LOL. Reminds of a great line from Riff Raff's opening song in the Rocky Horror Picture Show: "With a bit of a mind flip..."
20+ points a month after commission would be, in my opinion, very impressive. I've asked people to produce account statements who have said they average 10 points a day or more. Again, nobody ever produces one. I would think that half of the daily range between high and low would be astronomically hard to do on a consistent basis. 20 points is sometimes the entire daily range. However, nothing is impossible. Get enough people as a sample and a few are bound to be on both extremes.
After working for a retail futures broker and discussing shop with peers in other firms, I can validate this statement. There are a lot of wild claims but the statements tell a far different story.
Look at http://iasg.pertrac2000.com/mainframe.asp? Rank by "Last 60 months annualized return". Only 4 Funds are making more than 30% per year on average. Many had drawdowns 30 to 60%. 20 points a day ( consistently ), trading 1 contract is BS. 10 points also. If you're making more than 50% year after year on your capital - you're a GREAT trader, period.
50% per year is absolutely phenomenal - after reaching a certain account size. imo, the VAST majority of people here at ET haven't been trading for more than 5 years...so anyone's claims of doing this "year after year" are probably BS.. and i agree, to AVERAGE 20 points per day would be ONE HELL of an accomplishment. absolutely phenomenal. i would practically be willing to bet my life there's nobody, or at least not more than 5 people, in the world doing this... but, then again, you never know.....
Averaging 20-pts per day is not as difficult as you think, but NOT trading one contract. 20-pts per day is about $250k/year, and there definitely are people doing that trading eminis. Regarding daniel_m's post about funds, the dynamics of a large hedge fund are much different than private traders. The risk/reward equations are all different. The dynamics of investment fees changes values slow and steady growth above higher risk. These funds use both security diversification AND model diversification to guarantee their continued existence. Many private traders utilize very short-term techniques that do not translate into higher dollar amounts due to liquidity issues. You also have issues comparing % returns because many private traders trading futures are undercapitalized; or prop traders at firms trading stocks don't use access to capital in the risk-reward equation. Someone at a prop firm may risk $25k (or less) of their own money, but if they make $300k that is not a 1200% return b/c they had access to much more capital and their true risk was more than $25k.
What does that mean (trading more than one contract)? Can I trade 20 lots in the e-mini and take only one tic out of it every day to reach that objective?
No bone, We already settled that issue, making it on 20 lot orders doesn't count. To qualify as a 20 point man that means 20 POINTS A DAY PER CONTRACT.