Are the wipeouts enough to turn a Trader around or is there something else going on that's driving this Behavior? Ever try to go on a diet or quit smoking or quit something else and say "this time I'm going to do it"? What's changed? Do you do it? Most people don't. You have to get to the bottom of it.
Uh, no. You do the research I've done it already. All the chatter and debate in the world doesn't matter when it comes to basic truths about the stock market. I spent the good part of March putting in some work to best take advantage of the market correction for myself and my family, And in this case, it's paid off rather quickly. And I'm pivoting again now after taking major profits. Easier said then done when sites like this and the financial media are in complete downside panic, you have to stick to your setup and believe in what objective numbers are telling you.
Max's deadly sins are obvious.He knows all too well where he fucked up.Its not timing,it's not the Fed. Trading 101... What I don't understand is if you want to take a position in a 100 vol market,why not take massive Limited loss bets in the options market and take what the market gives you??
Completely agree. Trading outrights with overnight gaps (and like you said a 100 vol market) can make for some hellish "noise" even if one does ultimately get the direction correct. I can also see how and why Max got into this jam if he didn't capture what he deemed enough of the initial plunge between Feb 20-Mar 20. The markets run in very tight patterns at times that will make one second guess "shorting into the hole" as its in the impulsive move lower. Psychologically, the spring off the lows that breaks some resistance levels always seems to trap, since the sentiment is so terrible after a move that intense. It's unfortunate, but markets have been trading this way at least since 2009.
13 years ago, oil was trading a pretty steady range and bounce pretty good every time it hit 60. I was watching and waiting, and when oil hit 60, I went long. A few minutes later, as it had hovered between 59'95 and 60.05, it just dropped. Hard. So, of course I doubled down. and it just kept dropping. several times I was withing a few hundred bucks of break even, and wouldn't take the manageable loss. Around 2:15 I got a margin call, and had to dump my longs. As did a whole lot of other people. Oil closed the day by bouncing at 58. The brokerage managed to generate my margin covers within a couple cents of the very bottom. I was down 85k. Sick, replaying the day in my head, I finally realized if I maxed out my margin here at the bottom, I'll probably wake up about right. I even set a sale price. In the morning, oil was down another buck. End of the day, even though I'd been, once again, within a few hundred bucks of break even...I didn't. Down another 50k. After those 2 days, I was down 135k in a 400k account, but I'd lost my confidence in myself, and traded from emotion. That confidence I had said "This is a bad trade, I'll take a couple hundred dollar loss and wait for the next trade. Long, short, didn't matter. The new, emotional me wanted to be right every trade, it was a validation of who I was as a trader. Once ahead, I'd take a small gain, just to get out ahead. When I was behind, that implied I'm just a loser, so I wouldn't even take a break even trade, I had to have that one extra tick to cover commission. Over and over. So the 400k that became 265k after the 2 days of oil, dwindled down to 25k, then 10k. So, OP, don't let that happen to you. It was a long, hard fight back from that state of mind, it must be how drug addicts feel. It all seemed so personal to me. just my own 2 cents on how hard a big hit can be.
Posts like this are rare, but most valuable. Would be very interested to hear what happened after the dark days, how you managed to turn it around. Did you continue and how? Took a long break? Or completely quit with size and traded pocket money ever since? Even if my questions remain unanswered: thank you.
I'm the odd man out, just cannot understand the point of this thread. If a poster on ET posted about a gazzillion dollar profit, what would be the reaction? Most would claim bs, most would ask for proof. Max E claims a large loss and everyone is crying with him. No sympathy, no credibility, I claim this is all bs. 99% of his 15,000 posts are in the Politics section where he and his sidekick JEM (29,000 posts) talk garbage.
This story is so valuable especially when majority on this forum are more or less filled with surviver bias.
This is how you lose gracefully (and your reputation) you lose and then as a professional, stfu! The bottom of the market was 23rd March....