I have lived a few, loved them all and not done yet. Some great words of encouragment in this thread. No losers here.
This helps me thru the hard times and gives you perspective. http://www.newportnet.com/home.cfm?dir_cat=48170 http://www.newportnet.com/archives/mandala/nancy/home.htm
Learn from the experience, I think you must have fallen for the Chinese pump and forgot to dump. Remember, when you play hot stocks you have to have a fast trigger finger and get out when the buzz is still around. I know it takes a long time for people to get the hang of it, but just learn what made you money and what cost you money. A little self analysis will go a long way. Don't read the ET boards for trading ideas, come up with your own and try to find patterns in the market. They are there for those willing to put in the work. Good luck to you, I am sure you will be back and you are young.
I was in the same position as you at one point. I hit a low when I lost $23k in one day and had to tell my 9 months pregnant wife that our trading capital was gone. I decided to rebuild from the ground up by making risk management (protect my capital), rather than the generation of profits, my priority. I then got a mentor and cleared my mind to accept whatever he told me to do and think. My first mentor didn't work out so I got a different mentor and have experienced great progress and a noticeable reduction in risk and stress. It has been hard and at times tough for my pride to take. He is honest and direct at pointing out my mistakes, of which there are many. But ultimately, our greatest enemy to being a successful trader looks at us each day in the mirror. Without outside, unbiased feedback, we may never learn what is holding us back. So take some time off, clear your head, understand that to be successful you have to lose money because that is the only way you learn to respect it, and then seek the counsel of someone who can not only trade, buy communicate how to help you find your personal trading method. Don't give up! Sincerely, Daryl
Unless I'm misreading your post, pumper, you've got 70k and you're only 29. Shit, at 29 all I had was a hard-on and a couple of restraining orders. The world is your oyster, Mofo!
Yes it does, and many of us have been there, it's all part the game. A 50% loss is not a blow up either, you can easily recover from that, it'll just take time. Don't be a bagholder if your portfolio is going sour, I made that mistake back in '01 like many did. Dump the whole thing and start afresh. No reason to go back to work unless this happens again. If you can land a great job, then ok go for it, but chances are your search will be a long one. 141k layoffs since summer and that's just in finance alone. Resume traffic at various agencies/headhunters is running 3 fold higher than normal. I say batten down the hatches and keep trading. Just my 2 cents.
Let him find out for himself since certain method fits certain personality. Even if he didn't think it worked for him on the first try but it might works great on the second try. So I just want to remind him of what are available in case he just plain forgot.