[newnewpdro]

It doesn't seem difficult to avg +1% per month doing relatively basic trading in my experience.

The challenge I have is remembering to actually care about it and do the trades, life gets too busy and before I realize it a month has gone by.

But whenever I'm on top of it, 1% gains have been very easy over the past decade, I'm rarely in the market for more than a few hours. But I risk having a pile of cash to trade with I suppose, the dollar could crash.

If you do +1% per month you're already +12%/yr, I consider 12%/yr the minimum acceptable yield for any kind of investment given how easy it seems to be to DIY.

[MichaelDickens]

1. The S&P 500 has returned about 14% per year over the past decade, so a return of 12% isn't particularly notable.

2. Market returns vary greatly from decade to decade, so we shouldn't necessarily expect this 14% rate of return to continue. (Most obviously, there were no recessions in the past decade, which is unusual.)