In 2002, a trader named John Holsinger won the World Cup Championship competition with a gain of 608% in one account.  In addition, he has (along with partner Mike Dietch, who developed the trading models used in the competition accounts), a gain of 303,7% in another account and a loss of -42.7% in a thrid.

Here's how all three accounts performed in 2002:

John's 2002 personal World Cup account:     Opening balance: $15,276     Ending balance: $108,167

John's 2002 Partnership account No.1:          Opening balance: $15,000     Ending balance: $60,559          

John's 2002 Partnership account No.2:          Opening balance: $15,000     Ending balance: $8,594  

The total profits for all three accounts are $132,044 in 2002 alone!

John Holsinger has made money in six of the last seven years.  Overall since 1996 he has turned $40,000 into more than $1,323,000 in his proprietary trading accounts.

Here are John's actual, real-money gains and losses from ALL of his trading that he reported to the IRS on his 1099 statements (see photocopies of his 1099s on page 6 of the pdf).  This represents all of the activity in the personal trading accounts John used for all of his self-directed trades:

1996 Profit:    $83,434.96

1997 Profit:    $479,386.36

1998 Profit:    $330,988.100

1999 Profit:    -$100,956.00

2000 Profit:    $161,614.55

2001 Profit:    $77,921.00

2002 Profit:    $291,594.96

For seven years, therefore, John has made a net profit of $1,323,981 trading futures in all of his proprietary accounts.

The simple secret John discovered about trading commodities

Now 44-years-old, and a trained CPA and professional trader, John has been trading the markets for just 10 years.

John's trading career began back in 1992 when he bought, and tested out with real money, virtually every system he could get his hands on - but like many beginners, he kept losing money.

Then, in mid-1990s, he took six months off and evaluated 15 different trading systems and, more important, his actual use of the various systems.

And that's when John made an astonishing discovery that would change his trading forever: Almost without exception, he found that the systems usually worked - but he often got out too early and took unnecessary losses.

He picked the systems that had worked the best for him and then gradually developed his own proprietary system - mostly trading the S&P 500 index and the E-mini contract.