This is totally wrong. Real gamblers get the thrill from playing-- winning or losing are simply byproducts of the addictive process of playing. surf
Congratulations for your 1000th post. Got another question: how much longer do you need to take out so much money ? Any chances that the needed sum will decrease in the near future ? (for example is one of your children nearly finish with university etc.)
I was guessing 20 hours per week. Some of it probably over the weekends... If the account gets lower, you might want to consider trading futures and options...
if I was you, I wouldn't waste my time to focus on what could have been.. I think a lot of people have similar stories, I know I could have retired at age 30 with 2MM in the bank at the height of the RE bubble and yet, I didn't... so move on from that... focus on the future and concentrate instead in smaller goals going forward... also, depending on how you did your taxes and got classified... you might get some of your taxes back given the losses...
'badvestor: "His primary system is a atrocious losing system to begin with, buying options 3 days from expiry hoping to get a big move in underlying. Unfortunately with current markets low volatility even if underlying moves in his direction, the move is not big enough to offset the horrific decay in the last few days" ' Is Neke still using that method? It sounded like he was doing some daytrading now. That's a horribly risky method to be using being that close to expiration. Maybe ok for daytrading on 15 min or less, but scary to hold for 3 days. Did you hold on to those JCP stock shares Neke? It's come back now. Or was it just for intraday trading.
The JCP was mainly bought on margin, so he could hardly hold on. When faced with such a loss, the last thing most people consider is keeping any for a turn. They just off load it all to help alleviate the emotional suffering they've brought upon themselves. Not always but shortly thereafter is the turn. I've stated before as have others, rule based discretionary trading that is adhered to not just lip service with proper position sizing will work, mitigating such psychologically devastating drawdowns. The man and wife together for the common good can pay dividends. I use it and know other successful traders that do also. It can help to be accountable to one you care about besides yourself. Not saying this is the be all end all for everyone though.
Based on a few posts he made, trading options at expiry appears to be his primary method. This system worked great in the early 2000's. Between 1999 and 2006 before all this hft and darkbooks took over, you could look at island depth of market 15 minutes before market close and tell with close to 100% certainty which way the pos stock would gap. You loaded up on cheap puts or calls at the market and puked into the morning gap on expiry. These days there are other ways to get this info, but it's not 100% anymore and does'nt work on all stocks. Look at rimm today, you could've bought 12.50 calls at the open for 0.02 and puked before eod at 1.00. Another good one for expiry trades is appl. Neke keeps on going back to stocks like goog that are no longer viable for this method. From his equity chart, my guess is he continues wth the system and by end of 2013 he'll be close to 50K
Well, since Neke hasn't posted for 2 weeks, it is sadly safe to assume, he is still under 100K. For people who are drawn to train wrecks and like to read depressing journals, there is a new kid on the block. Phoenix Trader started a new one, where he is starting out with a 515K account with an unproven and untested edge. He already had a DD of -45%, but of course this time it will be different. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=256315 "I've been trading real money for 3 years. I'm down 45% from peak, primarily due to a bad bet on euro-bank failures which I closed out early 2012." Will people ever learn?
Amazon misses on top/bottom line, carrying a PE in the hundreds, stock drops briefly to 255, and rallying now to new 52 week highs. One more reason to abandon fundamental analysis, and focus on the action.
Hey neke, hows it going? saturday mornings arent the same without looking forward to your journal updates.