The biggest mistake I've ever made in trading.

Discussion in 'Trading' started by Jamie J., Aug 29, 2016.

  1. GotherL

    GotherL

    How do you recover from such a beat? I lose $2500 and it feels like my whole life is worthless. I still feel sick in the stomache after weeks has gone by!
     
    #41     Sep 4, 2016
  2. comagnum

    comagnum

    It sucks going from boom times to bust but I learned that keeping the money was the hard part for most people. I told my tax guy I would be wearing sun glasses to hide my tears - he reminded me that all that money I had made I had lost was made from trading - not like I blew an inheritance. He encouraged me to make another go of it after I took some down time an reinvented my trading game. Even when I was broke and had no money I knew I would trade my way back up again to that same level but not loose it next time. It took 8 years to get all the money back I had lost in a week but now I have never had a negative year since 2003 - It was a valuable lesson I do not regret.
     
    Last edited: Sep 4, 2016
    #42     Sep 4, 2016
  3. GotherL

    GotherL

    You lost all that in just a week? That sounds like someone's poker bad beat...I never knew you can lose that much so fast in the stock market. You must've had terrible risk management at the time.
     
    #43     Sep 4, 2016
  4. vanzandt

    vanzandt

    I think you can trade puts, level 1, in a cash account.
     
    #44     Sep 4, 2016
  5. GotherL

    GotherL

    I don't have any experience with options and don't wanna lose money trying something new. I am still fairly new to trading equities and just beginning to get the hang of it. It seems 50% of my time was spent on learning from mistakes alone and the other half is a mix of devising strategies and improving on it. I am not ready to try something new.
     
    Last edited: Sep 4, 2016
    #45     Sep 4, 2016
  6. comagnum

    comagnum

    How do you recover from such a beat? I lose $2500 and it feels like my whole life is worthless.
    ____________________________________________________________________________

    I just focused on making my first $10 of profit in a day and maybe a month later it became $20, and so on. I figured I was simply redoing what I already had done before so it gave me confidence. I did have a big capital loss carryover - which meant I would pay less taxes going forward for years to come - if I had profits - another motivator. I just try not to take the losses or the wins personally - a lot of it is just luck that comes from taking risks.
     
    #46     Sep 4, 2016
  7. I second that. High performance activities almost require the implementation of mindfulness. Trading is a high performance activity.
     
    #47     Sep 15, 2016