Here's the story. One June 10th, I got in an insane amount of calls option contract(210 contracts is crazy for my small account) on QCOM. That was the first mistake. I got in 10contracts at 40cents. And the rest 200 contracts at 45 cents. Then it proceed to go down. I got out half of the positions at 20-30cents(50% loss!). Then I did a FATAL MISTAKE of HOLDING onto my loser overnite because I saw it was coming back a little. Then the following day on June 11th, QCOM CRASHED non stop. Then I sold the rest of it at 15cents and 1 contract at the low of 10cent. And look at it today?! LOOK AT IT!!!! In the morning it went to 60cents. Then70cents. Then near the close it went as high as $1.10. So, instead of taking near $6K lost, I would have made $13K on it IF I had WAITED a few days later!! This is AGONY at its WORST!!! THE PAIN!! THE PAIN!!!!!!!!!!! Anyhow, ANYONE ever have this happened to them??!! misc
Yeah -- in futures. The first time I went in I started having a panic attack because prices were moving too fast. I got out at a $250 loss within about 60 seconds. Then I was showing my friend Jasper and went long NQ that night and forgot to close it. The next morning I was out $150ish. The rest of my losses were monkeying around with the buy sell button basically gambling instead of using any real system. Total loss was around 2k until I put the breaks on and decided I was being too much of an idiot to trade futures like that. I have since made back $250 on Delta options, followed by about $50 in ORCL. Sorry about your loss -- I'm sure there have been even worse losses out there ... WAY WORSE. You're not alone.
too much leverage. i can relate because i was in a similar position yesterday from shorting monday's rally. as soon as you have a position size that's too big (all too easy to do with options) you stop thinking about reality and start focusing on risk...to make a long story short, you didn't have a plan before you entered the trade...the plan should've been "how much am i willing to lose?" and everything about where to enter and how much size to do at each level should have been thought out before you got into the trade... so here's my story -- basically, monday opened strong and got weak fast, and after friday's SELL-fest (which i really loved and used it to cover 50% of my shorts) when it began to get strong again monday morning maybe around 10am i started shorting again, but it was intended intra-day and i made the mistake of having no plan and in other words, no stops...i was pissed because i wanted to be short monday near the close but was already more short than i was comfortable with in terms of leverage -- AND at inferior prices compared to monday near the close...my 10am short was supposed to be nailing a double top that i thought would collapse but the curbs went in and you know the rest... i wasn't planning on holding that short overnight...but the market kept going up and i just sat there dumbfounded...i mean, i knew it was all hot air and the rest of monday (which was very light volume) i could tell was mostly the floor selling to the funds...so i really wasn't scared at all about being short...just kind of confused and dumbfounded... now i have only recently gotten good at trading days like monday, and they are the easiest days to trade once you simply accept the fact that the market is going to go up all day... because i had no plan (because i was SOOOOOOOOOOO confident monday was going to collapse) i missed three opportunities -- 1)to get long with monday's rally as it was a GREAT day to trade intraday i think it was technically just about perfect with little noise; 2)to get short monday afternoon before the close when the floor was selling into the rally like there's no tomorrow; and 3)i could've stayed out all night monday instead of having to go to bed early to try to get out of my short tuesday AM at a loss... so tuesday AM when it got a little weak i covered monday morning's short at a loss but luckily some other shorts i had came in too and paid for my monday 10am stupidity...but i didn't make any $$$ because i had NO PLAN for a stupid daytrade monday AM. maybe it's just a monday morning thing with me...
That's why money management is so important that it would be total different mindset when the risk were tolerable within 1-2%! You would be able to ride it all the way to $1.1. I did my share of holding crazy-size position on QQQ calls and puts. Decipline is not an easy word to follow all the time
Yep, It's all about money management. If I had on like 30-40contracts instead of 210 contracts I would be able to hold through and still would have more than DOUBLED my $. And the f*ckin' FRUSTRATING thing was that according to my chart reading or whatever, I KNEW KNEW there was going to be a rebound coming up. And lo behold today, it REBOUNDED out of NO WHERE!! But with that size on, you CAN'T HOLD, so you get out at the WORST possible prices.
hey buddy, trading is all about timing. Whether or not it went your way a few days later is not the point, the point is: you have to make the right decision at the right time and be able to sustain a loss if you're wrong. (money management) Sorry you had to learn it the hard way, that's the difference between a profitable trader and a loser.
I sold SONS stock recently for 29 cents. It's near $5 now. Best wishes to the guy who bought that from me. I was thinking as I got executed at 29 cents that the poor bastard who was buying this was surely pissing his money away. He is undoubtedly laughing at me much harder today. Somebody bought your contracts at 20 - 30 cents. All the best to them. You will have your day.
Timing and money mgmt are everything. Yes, I was off by a few days. But had I bet smaller then I could hold longer to my conviction. But then again, if I had SOLD my loser instead of holding over nite I would NOT COMPOUNDED the losses. Then I might have the capital to come back and play it to get it back. Ahh... All these mistakes. Now, I'm just screwed and wallowing in my losses. doh!
You sold SONS at 29cents? Where did you get it at? 10cents? And you thought to yourself? Wow! I doubled my money? Yeah, that sucks. The bastards who bought from me at 20cents and some at 15cents are laughing all the way to the bank! sucks.