Question for the Old and Wise: Financial Returns on Investments

[CenSin]

I’ve recently decided to take a less laid-back approach to investing my money for retirement by taking a more active approach to investing. My investment objective is high interest gains.

The stock market, which everyone should be familiar with, gains about 6~7% annually over the long run (measured in decades), but I feel its return isn't commensurate with the risks involved. More recently, I’ve explored ways to get higher returns with less risk through other means like peer-to-peer lending. I’ve gotten 8% so far through passive means (“set it and forget it”). But the potential for much higher gains is possible for active investors who spend some time curating their securities portfolios by buying and selling then on the secondary market—17~20% or even more.

For those wondering why I’m so focused on interest, using this calculator shows just how astonishingly fast money can grow with even just a 1% increment. The chart below has a column for interest rate, and 3 additional columns illustrating the result of 3 scenarios after 30 years of monthly compounding:

1. You start your account with nothing and add $250 every 2 weeks into the account.
2. You start your account with $30,000 and add $250 every 2 weeks into the account.
3. You start your account with $30,000 and do not add any additional money.

Not having $30,000 from the get-go doesn’t put the investor at much of a disadvantage. The real jaw-dropper is the difference 1% can make once the interest is in the double-digits no matter what the starting conditions are. If you start a Roth IRA doing any of these, the tax savings will be enormous as none of the money earned will be taxed when it balloons into the millions.

So the question is: who here has actually attempted double-digit interest returns with active investing like this? Although I’ve read plenty about it, it doesn’t hurt to hear from people with actual experience.