I talked to this guy one time who lost $800k trading. He had gotten in a car accident and was in a wheelchair. He got hooked on painkillers and was getting high as a kite while he traded. He say the he was long 90 bond contracts and they tanked. Finally the broker called him and asked him if he wanted to put a stop in for him. Amazing stuff what happens to people. Awful stuff. John
Ouch. Might take a while for those knife wounds in your hands to heal. Just out of curiosity, how did you get your hands on 400 large to throw into your brokerage account? Without knowing exactly what I was doing, my wife would NEVER let that happen.... RoughTrader P.S. For what it's worth, I can only imagine that losing your shirt in a very short amount of time like that is far less worse then bleeding yourself to death over a prolonged timeframe. For beginners, my take is that the most disheartening thing about trading is seeing your account bled dry slowly and steadily.
Well, what I find interesting is you've been here a whole 5 days; you say you lost 400k in the past 6 weeks; you are now broke, and in spite of this debacle you consider hedgeking to be an appropriate SN for you. Nope, I don't think so. I just don't see human nature working that way. I guess I should have been born in Missouri, 'cause I say "show me"
i've been reading this board for years but never posted. i chose the name hedgeking so people would see how important hedging is so they don't make my horrible mistake.if my debacle helps 1 person not walk down my lonely road then all was not in vain.
I think you love the attention and it's all crap but anyway, it's a nice sentiment to want to help other people. if i had lost 400k i sure as hell wouldn't be logging here and posting about it. i'd be sitting in a v dark room staring at a wall. good luck. (p.s i did lose 160k in my first year trading in 2002-- was an inheritance too -- not exactly the 1.8 mil someone just posted but man was i depressed).
Hey come on guys, dont you think this guy has been thru enough without you jackasses twisting the knife even more? I would like to hear more about this guy, what he is going to do, and where he ends up. As someone who has blown his own account once, i know the pain. Of course for me it was a measly 16k i lost. 10k of that was in my last week of trading. Those of you bashing him are most likely not even traders because you have no money, you just paper trade and think if you can make money on paper you can make money in real life. When you take a hit like that its seriously painfull and those of you that question whether or not he lost that much money, i mean why not? Do you think he would just lie about this to get attention? For what purpose? If he was going to lie, dont you think he would say he made 10 million dollars and started with a 2k bankroll 6 weeks ago? But, like the other i would like to know where this guy got 400k. I am assuming he got it where most of the other traders got their cash...from selling their house within the last year or two. Hopefully he didnt mortgage his house to get the money, but i have a feeling he did if he is using credit cards to stay afloat.
Alisa, Can you tell us your story? How much did you inherit? did you lose the whole thing, or was 160k just part of it? Do tell!
I inherited 110k, got margin calls, got credit card advances to cover those and finally closed account at -160k in damages. Don't even ask re methodology, there wasn't any. I had just come out of grad school and thought i was smarter than everyone else. It took 1 year, from 2001-2002, I had just started trading and kept seeing all the all time highs on the tech stocks and kept trying to catch the bottom. Unreal when i think of it now. Anyway I quit in 2002-2003, got another job, but started actually reading books and learning about trading, and finally went back full time in 2003 thanks to another lump sum payment, much smaller this time though. 2003 I broke even, 2004 on I got my act together....and that's my life. Now i make a decent salary, not much, but enough, especially for this lifestyle and for a job i love.
Oh, you mean like this guy? http://elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=61410&highlight=silicon+investor Like I said, ET is full of these threads.