Day traders' after-market lounge September 5, page-18

What do realistic trading returns look like?

TV's most recent paper trading competition results are worth a read. 1st place getter made 10% in the month (winning him $3k). 5th place getter made 8% in the month. Most of the competitors traded 7 or more instruments, within a restricted set of tradable instruments. Starting capital was $100k.

Keep in mind this is a paper trading competition, so the results overestimate what would be possible for these guys using real money. For most people (not everyone) there's a huge difference between paper trading results and real results.

10% in a single month (on TOTAL capital, not a single trade) is probably something many people have done, but to do it consistently would make you the best trader in the world. By a huge margin.

At the start I said 'realistic', but it's not realistic for most of us. 59000 people took part in this comp. Mostly, the WR was between 40-60%, as you'd expect. But the 5th place getter had an extraordinary WR of 93%. Here's his stats.