What is considered a good return on your money?

What Would Be A Good Return On Your Money Per Month Or For The Year?

100% would be excellent.

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Yeah that would be nice.

100%.

but seriously, anything over the bank rates is a good return on investment

Iam making 20% each month on my forex account. But my bank balance is zero.........................................................
because iam still trading with demo.

Are u looking for a professional trader who is making more than 20% per month ?
Many people looks for profitable traders because these guys have money but donot have trading idea. Are u one of them ?

Yes I am curious as to whether I could be doing alot better getting my account traded.

On this end of the Market, A Good Return is ANYTHING Positive.
ie. Still Have My Grubstake.

{why does everyone want to be a "49er"? Do they think The Odds Have Changed?"}
GL & HTH

I have yet to see any company offering retail clients decent options in trading their account.

He's talking about letting some random forum wannabee trader blow his account.

Thanks all..... I been trading for alittle over 2 years now... I have blown some demo accounts in trying to learn. I opened my latest demo last July 24 07.... with $5,000 play money.... as of today (april 14 08) I have $11,400... I am only trading the GBP/USD right now.... I try to trade safely but yet aggressively...

I tried to develop a system that fits my habits and trading style. And was woundering if what I was doing is fair, poor or good by other people standards..

Thanks

Any positive year is a good year, simply because you were able to beat the spreads and rollover premiums.

I would agree with Tdion, Keeping it in the black ia always the ultimate goal. I don't think that there is a magic number or percentage to work for each trader uses different styles of trading and has different pland for thier money and reasons for whyt hey trade. Anything in the black at the end of the year is good to see. Hands down!

To me, return rate is twice as bank rate would be fine.

If you can make a spread its a good start and can lead you only to better results

The question that started this link is really one of the best questions that is needed to be answered BEFORE trading should take place.

While there were a number of good suggestions offered, a lot of the answer comes down to the needs of the person considering taking on trading as a possibility.

What follows is my opinion alone and only what I have personally witnessed:

I have been trading more than 20 years-- 3 times longer than any other occupation I previously used to make a living. I love trading but....

Trading for a living is a much different affair than trading for a fund-- any others who have done both will be able to confirm that.

A good but aggressive fund can reliably average 30% to 40% annual return.

Someone who trades for a living (the kind of person that the fund will tap to come up with the 30% returns) will likely "be able to" average two to three times that figure a year, trading for himself, with occasional serious drawdowns that have to be overcome. That doesn't mean they will make 100% every year on their money, but they will be able to average that over a longer period of time. A great private trader needs to have that ability to be able to pull big money out of the market from time to time to be able to replenish the day-to-day living costs that everyone has.

Some who trade for a living "only" are able to average about 20% yearly, but use a large bankroll to make it happen. Which is fine - if you have the large bankroll. (I will make the note that it is relatively rare to find the individual who started with a lot of money and succeeded at going professional-- it is more common for someone to start relatively small and learn the lessons of risk and leverage in the best way possible, make-or-break, with an ample fear of failure thrown in. And then, and only then, after you've proven you can handle it---trade the bigger nest-egg!)

And then you have all the one-hit wonders who early in their trading process amble into a huge trade, triple their account size and are now certain that they can beat the market the rest of their life, even though their success came from luck! That category of individual has poor chances of making a decent return, ever. Their learning curve gets too screwed up.

After all I've seen, I believe there is more opportunity available to people (risk-adjusted) from human-to-human sales than trading. Tell me the downside of convincing someone to buy a $5M building (worth $8M) with you getting a $250,000 commission. If they don't do the deal, there will always be someone else. Compare that to the actual market risks you have to take to make the same $250,000.

But, if you are a trader to the core, it will be impossible to convince you of that until you have spent most of your life trading. Then you realize life is about making a certain amount of money with the least amount of risk.

It is easier to find a good trader to handle your money than become one yourself!

Again, these are my personal observations.

-PeterCrowns-

Precisely Peter,

What matters is risk adjusted returns. You can double your money at the casino but what is the risk? When you consider that the bank rate is virtually risk free it is insufficient to earn just a little more in forex because the risks are so much higher and you want you be compensated for that risk.

In finance this is best understood by using the coefficient of variation. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/...fvariation.asp

In my case less than 5%/month makes trading unworthwhile given the time and risk involved but my stake is still small.

Hi Chris,

While i am no where making the type of returns I think are possible and achieveable with forex, I have posted an extract of a private email discussion I was having with private trader who trades on EBS and is very successful. How do I know the above information is true, well I do not know 100%, but based on our discussions, I have no reason to doubt him. Peter has posted a very food reply as well above.

What is a trader? I would define a trader as "someone whose mission is to make the most amount of money in the shortest possible time for as long as possible."
What then is a good annual performance? As a rule of thumb as follows
For leverage of 1:1, ROI (Return on Investments) or ROA (Return on Accounts, whichever you fancy) should be at or above 50% per annum, anything less is dismal.
At 10:1 leverage your ROI should be at or above 800% per annum.
At 20:1 leverage your ROI should be at or above 1500% per annum.
At 50:1 leverage your ROI should be at or above 3500% per annum.

I nearly fell off my chair when I read his email. 800% using a lev of 10:1. Man, that is insane. But then if you acutally extrapolate it out to monthly gains, it is just 5000 pips per year. Obv as you account balance grows to levels when u can trade at EBS or "real" interbank platforms, then the lev offered to you decreases, and also the lev you would use personally. Just remember, 50% of a 100K account, is nothing comapared 20% of a 1M account. So a good return would obviously depend on one's starting balance and the $ amount they deem fit as to sustain their lifestyle and grow capital.

While I see many memberes whose opinions I respect highly say quite often, that if you are positive at the end of the year you have done well, or if you can just beat the movement of the indicies, you have done well. I actually disagree. In life, risk is directly proportional to reward when it comes to markets. Forex is high risk (relatively speaking). So the returns should be far better than just the indicies.

Also, I think it is better to concentrate on developing your method of trading, with the aim of keeping the drawdowns small, and the gains bigger.

I think I remembe Darkstar saying he aims for abt 300% per yr or so, and auslanco had a similar return target. Targets by the pro is not something they aim for, but a result of their trading method.

The other think to think about is that a trader that has 1M in the trading account, will usually have atleast an equivalent or more outside invested in other vehicles, be that property, shares, bonds, businesses etc. So even if they end up breakeven for the year, they still have other passive income coming to sustain their daily expenses.

In conclusion, I give you an eg. Find/develop a system that has a 60% positive expectancy, and a risk reward ratio of 1:1.5. Even if you only get 4-5 trades per mth, you will come out way ahead just risking 2% on each trade.

Happy trading.

Regards,
K.