Extreme Trading, Making $1 Million Investing Online
Did you know that the world record for a single year growth is 29,233%? Every year hundreds of traders are destroying the markets and becoming millionaires investing online, and in this article we will explore some ways how.
The fastest I ever grew my own personal portfolio was I took just under $20,000 and grew it to about $100,000 in just under a year (unrealized gains). The problem was that I was ruthless, had no concept of money, and was only 18 years old. I was doing 100% bets on biotech companies getting FDA approval, and well, one went sour shortly after that and I lost close to everything. If I would have kept this pace of 400% a year though I would have seen a million dollar portfolio in under three years. I haven’t done it again since, so what if we applied average to more aggressive returns, say 5, 10 20, and 30%?
Possible scenarios at 5, 10, 20, and 30% growth year over year (yoy) with a $10,000 starting portfolio:
At 5% growth per year, it would take you 48 years just to break $100,000.
At 10% growth per year, it would take you 49 years to break $1,000,000.
At 20% growth per year, it would take you 26 years to break $1,000,000.
At 30% growth per year, it would take you 18 years to break $1,000,000.
What we have here is a scenario of compounded returns yoy, and you can see the huge difference in what a few percentage points can mean over time for your portfolio value. What this equation doesn’t take into consideration is margin or the fact that you could be depositing more funds into your account each year. And just to note, some of the best traders in the world haven’t even done 30% yoy for 18 years straight, but with a small portfolio value instead of hundreds of millions of dollars to billions it is a lot easier to manage your money.
Attaining a 29,233% return in one year
Dan Zanger of chartpatterns.com (aff) set the world record, “For one year the record is 29,233% using margin on high flying Internet stocks during the market bubble from 1998 through 2000.” Dan combines both technical and fundamental analysis into his trading, and to date has spent over 10,000 hours studying chart patterns of all types. I am a subscriber to Dan’s newsletter, The Zanger Report, where he shares his analysis of the daily market, and it amazes me quite often at how well this guy can pick and point out stocks.
I think I am starting to ramble on here, but the point is this. With discipline and a good understanding of the stock market you can play the game and become rich. It is possible to develop a winning strategy and turn a $10,000 portfolio into $1 million plus, it just comes down to how hard you want to work to achieve it.
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Other Websites Referencing This Post
- Personal finance at KMull.com
- Poll, Is Stock Trading A Game? - Stock Trading To Go
- Tuesday is when I share good things. | How I Will Be Rich
Blain, do you keep a chart showing your own personal yoy returns? Sounds lime something that should be poster sized and sit somewhere that you see it daily… unless of course the numbers are negative!! (like mine!)
oops
I’ve subscribed to Zanger’s newsletter in the past. He’s definitely good at trading momentum stocks. I remember when he achieved that return. He made a great call on QCOM, which ran over 100 points in a few days. I believe he had around 5,000 shares.
Haha, yay I track everything when I do trade. All this year though I have not had that pleasure as I am funding a patent that I have pending with the United States. Sadly attorney fees keep my savings which would be invested dry
Yay I really enjoy the newsletter, too bad I wasn’t a subscriber the year he set the record, I imagine he made a handful of people pretty wealthy.
I’m up 30% over the past 12 months. I’m just starting to grow to an account balance worth messing with and hope to stay above 20% annual returns for longer term. This past year has just been easy (and my job has been boring enough to allow me to focus more on investing).
I have been using Quicken XG to track poerformance etc and it does seem to handle the simple stuff well. Are you using COTS software or something homebrewed?
I personally use MS Money for my personal finance including my investments. However, it didn’t help me to get a positive yield for this year…
My Trader, 30% is pretty good for this year, have you been trading for a while? What is your favorite industry?
He can pick stocks for sure, but his trading rules are a bit general to be practical. Especially when it comes to stops and selling.
However, like I’ve stated other places, he is trading ten’s of millions and I am not.
Blain you said you track everything you do, I’d love to hear how you organise and what you recommend
Blain, give us some of your personal tips or strategies on how to pick and stay with the big winners for the short and long term.
Really inspiring stuff. Zanger is the man! I wonder if anyone can out perform him one day…