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Funny how money takes on a different meaning when u reach this point. Should almost be a prerequisite to trading on margin. Especially in futures.
I've blown an account or two. First was after a guy in a cowboy hat sold me a course buying 123 tops/bottoms. First trade was corn and I made money.(this was the late 90's so paper trading was the way to learn)$1200 profit I think. Easy. Then I lost that in pork bellies. "So the money is gone?" I remember asking the broker. Then I kept buying "deep out of the money options" (this is the opposite of how @ron99 makes his money) till the money was gone. Every time I had a couple hundred bucks laying around I would send it in to buy a lottery ticket.
There was also the time I took a $1000 acct to 10k then back to just over 1000. I closed the acct and decided I did better than if a savings acct. the wins were in cotton and I think cattle futures going with the trend. I probably ignored this fact when I placed the eventually losing trades.
Then there was the time not long after I was married, I opened a trade station account and traded live with a strategy after I optimized it. Yeah, that money is gone too. I remember watching $800 disappear in seconds cause I pushed the wrong button during the nfp report. I think I told my wife over the phone about that one.
Somewhere in this time line my broker convinced me selling options wasn't a bad idea. I did good during 07 08 selling es strangles in my Ira. Volatility was so high I remember collecting around $1000 for an es 500 or 600put. Ahh the good ole days.
I eventually lost my job due to the recession and pissed away almost 2 years trying to day trade on sim. Es only ticked up and didn't give many opportunities for back and forth trading so switched to cl. Never got successful with what I thought was a method. There was even a couple of times I felt so good about a setup that I took it in my Ira only to lose money.
Everything I do now is cash secured. I do a lot of options and stocks. I'm self employed and manage my accounts from my phone during the day. Using options I can for lack of a better term, "un fuck myself" from a losing position.
I should probably note that the drawdown ' s in my business account to pay suppliers, overhead, etc while waiting for payment has probably made me somewhat immune to drawdown ' s in my trading acct.
First off this is an excellent topic and thread. I don't want to high jack it off topic, but based on your above response I would appreciate your feedback if this would also apply to taking a combine at Topstep where there is something on the line.
Thank,
Yukoner
Ps. My big blow up happened while living overseas trading full time ... Then 2008 hit... And not only did the markets go nuts, but I got sick and on drugs all the while trading, but losing an average of a couple thousand every day... Just watched my accounts shrink. Finally in a fit of frustration, I emailed my broker and had all funds in the largest account wired back to Canada... 45 mins later, I called them and cancelled it.
Went on to lose some more thousands... Finally, finally stopped trading... Left with about $25,000 in my accounts. Months later I went back and looked at history, and almost from the day of taking prednisone you could see the equity curve start to drop... Sad story.
Now, I am just working to build back my confidence as a trader and get over that 2008 trauma.
Thanks for your story. I trade cash secure options also and it has taken me years to work some of my positions back to break even from 2008. Using margin incorrectly and being over leveraged have attributed to many blown accounts.
I blew up my account twice in the past and almost blew it up again just recently.
The first time, I didn't do any research at all. I had about $1500 and I just wanted to be in the stock market. I got exactly what I got out of it though as I used that money to help me learn more about the stock market. I learned well alright. I blew that account by not looking properly at the companies I was investing in. Bought a company that was well on its way down and when it went down, I bought more of it. It was only after it went bankrupt did I find out that they had a huge debt that they couldn't pay and they weren't making a profit on their business.
Second time was when I was still fairly new to options trading. I took a big gamble based on my biased view of a company and took a position that I couldn't exit if things went against me. Things went against me and I couldn't get out. Blew up $15-16k that I had managed to work my way up to.
I almost blew it again recently. I mean...I know that a lot of the markets I was going into had entered a consolidation phase and that for my trading style was a bad thing. But I ignored the signs and kept going in and making a lot of losing trades. And then for a bit, I just froze being unable to take action while I was sitting on a loser. Thankfully, the lesson I learned from busting the second time, saved me in time to still remain in the game. It also taught me a valuable lesson as well about getting a big head. Also I feel like if the market starts to consolidate again, I'll be more likely to stay out of it.
I had 33 trading days where I lost more than S$20K a day.
Total losses from my 33 greater than S$20K losing days is about S$1,093,000 (excluding the S$191K, S$340K & S$570K account blew up losses).
This morning I shorted 4 lots HSI, 3 lots Mini HSI, 2 lots HHI and 3 lots Mini HHI futures.
I lost about 20% of my S$100K trading account after I liquidated all my HSI/HHI shorts.
HSI futures opened at 26711, up 467 pts from its 26244 previous day close and traded one way up another 1288 pts within 15 mins from the spot/cash market open to a high of 27999.
At the peak, the floating losses from my HSI & HHI shorts is about 3 times more than my realized S$22.5K loss.
I could have escaped with profits, had I been able to hang on to my losers until they turned green.
Either give up 11 years or screen time or try to make more money between the big daily losses.
I seldom trade HSI/HHI futures and this is the first time I went all in. I would have been profitable if I had scalped yesterday instead of selling and holding for more profits. I had about S$1.5K floating profit on my initial HSI/HHI shorts yesterday before the cash market opens. That S$1.5K floating profit which I did not take could have influenced my thinking and contributed to my eventual S$22.5K loss on my HSI/HHI shorts yesterday.
My HSI sell and hold strategy would have rewarded me handsomely today but I did not trade the open. I told myself to be patient and wait for prices to shoot through the roof like it did yesterday before selling. End up missing the entire 722 pts HSI move from its 27600 open to 26878 low this morning.
11 years of learning and training is still not enough or is this trading business today not fo me, nor matter how hard I try?
Try this... give yourself a daily loss limit that for no reason can be exceeded. Work with that restriction as a friend who sits next to you trading, and wants the best for you the next day, and will protect you.
Secondly, you need to trade smaller... much smaller... until you can get a grip on yourself and show consistent repeatable following of your trading plan. I know that is hard, and I remember when I was trading big size all leveraged up with millions and thinking that was the way to trade... because I would take it more serious, or I could make back all my losses.
Yeah, it for sure isn't the way to trade.
Rather you have to humble yourself and trade very small (maybe 10% of what you are currently trading with)... you have to get back to the basics.... you must have consistent repeatable trading actions so that the merits of your trading plan can be fairly judged.... you have to journal each day what is happening so you can discover your blind spots.
If you can make it small, then you can power up larger...
You want to be a professional trader, then think and act like one in everything you do.
Sorry to hear that Jac. I remembered you used to post in the AFACT forum before it was hacked. You gave some good advice about trading then, so I hope you still held on to them.
11 years is a long time and you have far more years of trading experience than me. Unfortunately, if you're still struggling with success in trading, then you may wish to step back for a while to re-charge.. or trade smaller as Yukoner has suggested (very good advice imho).
You may also check out this thread, which is the type of trading that Big Mike supports:
Both Fed Chairman Bernanke’s remarks yesterday and President Obama’s speech last night about his jobs plan; combined, failed to reassure the market that a solution to the country’s economic woes was at hand, and the …
Don't be disheartened, but take good care of your trading psychology. To state openly that you're 100% certain that you can blow up this account seems to reflect a losing mentality, not an heightened awareness that one needs to respect the markets.
Your numbers scare the living hell out of me. If I may ask, why do you feel the need to trade in such size? I mean we are not talking about the typical $10k account here. With the type of volatility you expose yourself to, it is going to be extremely difficult to avoid the effects of greed and fear. I mean, I get nervous when my account is down more than 2% for the day. I don't know how I would react if I had such large daily losses.