On each trade, how much are you willing to risk and what’s your target profit? Many successful day traders risk less than 1% to 2% of their accounts per trade.  This means if you have $50,000 in funds in your trading account and you are willing to risk 1% of your capital on each trade, your maximum loss per trade is $500 (0.1 x $50,000). As an important side note, if you lose 3% in 1 day, you should stop trading for the day. You are clearly not in the right head space or not having a good day. Tomorrow is a new day! “Personally I like to have a 2:1 risk to reward ratio” Daniel Pessin said. “This way if you lose 2 times, and win 1 time, you should be about even.” Of course the goal is to win more than you lose though.