Some thoughts

I mentioned in the comments section that I still have room for improvement with my system. Particularly, I need to do a better job of entering trades that give me a signal according to my rules/style. Right now, I'm entering anywhere between 55-65% of the trades that present themselves to me. I'd like to get that up to 90% and that is a number I believe is achievable. Why don't I enter all the trades I see? Well, can't sum it up with one answer but I believe the following factors come into play:

-fear of losing more money if I'm wrong on an entry (especially if I'm already down for the day)
-fear of messing up my current profit (especially if I'm doing well on the day)
-fear of being flat out wrong

This past week was a good example. Overall, I did ok and ok will pay the bills. I like my system right now and I plan on increasing my risk per trade very soon in order to truly reap the benefits. However, this week I only entered 66% of the trades that presented themselves to me. Of the trades I decided not to enter for one reason or another, that represented and additional 4R in profit. That may not sound like much... but for me, it's money that should be in my pocket. The difference between paying the bills and living well. These are the things that grind in my mind every single day. Of course, I do realize that - in the end - I am profitable and that does mean a lot. Daytrading is not an easy career and, except for Thursday (thank God for Thursday), this week proved it.

So, there's a couple of other things I'm going to do to improve my system. The first is to exit off the 5-min timeframe (when price crosses above the 5ema). This may change, but I have found this exit method to be more profitable in the long run than exiting off the :15. I WILL stick to this. Secondly, I will also pay more attention to NR7 bars that form near the 61.8 or 38.2 levels (especially if they're inside bars), regardless of whether there's increased volume from the previous bar. I think this will add a few more candidates every week that should really pay off.

Finally, it's so encouraging to see traders become successful. In particular, Prospectus over at movethemarkets.com have had some really good days lately along with TraderBubs. I've followed these guys for the past year and have been there when they haven't been doing well and it's great to see them doing so well. I know that this week has probably meant the world to them... a sign of possible things to come and a potential career that will certainly reward the time they've put into the research and chart analysis. I mean, Prospectus made like 20R in one day... incredible. For me... it's steady as we go. My goal is to constantly make 6.3R per week, for 46 weeks. If I can get into 90% of the trades that present themselves in my system... I can easily surpass that every week.