cleverox: The more aggressive you are the greater the potential for huge returns, especially when you have your entire investment portfolio in just one or a very few stocks. Of course the risks are much greater too. I've currently got 70 stocks in my portfolio, so it's much more difficult to get really great returns, though I am heavily weighted in some issues, with the top 12 accounting for nearly 50% of my total amount invested. And I've gotten much better returns since I went full time late in 2002. Research really does payoff, and so does getting ideas and leads from this message board.
I've been investing for 20 years, and only twice exceeded 100% returns, 105% in 1998, and 131% in 2003. In three other years I exceeded 50%. I've had only three years of negative returns, but one of those years was severe. In 2002, in the midst of the bear market, especially in the tech sector, I managed to lose 61%. Never did I think I could have such a terrible year. Worldcom and Flextronics both hurt my portfolio badly, as did many other tech stocks. In 2000 I lost 30%, but that was quite acceptable to me given the 39% decline in the Nasdaq. In 2001 I escaped the carnage in the tech sector with a positive return of 28% versus a loss of 21% for the Nasdaq. A big bet on ESST, the emerging leader in DVD chips, made my year with the stock up a few 100%, enough to offset losses I suffered in other tech stocks.
This year I've been heavily in oil and gas, so having another excellent year by my standards, up 69% YTD. Good luck. I don't doubt that 200%+ returns are possible in good years with a narrowly focussed, aggressively managed and modestly sized portfolio, especially by sticking to stocks discussed on this message board. However bad years are possible too, especially in a bear market, so the long term annualized return could be much less.
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