I was a little hurried making the post above and assumed 10 ES points, not 5. Still illustrative.
%%I totally agree,,,,, otherwise I could just put my money into index funds and be done with it.... I think to be worth all the effort and frustration,,,, I would hope to eventually make premium over and above the major indexes, oherwise it just is not worth it...

%%If you search through a CTA database you will see that very few have RORs >50%. The majority of the best traders really thin out at about 35% or better ROR.
Those that have done a ton of work on risk mgmt have conclude that a ROR >50% is likely to blow up over the long haul. That does not mean a retail trader can't have a few years of tripple digit ROR - not so uncommon. However, sustaining that >50% ROR is highly unlikely to all but a rare few.
Most retail traders are in complete denial about draw downs - the best performers on record have all been under water about a quarter to a third of the time. The other thing their margin-to-equity is typically well below 30% - a far cry from you typical retail trader.

@comagnum well said... lots of denial on my part.... I am asking myself some very serious questions. After 7 years on and off I have not been successful.. There are professional Fund Managers and such that know far more than EVER will. With just a little research today I found numerous funds that ARE outperforming the market. One alone that has a 26% average return PER YEAR investing in US stocks,,,and is taking far far less risk than I am trading Index Futures and Options. "Collective 2" offers trader subscriptions and you can allow it to auto trade in your account. There are lots of options.
But forget the money for a second. I am asking bigger questions than that... like "is this too distracting" "do I want to do this anymore" "what else could I be doing with my time" also, do I want to stare at charts for hours and hours. Trading is distracting from my real career where I do make alot of money. "why not turn it over to professional managers" these are the questions
There are money managers that beat 80% of the money managers. Their names contain the word: Index.
yes,,, these are my thoughts for me... I realize this a forum for traders,,,and I am talking about turning it over to managers/traders to do for meDo you mean "did not want" or "cannot" or "not able to"? How do you know whether someone does not want, unless you were that person?
This is not a prediction %%
take a major index for a N years. Compute (pricenow/PriceNyearsago)^(1/N)-1. Report the number.not sure if I this topic has been discussed... but what do you feel is a realistic % return on investment per year from trading? 10%. 20%, 100%? what?
And please if you are a successful trader put out what your real returns have been like.