Cdawg, you hit the nail on the head there, I was trying to be diplomatic ;). There’s also the other reason too - you only hear about the successes, never the failures. If you see a 10-fold increase in account size, you can be sure blow-up is around the corner because almost certainly they’re mistaking leverage for skill. Crawl, walk then run.
Tony, the only ceiling is liquidity. In no way have I said it’s not possible but it’s not probable - there’s a big difference. But do you really think that the enormous failure rate is down to self-limiting beliefs? Look closely at this - this forum is chock full of newbies right, there’s excitement over trading competitions, discussion over highest leverage, claims of enormous gains. Do you honestly think all these failing traders all think that modest returns are the most likely outcome if they play a sensible hand?
Try this. You’re about to invest 8 months full time into this right, so it pays to do some real homework. Ring up a big broker in a quiet time (no big news releases, early on in the week) with the lure of potential big account opening. Ask them about their client base - who’se successful, percentages, types of strategy, failure rates, top end rates of return. If you can, take them out for lunch. If you get them onside, you’ll find out more in 30 minutes than you will in a million posts on any forum.