Day trading stocks it's definitely possible to go belly up fast: Brokerage eating away at capital, going greedy with large size plus bad timing plus a bit of bad luck, add in pump & dump pennies....
depends on what stonks and your criteria for entry and risk management. i have been trading solar stonks for the last few weeks: enph, regi, run, sedg, spwr, dq, plug, jks, etc. big money moving to solar stonks. as a retail trader, it is really easy...just follow the big money.
all those solar/clean energy stonks got hit big today 10/8/20....maybe a btfd opportunity...who knows. but something is going on with marijuana stonks today: cgc, acb, cron etc.
i think i found my answer: https://seekingalpha.com/news/36209...alled-out-cantor-fitzgerald-ahead-of-election
It is not far fetched to lose $450,000 when he was probably, betting most of his monies on his trades. Just one bad trade would wipe him out. I know someone who lost $2 million in the stockmarket. Again, the person was trading hundreds of thousands of dollars on each trade and had no clue on how to trade.