I can balance more than that, maybe up to 10, but honestly less is more and every time I've been in situations where I've had too many positions, I've always under performed. It sounds like you are mostly talking about day trade setups, however what happens to me is that I trade something, then sell 1/2 and 2/3 of the position and if it looks good I keep 1/3 to 1/4 of the original position for a runner.  This keeps accumulating and eventually there have been times when I had up to 30 positions, again not new positions but small runner pieces of trades that I had done days ago or even weeks ago.  Mind you this is a good trending market not the volatile mess we have now.  Anyway It's nice to keep runners to allow positions to play out, raise stops, but eventually you just gotta start selling to reduce the number of positions. Every time I've gotten to point like that, I'll manage it well for a while but eventually get burned.  Always best to try and limit the number and focus on few items.