Long story short between some spending and mostly terrible losses, I am down close to 90% from my peak account value several years ago. To be honest I'm lucky to even be in the game at all, as with some of the crazy stuff I have done I could have lost over 100% as several friends/acquaintances did (a couple had to file bankruptcy). So let's assume you're willing to lose everything you have, and needing to make 900% in 36 months. That comes to an average of 6.6% per month for 36 months. I know this seems insane, but I also know there are people making those kind of returns. The only restriction- no naked options or any other strategy that could result in a negative balance. Willing to risk 100% loss, but not a negative balance. So what would you do? Give up completely, buy call spreads on SVXY, something else?
Being able to identify clearly and avoid the crazy stuff, in the long run, is far more important than what you can make in a month, and how to do it. The entire perspective of long-term, successful traders is one of capital preservation and risk-management, and that's an assumption that none of them will ever make. To be honest, the conversation here starts off, to some extent, as an "awkward subject" because the entire perspective of what you're asking arises out of "how much you can make" rather than out of "how you manage your risk". (I appreciate the position you're in, and why you're asking, and I don't intend that to sound like a criticism, but it's still a valid observation.) That's about right in theory, allowing for compounding once a month, not allowing for any variability, not allowing for any losing months. If you could trade something every month for 36 consecutive months with a results-range of from +6.4% to +6.8%, that would therefore approximate the overall result. Unfortunately, though, in reality it tends not to work that way. An average of +6.6% over 36 months will in actuality include some losing months. In other words, you haven't allowed for variability, and it's easy not to grasp what hugely significant differences that can make to long-term outcomes (partly because reality predicates that it also affects compounding frequency as well). It also depends what you trade, and in what size, and with what initial capital, because it isn't necessarily even possible to compound everything "once a month". You stick to what you already know how to do safely and profitably. (For me, for example, that would be trading mostly index futures and sometimes oil futures, at which I already know I steadily average more than 6.6% per month, but that may not be so, for you?) Apart from having the available time, and so on, you need to start from having an existing skill-set, and a very high degree of confidence that you're doing something with a genuine, proven positive expectancy - otherwise there's probably no profit at all. Then you need to make decisions about your risk-management. So the answer to what you're asking depends on your existing skills, etc. Without knowing all about this, how can anyone advise you further? I'm sorry that sounds unhelpful, but it is what it is. Again, sorry if I sound pedantic or critical - not my intention at all, but I'm struggling to offer advice that can actually help, without knowing much more than you've said, above. Sorry!
The best commodity traders of all times with 30+ years trading, we are talking about that 1 in a million trader, may have 1 year with very large gains - a lot closer to %500 than %900 - these alpha traders the best of the best have a long term (>10 years) ROR around 50% - at least the ones that can back up their claims. And you want/need %900 -oh my... There is a well known paradox in trading that goes like this - when you have to make $ from trading you tend to lose it all. Desperation/fear is a real bad place to trade from, it almost always ends bad.
The problem is that the market doesn't know and doesn't care that you lost 90%. It doesn't care that you need to make 900%. And once you trade with the mentality "I need to make xxx% per month/year, I can guarantee you it's only matter of time till you lose it all.
Possibly, let's see how much he's talking bout. If he started with a 500 forex account, it's a different conversation.