When people start on their trading education, they dream of earning a large amount of pips every day – I have emails arriving every week asking how to take hundreds of points out of the market on a daily basis.

But all you really need is a small daily target that you hit most of the time, it’s not essential every day and the way the markets move, you’ll not always reach your stated daily points.   As you may know, my daily target is just 20 pips, and if you hit this amount most of the time, you’ll double your trading account every 3 to 4 months, month after month, year after year.

Having this small target has an even more important relevance for a new trader.  It takes away the pressure of striving to earn large amounts of money (pips) every day, so allowing your trading to be much more relaxed – and that will impact on your psychology and how you view your trading.  You simply cannot trade effectively if you’re under stress to earn too many pips during every trading session.