I know Andy Man and Mike Ser personally. Not as a close friends but as acquaintances. Had dinner with them a few times. They do know their trading and are fairly knowledgeable about macro/microstructure/cap mkts. I do however doubt Andy's claim on some level. His claim to fame was short silver aggressively in mid Sept 2011 after having caught a smaller move in May'11. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt he made good money, possibly due to a combo of luck, aggressiveness, and research. But I doubt he broke 7 figures in 2011. He could be north of 7 now but back then realistically from the research I've done, he probably went 4 to mid 6 digits which is still a damn good return. Andy's results are said to be from CMC Markets which was the broker he was apparently using. CMC offers CFDs hence the leverage. I have seen the paper results but it is what is it. You either take it at face value or not. The other thing is they are running a business. I've spoken to Mike about this and we both understand that. Good guys but they are businessmen thru and thru. They know their product and market.
Pretty sure there aren't 500:1 CFDs in commodities either. Also, who starts with 1600$ in their trading account after trading for a few years?
About the leverage: you can have a high leverage, but it will be valid till you reach a certain size. Don't think he could use this high leverage all the way. About the statement. Years ago I was client at Prudential Bache. I regularly received paperwork from them. One day they send me blank papers with their heading . I wanted to make a joke and made fake statements for the 2 years old son of a broker working over there. I put a few millions on a fake account on these official documents. It was easy to print it on the right place with an HP inkjet printer. Months later I told my broker about it. It appears that there was a huge problem in that office, because they couldn't laugh with it. It was a security problem. They tried to find who made this joke and throw him out. Luckily I was not working there. I apologized for making this joke. Did not realize the implications.
It will boost his returns hugely. If you would have high returns you would understand it. Starting fom 1600$ his returns will be somewhere between 50 and 100 times higher. This depends of his profit per trade and also the max position he can take. With 1600$ it is much more favorable than with a big account.
It may be more favorable for monkeying around with return on capital stats but it sure as heck isn't more favorable for trading.
Indeed, in points or ticks his performance is exactly the same. But as an example: if I take my personal trades for the last three weeks and start with a very small capital my returns are 31.87 times bigger than if I start with a big capital. Althought the trades have exactly the same entries and exits. for some people this bigger return is impressive, but it is misleading. So you are absolutely correct.
If these so called gurus don't produce an authentic tax return I don't believe any of them. How do all these people make so much money, lose it, then want to TEACH people?
If they only made it in the first place...I do not believe that one has to be a successful trader to be able to teach trading like many football coaches never played Division I let alone pro-football eg Jim Tomsula, Pete Carroll, Bill Belichick....