I have lost half of my life savings thru day trading. Now that I've realized it isn't coming back, it stings so bad, and probably will for a very long time. How do people like me deal with the pain? And what should I do with my remaining money? With a money market, it might take the rest of my life to get back what I lost. Mutual funds? Buy and hold solid individual stocks like GOOG (should have done that a couple days ago) or AAPL? I don't know what to do.
Focus on something you're good at and make realistic plans on gaining financially from that. This'll help you get back in tune with life and a distraction from the pain at the least.
Post your risk management rules, your trading plan, and a sheet of your tracking statistics into this thread... just do it.
interdigital OP take my advice very seriously You can learn to day trade, it takes 2-5 yrs, but you must stop visiting ET ET is just a distraction, stare at your price screens funny thing is, I know you won't take my advice, hey I was a noob too, I wasted a year too with distractions
I guess now you know the importance of learning to trade on a demo paper trading account and only risking money you can afford to lose. Nothing you can do, the money is gone. Some people quit and move on, others learn to trade and make the losses back. --------------------------------------------------------- Copied from Innerworth: Traumatized By Trading Losses Tom, a long-time market observer once told me "I have yet to meet a successful trader who hasn't paid his dues." Tom observed that every successful trader has blown out his account and learned how to recover from it. "Take the best traders in the world...they've blown out. If trading was easy everyone would be trading and everyone would be making money. You have to pay your dues. Some people are lucky and only pay those dues for a very short period of time, while others are going to pay their dues for a very long time." The great trader Jesse Livermore blew out his account more than once in his illustrious career. Many seasoned traders have had to start over more than once. Is it necessary to pay your dues in this way? I donât know. It may be a matter of sheer mathematics that when you trade the markets there will be times when market conditions or chance will not work in your favor and it may be inevitable that you blow out at times. Thatâs why it is vital to avoid trading with âscared moneyâ that you cannot afford to lose. It is often said that there is no substitute for experience. Indeed, the wider the variety of market conditions you experience, and trade, the more likely you can make money in market to market. But do you need to experience every setback to learn? Many traders have experienced severe drawdowns and even Market Wizards have occasionally blown out their accounts. You donât have to experience a car accident to learn about the merits of driving safely, and perhaps you donât need to blow out your account to learn that poor money management and impulse trades can spell disaster. But not all experts agree. Some seasoned traders believe that it is necessary to see how it feels to lose capital and recover. By doing so you will experience enough pain that you will stick to your trading plan and manage your risk, on the one hand, and know what it is like to fall down hard and pick yourself up on the other. Copyright © 2000-2006 Innerworth.com. All rights reserved. Innerworthsupport@marketwise.com -----------------------------------------------------------------
You might want to read this thread over sometime. It is about a trader who was an accident waiting to happen. You may find that it puts your present predicament in perspective: http://elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=114004&perpage=6&pagenumber=1 Now, to your question. "How do you get over massive losses?" Mentally, you shouldn't get over it completely. Massive loss, properly viewed, should make you fearful. This fear should linger in the back of your mind the next time prosperity comes your way. Learn from it. Respect it. This may sound trite, but, it's only money. Get yourself into a profession that helps human-kind in some small (or large) way. The rewards you will reap are far greater that what you have recently lost. You're young. "This too shall pass." I wish you the best.
An excellent post. The thread starter simply has to stop trading. If you think you can still do this, then at least take some break. You're a gambler, who got lucky a little when you began trading. People confuse luck with their trading abilities. They make a little and think that they are a hot shot, and that they can hit a home run right way. They keep doing that and BAM! They blow up. Happens every single time. If you continue to trade, you definitely shouldn't be putting 90% of your account in one stock and hope for the best. NEVER do that again.