If you were making money by diversifying, then why did you stop making money, for it does not make sense, as the reason you made the money in the first place was due to your diversification? The markets will always go up and down, as sure as the sun rises and sets! J_S
No matter how good you are, every strategy has a shelf-life - even though you're diversified I'm assuming that you still apply the same philosophy/strategy to these, and simply due to the constantly changing nature of markets, there will almost certainly come a time when when your strategies run out of steam and tank - only by having a sufficiently large portfolio of strategies, asset classes etc. you can become resilient enough to withstand the sands of time. In your particular case it seems like it took you too long time to realize that your strategies were no longer effective, and that you erroneously believed that it was just a "notch in the curve" and that things would soon revert to normal, which does not have to be the case. If you have the talent to achieve what you have achieved once, you can certainly do it again, but you probably have to go back to the drawing board. Alas, what you described above is not uncommon, and simply a fact of life for a trader...
You didn't really provide much information about your trading style and process. I assume you trade discretionary. However, successful discretionary traders have processes (rules), too. Do you follow the same process like you had during your winning times? Or did you have a process in the first place? With or without process, I am surprised about the amount of drawdown, i.e. % amount of your capital lost, until you came close to throwing in the towel. I guess this amount is very different for different traders. I personally start to rethink my approach in relation to market conditions when I go beyond ca. -25 to -30% drawdown. When I reach those levels, I try to adjust to market conditions and not do the same thing over and over hoping that eventually things will turn around. Markets are changing constantly and no strategy will work in every environment (that's how laymen think). I have the impression that you were lucky at the beginning and not yet complete as a trader. Take this as an important learning experience. See what you can improve in your trading and your reaction to market changes. You were in a way "unlucky" that you started your career with a huge run-up. I started the other way round, since I had multiple blow-ups before getting better consistently. Always look for what you can improve in your trading.
Thats exactly right. I definitely expected it to be a notch in the curve and realized too late that I was overtrading and overstretched. My risk per trade did not come down anywhere near quick enough. Thanks for the feedback
The fact that you even got to a million in itself is really impressive. Being that I haven't done what you've done, I can't offer any advice.
"About a year ago I turned $150k into $1.3 million trading futures on a variety of markets over an 18 month period..." Wouldn't 18 months forward from a year ago be like, November of this year?