Assuming 2 points profit per trade and trading 1 ES contract for every $1000 in your account, it should take 37 trades for 500K and 45 trades for 1M. Anything is possible!
Well looking back, corn and soybeans have been on a phenomenal run since September. With 20K starting, the position sizing and money management system I use for all my trades, One could have turned 20k into about 775K
here is the excel for a beginner level trader who is required to start with one contract (you have 20K but you may only begin with one contractand only grow the capital from profits. I used the 250 days of 2006 to do th calculation by doing the median trades first and going out to the extremes (low and high volatility lastly. When a trading level of 50 contracts was met, excess profits were skimmed on Fridays and the next week starts with 54 contract capability but only 50 contracts are traded as tops. You can look at the performance and see when your goal is reached using this actual daily data. This is not based upon the convnetional orthodoxy. Many others have commented on that belief system. This is a pool extraction result instead. If you are new to trading, it may still be possible for your to adapt to this paradigm of thinking. For most who are experienced, it is not possible.
This advice comes from someone whom makes consistent money Steve is right. You should listen to him. The first 1-2 years are about treading water. Finding out what type of trader you are, finding a methodology that works for you, and creating a trading plan to live by.
I can turn $500K into $20k.. would that info be useful to you.... sure it would! just take the opposite sides and there you go!
Do not listen to negative people. Everything is possible. It is just a matter of will and maybe luck. I started less than 4 years ago. Before that, I never traded anything and had no idea what a brokerage account was. Started less than 20k but then added 30k over the next 6 months or so. I passed the 500k around a year ago and I am almost at the 1M mark today (after I paid all taxes: The only money I take out is to pay the taxes on the gains). So, if you don't take into accounf taxes, it took me 3 years to go from 50k to over 1M. I think it is realistic to achieve your goal in 3 years. Are you going to achieve this? I don't know... Are there a lot of people that achieved it? I don't know either... Many people will tell you it is not possible, you're dreamer... It just means it took them much longer or they weren't able to do it. Not everybody is the same, and not everybody learn at the same speed, or use the same techniques. I use no more than 2x leverage and most of the time I don't even use leverage. Good luck in your quest,
There is a difference between negativity and honesty. No one is being negative, we are being honest. Going from 20k to 500K as a complete newbie (you missed that fact I guess) is so impossible that doing so would be pure luck than skill. You yourself admit that it took a few years and as a real trader you know how rare that is.