I think his story is very plausible. Furthermore I'll wager that the majority of successful traders have similar ones to tell. IMHO its generally par for the course to follow this route but what separates the success from the wipeouts is their ability to learn from mistakes and tenaciously fight back. That said, a person with a gambling problem should let someone else trade on their behalf otherwise its akin to an alcoholic working in a brewery. Only a matter of time.
Coming back from a large sized blow out ýs not an easy task. It doesn't matter how competitive you are or how much your psychology/mindset/approach has changed. It's a pain in the ass. (especially if you don't have adequate funds to make that return). The whole experience can fuck up your life (to a certain extent). On the positive side, It can always be worse you could live in Africa and have to walk 5 miles to get water. Peace ozzy
As a matter of fact; I DO live in Africa, been at this full time for almost two years and I'm down 55%. Happily I have running water in my home.
Hedgeking - after reading through half of these posts and seeing what complete morons a lot of these guys are (so called traders) then maybe you should be happy that your leaving the business after all. Seriously though, things will work out BUT go and get yourself a STABLE, STEADY job for awhile even if the pay is low it is very important for your self respect and state of mind right now!
have you considered that the type of personality that makes you want to become a trader is the exact type of personality that will make you unsuccessful? never combine buy and hold with margin. why? because every stock will get pulled down by the market no matter how strong the company's fundamentals. you think it will just come back up. well, yes, it will, in the long run (years). but in the short run, the market can easily take it down more than 20%. if you use margin you will not survive this.
To the OP, not to be mean, just objective: There is an 80% chance that your story is BS, and there is a 100% chance that you are an idiot. Again, I don't mean to be offensive, but: 1. You said you have been reading ET for years, and you haven't learnt anything???? You are either the biggest idiot or your story is a lie. I go with the lie... 2. Blowing so much money in such a short time, I am sorry but again, just classifies you as an idiot. No plans, no papertrades, no small account trades first, no diversification?? You just jump in and bet the bank on 1-2 stocks using margin?? How fucking stupid is that??? If it happened, you deserved it, I am sorry. In real life the stupid gets eaten. By the way, assuming a 2 to 1 margin, would you care to show which stocks fell 50% in 3 weeks??? And if you had 400K, what did you need margin for???