I've been trading for years. My strategy is based more on men like Ed Seykota, I'm not a buy and hold investor, I'm a trader in the markets. You don't go bust in the market because you made bad calls. You go bust in the market because you don't manage your capital correctly.
"...A man can make a fortune if he's but 2 or 3 times correct in his speculations, if he but knows how to cut the losses he accrues when he's wrong." I'm not a big hitter, my average win is 10% of my account, my average loss is 2% of my account. Do I sustain bigger wins and bigger losses. All the time. I'm not in this to be rich on paper, I'm in this to be rich in capital.
The difference between someone like John Paulson and Warren Buffet is if someone banned Hedge Funds tomorrow, and holding companies, John Paulson would be worth 5 to 7 Billion dollar. If however someone did the same to Warren Buffet, and the companies he had lost value, he'd lose value equally, since he's not cash rich, he's rich in stock ownership.
I work to grind out money from the market in a slow, methodical, and accumulative way, while managing the downside. I don't make big plays. When my account was 12,000 I didn't go and by 3 Mini-Dow contracts, I traded one, and that was pushing. I didn't get 20 mini-corn contracts, I traded 5, and that was the perfect amount of risk. As my account grew my risk grew.
When I bought options for stocks, I would use 5% of assets, or 600 dollars at the most, today, I use 1,800 dollars worth of assets. My account grows, how much I allocate grows, my risk and market exposure stays the same. I trade corn and soy bean futures, mini-gold, dow-mini, USD.JPY currency, and a host of stock options, varying my market exposure.
Sorry to hear about that time in six months you raised your account up %1250 trading Gold, you must have been hugely leveraged and then lost it all throughout a year and a half.
I hear that story a lot. Keep trying, figure out what you did wrong, and what you did right. Odds are you violated the first rule. Don't Lose Money. My first goal in any trade I put on is where do I know I'm wrong so I don't lose any more money than I have to. Losing money is part of the game, losing a dollar more than you have to is what makes you broke.
