I'm up 17% this year, trading part time, but still have only half of what I put in since 2000. Through late 2004, I didn't do any better than if I had just invested in QQQ and done nothing else. It was like every time the Nasdaq was at 2000, I was at $80K, so why was I spending my time doing this?
I was almost exclusively doing long day and swing trades on distressed tech companies, some of which recovered and some of which didn't.
Last December I somehow decided that the economy and corporate earnings could not continue getting better forever and began aggressively buying Jan puts in QQQ and SPX, which paid off all through January.
So now I mostly keep up my jaded outlook on the economy and swing trade SPY puts. It's kind of odd. I've turned into someone who hopes for bad news. I watch Morning Call on CNBC before I come in to work, and when they're all somber, saying "oil is up and futures are looking pretty grim", I'm all "oh, yeah!"