[BennyHey]

In this thread I want some real life confessions on the worst hits we've taken.

About 6 months into my day trading career I was into the CME currency futures. I had some ups and downs to this point but had yet to have the market really show me what it can do to a traders acct.

I was trading between 2-4 cars on the Canadian Dollar and was having some good success averaging down on my losers. The CAD had been stuck in a range so any time I got caught on the wrong side I would keep throwing more cars on the fire, lowering my average cost and then when the market turned my way I would get out B/E or a small profit.

One day I was trading on a 5min chart and we became oversold on my stochastics so I got long with 2 cars. The market continued lower, never attempting to come back a little, 30 pts lower I added on 2 more cars.

From this point we got a little bounce(About 5 ticks) and proceeded to drop another 30 pts. Well I stayed true to my plan 4 MORE cars LONG!!!!

I remember saying, they are just trying to shake out the weak longs before they rally it. In another 30-45 min we were another 40 pts lower.

I am starting to chain smoke and pray. My 5 min chart looks like a red ball has just fallen off a table. I tell myself with sweaty palms that we MUST get a little bounce from here, I've never seen a chart drop like this without some kind of re-trace. I decide to go for broke.....4 more cars long...and......you guessed it down another 30-40 pts.

I was done adding on as my acct leverage was maxed out and any lower would be a market liquidation by my broker. I still have NO stop and a limit order at B/E some 80 pts higher. From here the market drops another 40 pts and trades sideways for a while. I sat in my position another 2 hours watching it dance from -1400 to -1700. I curled up on the floor and prayed I would wake up from the nightmare I had gotten myself into but no. Finally I closed my position at 4:58 2min before the session closed. Its not a lot of money for most but for me and my $5000 acct it was quite a hit.

This was on a Friday afternoon so it gave me all weekend to stew over my loss and what a crappy trader I am. I seriously considered giving it all up that weekend. Eventually I decided to keep grinding and to not ever let it happen again.

I've had plenty of losses sense then but never that much on one trade.

When you newer traders hear pros talk about "experience" this is what they are referring to. Anyway I think there are plenty of good stories out there for us to laugh, cry, and learn from. Can't wait to hear some of yours.

BennyHey

[brownsfan019]

BH - the only thing that really comes to mind was trading on a new platform and not fully understanding the functionality. Bad idea. It's been awhile so I can't recall the specifics other than to say that I used the simulator till I knew the software inside and out.

[Dacamic]

Ah, yes ... re-opening old emotional scars by taking this trip down memory lane will be a great way to start my day ...

I track my biggest losses by writing them down on an airplane "motion discomfort" bag tacked to my office wall. One stock appears several times on that memorial: Montana Power Company (MTP). To make a long story short, I suffered more than a few cuts trying to catch a following knife while this stock's price fell from $40 to $0 . It was inconceivable to me -- for a few reasons -- that this company could collapse so quickly. My equity has been hit by larger single-day losses, yet this string of "oopsies" is still notable.

[daedalus]

Benny my advice to you is NEVER add to losers. EVER. Thats like the first rule of trading IMHO. But it sounds like you found out why thats a rule. THe key to this game is staying solvent through your bad decisions, not adding to them!

To the OP - my worst loss wasn't my fault actually... I got stuck in a position when my broker went down. Couldn't exit, some of my orders to get out actually doubled my position size and there was nothing I could do but sit and watch as the pit launched the market against us.

Thankfully, the broker refunded the loss as I was documenting the problems with screenshots and video during the entire process.

One of the worst and most emotionally stressful days of trading i've ever had. Its one thing to make a bad decision, its quite another to be unable to fix it.

[diablo272]

On my first day trading the ES, I lost about 1/3rd of my capital. I knew almost nothing about risk management, and I overtraded--I went from making 1 trade per day on SPY to over 40 trades in my first day on the ES. The only thing that saved me from completely blowing out is that I kept my position size small (at least I thought it was small at the time). My risk/money management really improved after that though, and that day showed me that I wasn't nearly as emotionally neutral as I thought I was at that point. It was quite a wake-up call. I'm actually glad that it happened, because at that point, I was profitable trading SPY, which increased my confidence. If I hadn't taken such a big loss right when I moved to ES, my confidence probably would have grown to the point that I would have severely over-leveraged myself and eventually taken a crippling loss.

[Jimmy]

My first interface with market, I did buy share at the price of 240 and it landed at 230 immediately I did my stop loss at that point, hence the share jumped up to 600, recently I’ve learned my lesson, patience, and speculations, had drove me over,, never trust the market even though it’s right

[BennyHey]

Originally Posted by Dacamic »

Ah, yes ... re-opening old emotional scars by taking this trip down memory lane will be a great way to start my day ...

I track my biggest losses by writing them down on an airplane "motion discomfort" bag tacked to my office wall. One stock appears several times on that memorial: Montana Power Company (MTP). To make a long story short, I suffered more than a few cuts trying to catch a following knife while this stock's price fell from $40 to $0 . It was inconceivable to me -- for a few reasons -- that this company could collapse so quickly. My equity has been hit by larger single-day losses, yet this string of "oopsies" is still notable.

LOL you really write your biggest losses on a barf bag??

BennyHey

[Dacamic]

Originally Posted by BennyHey »

LOL you really write your biggest losses on a barf bag??

Indeed, and it's displayed on a wall in my office.