What does that daily percentage actually compound to?
Promoters quote returns small enough to sound reasonable: 0.3% a day, 2% a week. Compounded over a year they are neither small nor reasonable. This page does the arithmetic with nothing added and nothing removed.
Enter the numbers
A textbook scheme profile
Rates in this range do not describe investing, they describe a Ponzi structure: the payout schedule only clears while new deposits keep arriving.
| Held for | Balance |
|---|---|
| 1 year | $3.0K |
| 3 years | $26.6K |
| 5 years | $236.7K |
| 10 years | $56.0M |
The same rate against what is actually guaranteed
Reference levels: long-run approximations, October 2026. A multiple of "-" means the comparison does not apply.
| Reference level | Rate | Your promised rate in multiples |
|---|---|---|
| Insured bank deposit (US, FDIC) | 3.5% a year (guaranteed) | 56.7x |
| 3-month US Treasury bill | 4.0% a year (guaranteed) | 49.6x |
| US inflation (consumer prices) | 2.5% a year (not investable, measures erosion) | 79.4x |
| S&P 500, long-run average | 10.0% a year (not guaranteed to anyone) | 19.8x |
| Best long-run professional record (Buffett, decades) | 20.0% a year (not guaranteed to anyone) | 9.9x |
At this rate, $1.0K passes $1.0M in about 6.3 years. A payment schedule that reaches a million dollars from a small deposit inside a human lifetime is not an investment result - it is a recruitment curve.
Balance = principal x (1 + rate) ^ periods, compounded every period.
The red line
A guaranteed return higher than a Treasury bill or an insured deposit cannot exist. Every dollar paid above the risk-free rate is paid for with risk, leverage, or other people's deposits. A published promise of a fixed return above the risk-free rate is the definition of a return trap.
Reading the result
- The result assumes every payment is made, on time, and that nothing is taken out. Real schemes fail before that point, which is why the failure is never in the maths - it is in the schedule.
- Comparison levels are long-run approximations, not live quotes. Use the rate your own bank or broker publishes if you want an exact yardstick.
Questions this calculator answers
- How do you turn a daily percentage into a yearly one?Interest is compounded, so the yearly figure is (1 + daily rate) raised to the power of 365, minus one. 0.3% a day is about 198% a year, not 109.5%: compounding is the whole point.
- Is 1% a day realistic for a trading strategy?A sustained 1% a day is roughly 3,678% a year before costs. Leveraged trading can produce large single-day results, but no documented strategy, fund or trader has held that pace for a year, and none of them guarantee it in advance.
- What is the red line on this page?A guaranteed return higher than a Treasury bill or an insured deposit cannot exist. Every dollar paid above the risk-free rate is paid for with risk, leverage, or other people's deposits. A published promise of a fixed return above the risk-free rate is the definition of a return trap.
- Does a big number prove fraud?No. Arithmetic proves nothing on its own. What it shows is that the promised return cannot come from a supervised product, so the money has to come from somewhere else - usually newer deposits.
These are arithmetic tools, not investment advice, and no calculator can tell you whether a particular operator is honest. What the arithmetic does show is whether the advertised return could come from a supervised product at all. To see the returns that are being promised in the wild, read the register, or the method and math page for how entries are built.