Curiousitiy question: What were your best and worst trading days ever, per contract, per share, per anything else? My best was 13 points per ES - shorted at the high of the day, covered at near bottom. Worst day, lost 12 points per contract.
Best day was after 9/11 had about 6K share basket of stock long, and caught a 40 point futures rally. Best ES trade 22 points. Worst day lost 10K shorting GLW when it was in the 70s; man I recall that I almost killed the neigbors pit bull that day. And the one's that got away are even worse; like recently was SS BBH at 135 when it was around 131, I moved my stop to 136 and got stopped out on 7/28!! Never reentered... And in between many decent victories and defeats. Best, David
Worst trading day was in may 2000. shorted 1000 NXTL, averaged down and shorted another 1000. kept going and I lost $1,800 in 20 minutes. Needles to say that was the last time I have averaged down! :eek:
You are right ..but it's fun to recall since the money comes from the grinding it out daily, and not the extremes. Best David
worst: lost $50K in the swiss franc back in 1988 in about a minute on a false embassy bombing report out of Reuters. Was trading in the pit at the time and was a cocky little shit, deserved it.
ahh...this KILLS me to recall. trading 10 big sp's @current multiplier lost 17.5K in one day...that's 7 points a contract... this one is better to recall... long on a massive reversal day...basis 15 big sp, but trading emini's by then... snagged, after avg' out twice...avg net net of 14 points per contract... it is fun to recall the good, but the bad is very bad!
in my more arrogant days i went into an opex week fully loaded with options i was convinced would have me in retirement by friday. instead they went to zero. lost 90% of my year's profits in one violent move. still hurts to think about, but it was the event that really got me THINKING about the market. glad it happened then and not once i achieve legendary status. probably not a coincidence, best trade came 3 weeks before when i doubled my account balance in one day (plus an opening gap). for a brief moment i thought i was g-d.
I was an overnight trader at a highly respected prop firm sometimes mentioned on ET. In 1997, I went long 1500 shares of AET into earnings. Lost 17 1/2 points. Before that, I was a rising star with lots of potential. To this day, I have yet to truly recover.