what time frame? there are plenty of traders here in ET who can accomplish 5k to 100k within a year......myself included. There are handful of traders who can take it to 250k plus.
5,000 lottery tickets! The reality is that turning $5,000 in $100,000 is a rare anomaly. A 2000% gain represents a daunting number. It would have to involve having a "Chrystal Ball", and being right 9,998 times out of 10,000 with conservative risk exposure. You could be right once and make 100%, but the risk reward ration would have to be outrageous. Leverage, type of security or asset class plays an important role, and timing. Take an inventory of everyone that went on a limb to risk $5,000 in the hopes of making $100,000 and you will find that for every one that tried 100,000 failed.
Yes, it's been done by ET member Neke: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=213286 He uses a retail platform and trades while holding down a full time job. My recommendation is to trade options. You can risk a very small portion of your account and still generate decent gains, and you'll always know your total risk per trade in case a major news event renders a trade worthless. If you buy a call option on a high flying stock for $500 and price makes a new high in a strong trending move, you could net a 200-300% or more gain. If a news event causes the stock price to gap down overnight 20 points and the call expires worthless, your max loss is $500+commission.
The initial stupidity that you may fall into is listening to any advice on this thread. Every so often a thread pops up that collects so much garbage 'advice' that it is an embarassment to the site. This is one of them.
If I were sane, I'd be making 6 figures doing office work. Insanity is so much more fun, although it doesn't pay as well.
if you earn little then this is probably worthvile goal. On decent pay you need to ask yourself, can i turn 100k in 10m in say 5 years with reasonable probability. And have a life, of course, else why bother. clearly this involves longerterm trades. It is not an easy path walking minefield, and i have not done it yet 1 thing you need before this is realistic is setups with 70%+ win rate where you can load large size - when time to reinvest profits. Shortterm trading - not good way, too consuming. no wonder these guys talking trading better than sex - because they cant do it any more
I can't understand why people recommend OTM options etc. I guess it's hard to understand the power of compounding. Taking 5k to 100k is relatively easy, if you know how to trade. If you're even a decent trader, you should be able to net 1.5 ES points a day on average. That is $1500 a month. After 3 months you've got $9500 and can add another contract. Month 4 $12 500 5 $15 500 (add another conctract) 6 $20 000 (+ 1 lot) 7 $26 000 (+ 1 lot) 8 $33 500 (+ 1 lot) 9 $42 500 (+ 2 lots) 10 $54 500 (+ 2 lots) 11 $69 500 (+ 3 lots) 12 $89 900 (+ 4 lots) 13 $115 500 That being said, $5000 is a little short. If you start out with the (assumed) max drawdown of your system, you will probably not make it. I would venture to say it should be doable about 50% of the time. If you double your account size, you could trade the CL. Netting 50 ticks a day is quite achievable. This will take your 10k to 120k in a year, trading only one contract.