This 2020 Business Insider article claims that author and stock-trader, Mark Minervini made a
compounded total return of 33,554% from 1994 to 1999, which equates to roughly 220% a year
This seems exaggerated. Is it true?
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looks like the answer is in the book "Stock Market Wizards: Interviews with America's Top Stock Traders" and the full story is more complicated– AveryOct 2, 2021 at 11:02
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1Not impossible if he was a VC during that dot-com boom era (i.e. put money in before IPO etc.)– FizzOct 2, 2021 at 18:47
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Using percentages yields Really Big Numbers that make it harder for the human brain to process them. Put in sensible numbers, the claim is equivalent to that he multiplied his money by 335, meaning that in his (geometric) average year, he multiplied his money by 3.2. He outperformed the S&P by a factor of about 100. So all he would need to do to get those results would be to pick bets that have a total chance of succeeding 1% of the time, and get lucky. Are there more than 100 traders making bets of this level of risk? I think there are.– AcccumulationOct 4, 2021 at 5:27
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8With millions of people trading in stocks, it will never be difficult to find a random outlier with extreme luck. It does not mean that the trader is very skilful, just that he was very lucky with his investement.– Tor-Einar JarnbjoOct 4, 2021 at 8:13
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5What did he lose after 1999?– user253751Oct 4, 2021 at 12:11
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