Quote from Brandonf:
Read Market Wizards by Schwagger, The Money Masters by John Train and other biographies of top traders and the performance numbers of various hedge funds, mutual funds, trading programs etc, then get back to us on how realistic it is to do 15-20% year after year after year, let alone 25/30. Can it be done?, certainly, and esp with a smaller (under $10million) account. People on ET always make the mistake of assuming one will compound their gains till cows fly over the moon, which is silly, but lets assume you do compound a $20,000 account, doing 27.5% per year. Twenty years out, which isnt really that long in the grand scheme of things you have grown $20,000 to $2.57 million. (this has some tax flaws etc in it, but you get the idea). Can it be done? Absolutly! Has it been done! Yes, by a good number of people, but a good number of people have also won the lotto.
If you can average 25 to 30% annually over a 10 to 15 year period it will certainly put you in the top 10% of all traders, probably in the top 1%. It takes dedication, focus, and a little bit of luck along the way too (for example personal and family illness, divorce, hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, children etc can exact a hell of a toll on your overall performance if you aint careful).
Hope I'm being helpful here for you.
Brandon