I just found out more of the guys story. So he started with $170k 2 years ago. Bad thing is, he owes $200k in taxes from his first year gains and as you can see, he only has a few thousand left.
He should be proud of himself making and losing it. many people dont even have the guts to put a small trade on
Same old tune, those who try to become a hog gets slaughtered. I have certainly paid the price through the years of trying to go for much more, and each lesson is expensive. Before I figured how to trade reports, lost $10k in ten seconds long ago on a five lot of S&P futures when it was $500 a point in the 1980's. No electronics, use to call down to the floor and filled on low of the day, I had a stop on that trade, pit trader had 40 orders before mine and took minutes to get to mine. Yeah, the worst thing to do is start trading end of the year, beginnings luck you up money then lose it in January and owe taxes on last year. But you not thinking of this at the time. Took my fifteen years to figure out on longer term trades, never place stops before opening, if it gaps against one's position, wait for five minutes and place stop beyond this area, often times I watch it reverse, me being out, and be the low of some move. Trade your equity curve, use parabolics, if going wrong way, stop and reaccess before you get into "all or nothing" thinking.
I didn't think it was that obvious. The amount of money he has left is irrelevant and would better, for the sake of clarity, to have not stated it at all. No worries. I'm sure he "learned his lesson". Just get another $170K and start over... but this time, no mistakes. (From the Victor Niederhoffer school of money management.)
Risk management is pretty much ignored by most traders and you have posters come on ET and say they blew up their account, then, continue to still blowout another account after another! I lost quite a bit of monies in the stockmarket and I started with the buy and hold as an investor and lost a huge chunk of my monies holding on to losing positions. Now, I am a swing trader with risk management being part of my trading plan. Again, that was an expensive lesson! You have to protect your capital which is job number 1. The only thing you have control over is the risk of each and every trade. You do not know ahead of time how much you will make assuming your trade works as expected. There are only 4 possibilities when you place a trade: 1) you lose a lot of monies, 2) you win a lot of monies, 3) you lose a small amount of monies , 4) you win a small amount of monies. Now, if practice sound risk management, you minimize the number 1 possibility of losing a lot of monies on a single trade. Your chances to making monies have increased multiples just by controlling your risk.
Seems I read somewhere about some advisor who did exactly that @ ~$50... and destroyed his career (unless he can do a Niederhoffer, of course).
My blowouts= 1. selling options premium calls in the us dollar index. I was 90% of the open interest. which my 300K should have told me that I need to get out because I had no business trading in this THIN mkt.. I lost all 300K in 3 days. 2. buy 10 contracts of the tbond futures on a call from a clerk in the pit. lost 30K should have just called back immediately and covered. 3. Shorting Chipotle at 150 and then 260 and 300.. lost 75K 4. selling sp500 calls and puts the bigs.. would sell 50 to 100 day before expiration to pick up usually 3 to 6k in profit.. well I got hit and lost 15 K 5. OIL- same time I was shorting chipotle I started buying oil.. around 99 due to libya..it dropped lost about 10K 6. at 22 years old i got 2 cash advance checks from my credit cards.. bought 4 wti crude contracts at 12 dollars thought i couldn't lose! it was either oil or appel at 11 bucks.. i went with oil!! lost 18K due to margin calls oidl dropped to like 9 bucks even or 8.50. big losses do not come without big gains.. selling option premium ran 50K to 250K before I lost it all.. was selling premiu in sp500 bigs. strangles mainly. 15k on 1 lot in sp500 big gain.. in a week 35k in gold options.. bought calls when gold around 520 and ran the account to 135k and got out.. which was eaarly.. could ahve tripled this. 50K gain in OJ due to freezing weather. bought vix calls in january did very well along with svxy puts and killed it!! i cahsed this trade for 8 months and by the end I did not have nearly the size on that I wanted or palnned but I still did very well. My problem as with most has been that after a dtring of massive gains.. I usually get dumb and think I am great and invincible and I risk a ridiculous amount trying to get to the upper level and then I go BOOM and blow out. DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU. If you win it is skill and LUCK never think you ever really know what is going on with the market. So those are my blowouts and some of my gains. Most of my money was made the old fashioned way which is was finding rebates for large companies on their taxes. that was guranteed money for my time. trading is the hardest easy money job you will ever encounter. You must think and eat and act like a machhine!! that is the ONLY REASON MACHNES are good at trading. BUt the machines must be constantly tweaked. The same system must have an edge and if that edge is dwindling you must chagne the system immediately. Now I trade daily in and out along with buying short term and long term options.. I only risk what I can lose and taking a loss or being wrong is no big deal and i am much mroe consistent. Shoudl i start a trade journal? hmmmmmmmmm By the way on my us dolalr calls that I sold. teh mkt was tradign 117 to 118 i sold 119 to 120 calls.. ithink it went to like 122. At the time I was working with a pit local who I called and told him about my trade.. he knew I had kept it from him.. it wasn't his money of course buton day 2 when i was down about 100k he said.. get the F out on the open tomorrow.. seriously get out. I asked him if he knew something I didn't he said in the us dollar index? no of course not. but I know gusy down here are alredy countign how much money they will make off of your trade if you keep holding. I hung up the phone after telling him.. it will sell off tomorrow.. lol.. nope.. PARABOLIC.. ouch. live and learn but usually in trading people RUN OUT OF MONEY before they LEARN
doubtful you have a real trading journal on here. even if i did start to post my results it would only be met with ignornat criticisms and jabs at if it real or not by the likes of participants like you. if you have a journal send me a link. most likely yuo don't even have an account.