And I'm guessing his fund, which didn't close with his retirement, no long exists. However I sincerely am curious if that is the case. A bit mysterious that there's no information out there on it, imo. It would certainly tend to reinforce the narrative that Trout was a one in a billion trader and not only could an average trader not expect to match or even approach that but not even his hand picked successors could keep it up. Or I could be wrong, it's a multi-trillion fund now we've all just never heard of?
Yes i agree Trout was a one in a million/billion trader. But you don't have to be anywhere near as good as him to average 60% on 100K. He had to carefully pick his spots to get in and out, even when day trading the S&P futures, as he was trading large size. But any small trader can get out of 10 lots in a micro second. The Turtle experiment proved that anyone off the street with a good edge risking 2% a year can average 80%+ a year, year after year, however the edge they were given eventually degraded because of competition from other funds. But I could give anyone my edge TODAY and if they risked 2% on each trade they could also average in excess of 60% a year over the next five years (on 100K). Obviously i'm not going to do that. And no one else is stupid enough to reveal current day working edges either.
% returns can be very misleading. If I'm a profitable trader that can pull $10K a month out of the market, then I can boost my returns % simply by withdrawing money from my brokerage account (say, keeping a balance of $50K instead of $500k). voila, my % returns have been increased dramatically but my actual economic returns have not. You cant eat percentages, you eat with actual dollars
I have seen replies indicating it is better possible in futures. Do you mean 5% return is possible on the actual amount you put (for example about 5% of about $11k i.e. margin required for Emini S&P - which comes to about $500 ) or do you mean 5% on the size of the Emini S&P contract (i.e. about $150k - which comes to $7500) Thank you
Forget this question. First study the markets and see if you can find a profitable way to trade. That will take you probably between a few years and eternity (eternity which means you will never make money). If ever you are profitable you can see what the result is. And your question will be answered. Any answer that you read here is irrelevant for you as it is what other people think or achieve. That will never make you profitable. Only you can make yourself profitable. @Sig already confirmed that HE is not able to do it. In each game there are losers and winners. Losers will say you will lose, and winners say you CAN MAYBE win. In this game there are more losers than winners, that is clear for everybody I think. So that gives you an indication about the difficulty.
It's funny, another added difficulty to trading that is far overlooked. Once you figure out a "formula" that kind of works... you still have to learn how to EXECUTE. That's easier said than done too. This crap is hard. I'm going to add this, I've been working on a trend reversal system for 8 years now...I'm just about done with it. new traders typically try to call trend reversals...so freaking hard. Trend continuation is much easier.
He is at least postings things that are mostly experienced by losers. Nothing is possible, especially nothing that HE cannot achieve. Thats seems to be his POV. If he would be a very successful trader he would be fulltime trader and not run his business anymore. I agree that things can/are very difficult, but they are not impossible. The result of an "average trader" (which is the average of traders who do worse but also from traders who do better, proves already that some traders do better) can not be projected to one specific person and taken for 100% as the only truth for that person. All successful people are above average in what they excel in. There are thousands of samples around the world. Maybe Sig himself is above average in his business, so following his logic he is in that case doing something that according to him he should never have done, as the "average" businessman would not succeed in what he achieved. Success equals/needs being above average. If nobody would do better then the average person, each person would have the same score, as that average is the sum of returns from all traders divided by the number of traders. If nobody ever goes above the average, nobody can go below the average too at the same time as otherwise the calculation would give a lower average. And at that point there would again be traders above average. I don't like people who discourage others not to do this or that. Better would be to tell them it is difficult, or even very difficult, but to tell it is unrealistic is trying to keep them poor as you envy them if ever they would be more successful then yourself. I hope my children will be more successful in trading then myself. It would make me a happier father.