I agree with Ksonsinc, Dont have a chart to look at atm; but if reight before the close if the YM pushedup 50 points then that is quite unusual especially before a weekend. Usuaully the YM will stay below a pricepoint over the weekend because investors dont want to be 'sitting in the wind' over the weekend. I bet lots of people lost money on that flipflop - least you had the guts to post your mistake here
It seems these days nobody wants to sit on short positions over the weekend before merger monday so they rather cover their shorts into the close Friday afternoon
Merger Monday sounds about right. One alternative is to buy right on the Sunday open to avoid holding longs over the weekend. ...another of those "little tricks" that have been working well.
i have lost alot as well back in the day and there is always a common thread to these big hits: poor risk management. why let a loss get out of hand. my new motto is this: if a trade does'nt do what i thought it was supposed to,i bail. no questions asked. commissions are so cheap that i can always jump right back in if it starts to do what i originally thought.i did that yesterday with AAPL. I kept getting shaken out in the 134's and then jumped back in on the break of 135 and let it ride. we always hear guys say"i had to leave the house for an hour and came back and my position was down 5k ect...". well,thats trading and the market will kill you every time you take your eye off the ball. i leave the house every now and then but always put in a stop.another things guys do is refuse to take a loss,average down and hold overnight. 99% of the time this is a recipe for disaster and i have done this one too many times myself but i learned from these amateur mistakes. this is when you hear experienced traders say things like "i should have known better,i knew it was the wrong move". well guess what,it is the wrong move. this game is all about discipline and there comes a time when you have to ask yourself if you are disciplined enough to be in this game. i mean,how many learning experiences does a trader have to have before he loses his home? i have a list of things a trader should never do and i hang it on a wall in front of my computer,pretty simple rules,nothing arcane.that said,i used to be under the impression that given the right discipline and stratagey,anyone can trade. thats simply not true and i have just come to realize this. trading has a very intuitive aspect to it and i know some of you guys are saying to yourselves,"no shit,trading is all about intuition"! true but certain people are able to look at things and see things that others simply cannot.some of this is being street wise you could say. remember,holding a losing position and trying to convince yourself that evetually it will have to work is a very fast way to the poor house.
Take a week off and keep busy with something other than trading. Large losses like these lead to a string of even larger losses as traders try to make the loss back. When you get back, start small and then scale up. It's all about discipline, and at the moment you don't have any.
Thanks all for this post - especially flip for starting it. It is really encouraging to see someone lose and have the confidence to step back in the market to start the slow process of recouping profits. I lost 4 grand on 2 wheat trades 3 weeks ago and was wrecked emotionally for a few days. Finally I got back in and started to gain back my losses. Making up big losses is like having A average in college and getting one F (like I did in organic chemistry - took me two years and a couple of 4.0 semesters to get back a B average) - it takes a patience and disciplined determination to make it up. Losses are a time to reflect and learn, not a time to quit. Keep banging away and stay focused. PS - before anyone starts bashing me - I already know I am a small time trader!
You cant win on elitetrader. First, everyone loves to read about everyone else losing large amounts of money. You have guys like stocktrader on the sidelines that live for posts like this and enjoy rubbing salt into the wounds of those who have lost out big. Second, you have guys like Steve Tvardek who have turned 5000 into 200,000 who are indeed very successful prop traders. However, when Steve posts his story up you again have the stocktrader aliases ready to put him down either accusing him of lieing or telling him he must have made with forex or some other high risk/high return tool. Third, when someone does have a decent journal with some winning trades then you have more aliases throwing flame and fire into the thread. Fourth, no one ever explains themselves or tells you their strategy. There are many blogs out there where traders explain their system either with charts, strategy, etc., however, no one ever seems to post up anything educational here. Fifth, there is no moderation on this website whatsoever. It seems like this is a place for losing traders to blow off some steam more then anything. I remember reading the bluestreak posts some time ago. I think that was just some prop trader in Brooklyn blowing off some steam. Sixth, then there are guys like Stoney who post up a good stock tip or so and then they are blasted by even more aliases putting down their picks. The name of this site should be called LOSTTRADER.COM not ELITETRADER.COM. Learning about trading can be more effectively done from certain blogs then this site.
REMEMBER: 1) Scale up with winning trades. 2) IMMEDIATELY dump loosing trades. It's not that difficult.
PD, As other ET'ers frequently recommend to folks who have had a losing streak, time to get away from trading for a while. Between your fatalistic approach to smoking cessation and your statement on playing tips, you've gone over to the dark side (aka: victim mode). Unless you can lose that thought process and take responsibility for your actions, you really should take your own advice & jump back into the 9 to 5 routine before your savings are annihilated. R