the day of the rate hike in Jan '01 a guy in our office was short three stocks, one of which was AOL - don't remember the other two... he went to the head for a dump, came back and his whole account was blown out. never saw him again. moral of the story... ALWAYS put in stops if u leave your screen for any reason! u never know what can happen.
yes, everything gapped up. but they also gapped up and KEPT GOING STRAIGHT UP. with stops he would not have blown out his account. he would have had a big loss, yes, but not blown out.
Not so sure about that, all my positions just gapped and at the end of the day the market was a little lower than where those positions were at the time of the announcement. I remember that day well, was my worst day. I though that was it
EXACTLY...however, with even some good trading platforms like Lightspeed, there is no built-in STOP LOSS order capability for Naz stock trading. Reason: ETrade does not want the LIABILITY from failed stop orders due to execution or technical problems. Many other order entry platforms DO park stop-loss orders for Naz stocks locally....so what the heck ?
What's the difference ? Big account = large dollar losses, small account = small dollar losses. With a meager $5k deposit account, the guy was down 80% of his account in 2 trading days....as he started those trades down $1000 already. What's important are the LESSONS learned: no discipline wishful thinking refusing advice overleveraged no stop losses used etc All can destroy an account.
It's part of a learning experience. People should read this and learn as much as they can, that is the purpose of elite trader. Bottom line, if this thread cna help one guy mitigate his risk then the thread could be worht millions in losses that nay never happen. Maybe, based on this thread, a person will not walk away and go to the toilet without a stop loss order. And that is what this thread is all about!!