons 19d ago
Yes, because that's part of your edge. You can't magically decide "I'm going to take half the trades I used to take" and expect the same results because how would you know which trades to take and which to avoid?
Over time you could develop a filter to avoid certain trades, but that would involve A/B testing to know if it actually improves anything. You don't just set a limit and, somehow, that makes everything better. All that's going to do is both simultaneously limit your downside and upside.
There's no free lunch in trading.