I don't know what the fuss is all about. Performance is about edge and skill, not math. When I started trading by exploiting bucket shops, I went from 1000$ to 8k$ in a month with a ~90% winrate and traded this way for amost a year...untill they kicked me out and I had to start trading futures. This is no boasting though, I just found something that even a braindead monkey could do, leveraged it up and voila, here's your miraculous return. Easy when you know you cannot lose. I remember a guy here on ET who fleeced Oanda...I think he would agree. Or ask the guys who work on P/L desks and manage to be profitable 4 out of 5 days. The %returns are beyond crazy. But that's not the point. Newbies always think in % returns, because they asume if they can make 10% a month, they just have to keep on compounding and be rich soon. Nothing is further from the truth. For one, nobody pays rent and groceries in percentages, so nobody gives a fuck. Second, trading is scalable but not in an unlimited fashion. Like if you make one tick on 100 cars in the EURODOLLAR each day, you cannot asume you can scale that up to 100.000 cars because liquidity is just not there. So if OP asked if it's possible to turn 5k into 100K in a year, I'd say yes, no problem provided you have a good edge. If he asked if it's possible to turn 100K into 10M in two years, I'd say this is pretty much impossibru or at least very tough, since we are looking into sums, the big guys are also interested in which makes competition pretty stiff. TL;DR: Percentages are for papertraders or fund managers who need them to advertise. For the retail traders or professionals, the absolute figure on the monthly statement is all that matters, which makes the question irrelevant. Edit: Of course if he'd ask if it's possible to make those returns with chart reading or other bogus retail strategies, the answer is no, of course not.
I find it strange on why there's a cap of 40% a month, -- whenever there's a cap on statements or claims I find that weird, Anyways, with trading,...you can basically accomplish anything you want to -- the sky is literally the limit, The question of practicality and feasibility and how easy it is to do it...is well, another story, If you only know stock investing...then those claims may seem Outrageous and Mental, But outside of just plain vanilla stocks...there's a whole other world, of risk and Rewards, Most people/traders...are basically dumb, untalented sheep. That's just a sad fact of reality, But if you have a so-called Holy Grail or skill or talent in trading...then you can theoretically compound into a Nuclear Bomb of returns, And you can't have it both ways; if you want or expect Great Returns...you have to take a certain degree of risk...Risk with which most people aren't acceptable to take on, If you ask me, most people on this forum are anything but...Elite and/or Trader--But rather just moderate trader, or even just long term investor,
%% I remember that FORTUNE article; sure did. I did not remember he used IBD material - reread IBD material,or sold his Porsche for $11,000, to get capital but he did all that, 2. Part of it was 1995-2000 had some great bull market trends, but since Fortune did a study of his tax returns , he was good a trader,2. His first stock buy was priced @$1 ;sold @ $3 so he most likely took too much risk on first trade.LOL
Ok So two guys means two traders going back and forth in the comments, reasonable risk control would be cutting a loosing trade at 1.5-5% of portfolio, and BS means innaccurate, and not based in reality.
Exactly! thats basically it. Should I spend my time on my career, business(es), or trading my $2,000 account.
Thats exactly what I'm thinking. Could I turn my $2000 into $1,000,000 in 5 or so years by using technical strategies ( Selling to Resistance, buying support, etc) or is this all a pipe dream and should I focus on school, a small business, etc?
2000 to 1 million in 5 years by using "technical strategies."..... Youd be lucky to break even the first 5 years of active trading. Sounds like you should focus on school... But only way to know is to get your hands dirty. Go lose some money!
You cant even trade with 2000 dollars due to PDT rules. Just buy yourself a year out expiration, in the money call(delta .7 or high) on a stock you like and forget about it. You have a much better shot of profiting big.... Trust....