I went to a trading bookstore. Met a book buyer. He said many people he know earned $1M $10M from nothing. The best guy he knows turned $20K to $10M in last year, and the worst guy turned $10M to $5K in one year too. I wonder if using all the leverage, will it be possible to turn $20K to $10M in 1 year, especially last year. I just wonder if he lied to me or not. He said the person just lucky and keep putting profit right back into the same future. Just a big position, no swing.
It's very possible to make that kind of money from $20K if you get lucky and keep increasing your position size in a market like the last year. This style makes it very likely that you will give it all back and more on one or two bad trades in the future, however. I learned about futures from a guy who got lucky in the Gold runup in the late 70s. He couldn't trade at all really but he got lucky and then exited the trade at a decent price. He kept adding to his position and turned a few grand into several hundred grand, more than a $1 million in current dollars. He spent the next five years trying to repeat it and never did. Of course, you could always be like Hillary Clinton and get Refco to feed you winning trades while moving losers into another account. That might work better. - Curtis
It is also very possible to turn $1 into 120 million, IF YOU GET LUCKY, and you also have to buy a lottery ticket. Repeting the process is very unlikely, although there was precedent for it... In trading LUCK is a four letter word...
Good post. A good example of the above is Gary Bielfeldt - a "Market Wizard" profiled in Jack Schwager's original book. He started with less than $1,000 and turned that into tens of millions. He also proceeded to lose those tens of millions. This is how things turned out for him: http://www.copleydc.com/copleydc_staff/Meinert/meinert_9-2-03.htm http://charitygovernance.blogs.com/charity_governance/files/bielfeldt_complaint_41.doc
Not very likely if you use any kind of Risk Management to protect your downside. Though, I suppose, stranger things have happened.
ahhh ... you did not read between the lines here these two gents took the opposite side in their trades with each other -The best guy he knows turned $20K to $10M in last year, and the worst guy turned $10M to $5K in one year too.-