First Trade Results

I started using the system in my real account yesterday by buying SPXU in after hours trading for 22.83 or so. It's up 1% at 23.06 pre-market already so I'm taking profits around 8:45 AM EST. My decision to exit is based solely on my profit targets being a modest 0.5% or so. When that's met, I'm generally going to walk away. It may not seem like much, but I'm trying to aim for small and consistent gains rather than huge gains. A 1% gain for me is more than enough to live on considering how much I invested -- practically an "all-in" position. I was fortunate to buy it after the market went a few points higher in after hours giving me an even better entry than the closing price at 22.98.

I might re-enter this position later today if I so choose. For example, I know that the odds favor a down close, so if the market recovers off this gap down and moves into positive territory, I could re-enter my position and hold into the close based on the odds. Will I do that? I'm not sure. My profit targets have been met and trading hasn't even started, so maybe it's best to just walk away. I'll let you know what I do. The beauty of this system is that I know at the end of the day that there will be another trade to make, and this will happen every day. Not many systems give you a trade every day and a good chance at making money. The fact that this works well, works every day and is a robotic trading system (at least for when to enter a position) makes it very appealing to me as a way to make a constant stream of income, assuming it continues to work.

Exit Rationale:

This is why exited my position pre-market.

1. Profit objective of 0.5% was met (actually a 1% gain)
2. A small gap down is likely to be filled. I don't want to assume the market gaps down and runs away. 
3. I'm a bit jittery about starting with the system in real trades, so I'll take it off now to get this thing off to a good start. My comfort level will build the more I do well with it.
4. I can always re-enter the position if the market moves into positive territory and hold to the close.

These are the conditions where I wouldn't have exited:

1. I wouldn't have exited if the market had a large gap down since that would afford me a cushion to put in a stop to lock in gains and just let the trade run its course and potentially make more money.
2. I wouldn't have exited if the market had a gap up since I was sort of expecting that based on the odds yesterday. This system requires you to hold to the close even if the trade is working against you, assuming the stop level of 1.5% on the index never is hit.