You're on your way if you can breakeven after a year of at least 250 trades

The problem is that there are too few barriers to trading, and your expectations are too high.

Given your description, you are like a guy that has a basketball, some nice Nike shoes, have dribbled the ball a few times, and you've watched a few NBA games on TV. You are now ready to go play in the NBA! Fortunately, you wouldn't get drafted and you will be spared from the utter destruction you would experience going up against actual professional basketball players.

However, with trading, there is no draft. Open an account and, voila, you're a trader! Unfortunately, us pros are just waiting for you to enter the court so we can take your money.

So, what are you to do then? How do you achieve success diving head first into a pool full of sharks?

1. Pick an asset type to trade. Stocks? Options? Futures? Crypto? Figure out which type of asset type you are more passionate about because to trade well you need to know and understand the market(s) you are trading.
   1. Stocks: if you like to follow companies, brands, trade companies of products and services that you know and love
   2. Futures: if you like to follow macro economics, commodities, overall stock market indexes, etc, then futures are for you. Plus, they get better tax treatment and offer interest-free leverage.
   3. Forex: if you like to follow international macroeconomics and foreign central banks then forex might be for you
   4. Options: these are derivatives of the above three asset types, more complicated, potentially dangerous if you don't know what you're doing, stay away for now until you are more advanced
   5. Crypto: if you are passionate about the emergence of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, mining, already have wallets full of crypto then maybe this is for you. But bid/ask spreads can be wide, transaction costs can be high, and brokers can be slippery, so only trade these if you really know the crypto world.
2. Find a strategy that suits your personality
   1. Want to win frequently (65-75% of the time), but at the risk that your losers will be larger than your winners, potentially losing several months of profit in one day? Then mean reversion trading is for you.
   2. Want to get the occasional big-time home run trade, but have the rest of your trades win only 30-40% of the time, most of the time grinding out small losses and barely breaking even most of the time? Then trend-following is for you.
3. Figure out how active you want to be
   1. If you want to look at charts and the market all day, then you might be a good day trader. However, after a while you'll find this is very mentally draining and is not as glamorous as it sounds. Also, day trading is the most difficult type of trading to be profitable at, but many beginners gravitate to it because they want trading to be a job replacement, and they want a lot of "activities" to perform so it feels like a job. Or, they are a degenerate gambler and just want a lot of action, like a video game, buying and selling all day, but paying lots of commission and slippage to their broker and never making any profits.
   2. If you just want to check the markets an hour or so a day, then maybe swing trading is more for you. You pay less commission and slippage, and ignore the noise of the intraday swings while you spend your day doing other activities, like perform an income-generating job.
   3. Some of the most successful traders I know check the market once a week. Some even only allow themselves to trade once a month! They pick stocks with good fundamentals and short-term momentum (IBD50), set their stops and let it ride. Often, doing nothing and giving the trade time to evolve is the best thing you can do.
4. Learn to trade on SIM - learning to trade a simulator, or paper trading, is good in that it helps you learn the mechanics of how to execute trades. Once you can execute your trades confidently then look to make paper profits. Record your trades in a journal and/or spreadsheet. Treat it like a real business, because it is. Don't trade real-money until you can consistently make paper profits for at least three months. Real trading is harder than paper trading so if you can't paper trade your way to profits you'll get smoked in a real-money market. Think of SIM/paper trading as making the JV team, but you still need to make Varsity, play in college, and then hope to make it to the pros. One step at a time Sparky.
   
5. Once you are consistent on SIM, go into a live market never risking more than 1% of your account on any single trade. This way, if you screw up a lot, which you will, you'll still have a chance to trade again tomorrow. Look to make a few months of consistent profits. Once you do, then maybe look to risk 2% or maybe even more if your usually don't hit your max loss because you are managing the trade before it can take a max loss.

Along the way you'll have to conquer a lot of psychological obstacles, but you will also learn a lot about yourself. And instead of expecting a certain monthly return, just take what the market will give you, and be content that you made good, disciplined trading decisions that protect your capital. Eventually you'll realize that successful trading is more about protecting what you have, not "killing it" by meeting an expectation of what the market owes you every month. Markets are always changing so its the most nimble ones that can navigate the changes that make the best traders.

That should get you started...Enjoy the ride!

Assuming sensible risk management, plain and simple. No.

Agreed but maybe not a fair comparison. If somebody makes 7% trading equities with a 1:1 return to drawdown, while over the same period the S&P500 returns 10% with a 2:1 return to drawdown is that trader a winner? In my books no.

Agreed

Wow I had no idea 10% over two months was that ambitious/considered a reach. I made more than that trading stocks; I certainly hope you're both wrong because if you're right, I've been wasting my time.

I'm not saying it's not possible, just not likely that someone can do it consistently month after month for years. Think about it: at 5% a month, that's 60% a year, compounded monthly, you'd have over $1.2 billion in 20 years, without adding any new capital. Otherwise, everybody would be like...

But 20 years is a decent amount of time, and you would surely run into liquidity issues before reaching 5M. I just can't see how 5% a month so unrealistic; I guess your fixed risk is significantly lower than mine. I was thinking a proficient trader could pull at least double digit percent gains in almost every month. A single day of great trading could probably see my account up 5%, lol, but you know better than me. Maybe I should wait until I have deep 6 figures before trading, otherwise it doesn't make sense if even 60% a year isn't doable; but at the same time, at that point I would rather just go back to the stock market.

I want to swing trade making 10% returns every 2 months. I'm up for whatever meaningful learning effort/research is needed but cant go insane learning every pattern/indicator combo out there. Personally, I have commitment and discipline. I am ok with risking all of my initial investment (meaning it won't kill me) but will have to stop completely if I lose that.

Are those returns doable ?

I want to swing trade making 10% returns every 2 months. I'm up for whatever meaningful learning effort/research is needed but cant go insane learning every pattern/indicator combo out there. Personally, I have commitment and discipline. I am ok with risking all of my initial investment (meaning it won't kill me) but will have to stop completely if I lose that.

Are those returns doable ?

Great piece of work by by @artemiso BTW. Thanks for posting it.