Cheeky question.

[Andy]

Sorry if this a personal question and a bit on the cheeky side but hey don't ask don't get.

What is your annual return? and how long did it take you to get there?
If you have a break down of the years that's great.

Feel free to tell me to naff off. Just want some real world answers so I can have some realistic goals long term and possibly some inspiration of whats possible. I am currently dealing with the fact I need to study my ass off for the next 3-5 years :smart: so need some good news!

Thanks

 

[lloydbee]

What are you looking at trading?

My first 3 years were spend 18 hours a day, 7 days a week looking at charts and screens trading Options and I went 2 steps forwards and 1 step backwards in learning. Just when I thought I was getting on top of trading Options and on the brink of success I would learn something new and be taken back a peg or two along with my accounts.

3 and 4 years in I was making huge gains through high Vega and closed the year out +320% + drawdowns.

5 years plus in and VEGA had severely dried up and so did my earning potential, stepping back for a bit during the year to re-access my trading plan of attack on the markets settled my gains to a low of +120%.
Changing with the markets and attacking it differently as well as getting some well picked luck has seen my account this YTD climb to its current +370%

edited: sorry I didn't realize I was in the 'Spread Betting & CFDs' section...

 

[Stargunner]

Apart from a rather large amount of drawdown in my first month or two, I generate a 5% return per month. Actually my mean monthly return is greater than this and sometimes around 10% but it pays not to get cocky in this game. Despite my initial drawdown, I have made money from trading in the 7 months I have done it, because I've been able to increase my account size as I became more confident in my abilities, and my initial drawdown was on a very small account.

I mostly spread bet and focus mostly on indices and any other equities product.

 

[Forexmospherian]

Hi Andy

Re expected monthly or annual returns from a good experienced retail FX trader.

Firstly - I think it is most important to realise that trading the Forex market as a retail trader - with normally a capital account of under $50 k - is entirely different from institutional ( commercial ) trading with a Capital account in the multi millions. We have all heard of top funds achieving say 40 or 70% per annum - and if I had $20 or 50 mill - I would be delighted with that type of return.

In fact if I had a $5 million capital account and made a net 35% - I would still be delighted - as its a very good return on large monies.

However - if I had a $10k capital account and traded full time - ie over say 25 -30 hrs a week and only made say 40 % or even 60% - I would be very disappointed - and probably say - what a waste of time

Its a different ballgame - involving risk management and reward etc on totally different levels.

I would expect an experienced retail FX trader to be achieving over 10 -15% per month - ie over 100 -150% pa - but no way can it be continually compounded at that rate - as you enter a different financial wall or barrier that really effects you trading - ie today you can handle a $200 loss - because you are used to it - but will you be able to handle 3 x $2k or 4K losses in one day ???

Personally - I can achieve results from 35 -50% per month on capital accounts up to $70k - but with no compounding and with no stake size risk over 2% - ( normally less than 1% per scalp ). Bad months can be only 15 -25% ( I don't have losing weeks never mind. months - and no experienced intraday trader should have them ) then really good months can easily be over 50%.

However - to get to this level as taken nearly 13 yrs in total - with now over 15k live trades . It took me nearly 3 yrs to get average consistent and then another 3 yrs before I found all my own "edges" and better consistency - basically by being full time - but only on forex.

Hope that helps - and yes I would swop my return any day for say 20% pa on a $10 million account - but cannot really seeing that happen now at my age ;-)

Regards


F