Hi Peter B,
I'm developing a strategy that fits my personality and methods. The strategy is based on the 5-min ORB. After back-testing the strategy, I found 1.5R profit was my sweet-spot.
At 1.5R profit, a 40% win-rate is break-even and a 50% win-rate is my target; with an expectation of about a 60% win-rate.
A 50% win-rate returns 0.25R profit per trade. A 60% win-rate returns 0.50R profit per trade. For myself (a beginning day-trader) the conservative 1.5R/R reduces the "pressure".
I expect to increase the win/loss ratio once I'm better at picking the right stocks to trade. (my back-test yielded a 63% win-rate)
This "conservative" strategy fits my personality, methods, and goals.
In the past I was swing trading successfully using an extremely conservative method. A friend of mine, who's been trading much longer than I, said, "but you're leaving so much money on the table!" So I let him get in my head and I changed my strategy... and turned a winning strategy into a losing one that I was unable to bring myself to "reset" to my original strategy.
I don't need to make a "killing", only this steady ROI to meet my targets.
All the best,
Russell Landwehr