Any trader who asks the question, "Is there a strategy I can learn to make 40% return on my small account?", doesn't understand what he's up against. Sure, anyone can make 40% in a month on a "portion of their total capital which happens to be in their small trading account"... or even all of it if they play/risk it that way. But that's waaay different than making such plays with all or a significant part of your capital*. Just because something is "theoretically" or "mathematically" possible doesn't make it likely. *I formerly participated in the national real-money investing tournaments... US Investing Championships, MMVR... I often wondered what the results would have been if there were a category of trading "all of your mother's money". IOW.... there is a strong psychological component when trading significant amounts of money and when losing it has especially negative consequences. (You know, like if you lost all of your mother's money, she'd have to come live in your basement.)
what makes you think that answers received on ET are better than somewhere else? can you separate the chaff from the wheat? I doubt it.
Scataphagos, I think you missed part of OP's question: While he asks "hypothetical" question it doesn't sound like he wants to gamble. This is a valid question. I'm not judging him whether he is rookie or not. He pointed out to the ongoing discussion not only here but everywhere, about what possible ROC you can get. There are lots of comments like "if fund managers can't make xx% a year, what makes you think you can?" but these are often out of the context. Anybody that thinks 10% ROC is not achievable in active trading (by that I mean you sit in front of your computer for hours each day, so it is your job) should stop immediately and let someone else manage their money. They will become free to make money elsewhere. I mean if you had $100k while would you tie up your working day and trade expecting to make only $10k or less in returns? In my opinion it boils down to what size of capital we are talking about and whether it's active trading or investment. Once you exceed certain size (milions of dollars then active trading becomes that much harder if not impossible) and you're getting into realms of investing. Then why letting someone else do that for you while freeing your own time. Of course the return might be 1/10th of that of a "trader" but then again, the trader gets paid for his job with those higher returns
IOW.... OP states, "I want to make 40%/month on my small money account... but I don't want to gamble". And he wants our help with that?
You should re-read his post and not jump into conclusion what he intends to do. He's simply trying to verify the two "ideologies" often presented around. I think he is right to do so. If the definitive answer to that was that one can't even make 10% actively trading, OP could use that information to his advantage i.e. "screw trading, I will let someone else manage my money or invest in real estate rental etc, thus freeing my days for other business activities" Frankly speaking, I know that I shouldn't be trading and instead devote all my time and capital to opening and running new business'. I'm sure I'd make much more money. Unfortunately trading is like lifetime disease, at least for me. Can't get rid of it.
To do it steadily, month after month, on a small account with reasonable risk control is a bunch of BS. Perfectly simple question with a perfectly simple and close-to-irrefutable answer, it seems to me ...
I don't need a patent on it to answer his question. Nor do I need a precise definition of what he meant by it. We all have some idea of what he meant, and even to someone as pedantic as I am, in this instance that's actually good enough to be able to answer his question in the negative. You're free to disagree with me, of course. Forums are like that.
He was clear to state why is he asking that question. But I guess you don't get it. Perhaps you could be more helpful to the OP by stating clearly what is your opinion on: 1. What size of capital is needed 2. for What size of returns instead of "assuming" what he considers small. I don't know what is your capital (and don't care) but rest assured that there is always someone out there that would consider that small, whatever that number is...