I suggest you use a portion of your 190k and enroll into a formal trading school. I'm not referring to Youtube, or any online nonsense. There are many qualified trading instructors. Find one with a proven tract record, and pay his or her fee. IF, you are trading an account of 190K, you are already way ahead of the curve, as the #1 problem with new traders is being under capitalized. #2 is over leveraged. You have more than enough money to focus on TREND trading, so look to get educated.
That speaks volumes about your mental agility. Think about that line you just typed. How the hell did you ever survive before May 2019, when the micro equity contracts were introduced at the CME?
You need a mechanical edge that allows trend following. Small consistent edge that compounds over time is possible.
My advice to you: Return all the money back to your family, go back to your day job and try to come up with a profitable trading system first. It's clear that you don't have a profitable strategy or trading system and you never have been even when you were trading small account sizes. There is no point in continuing to trade as continuing to do so would only deplete the account albeit slowly but not growing it. Once you have designed a profitable trading system/strategy, test it out with a demo account first and then with a very small account. Once both of them are consistently profitable with no drawdowns that wipe out all profits, then you can start to increase your live account size gradually.
Give the money back and never accept it again. Trade small with MES with a small trading account...be profitable for many months with that small trading account. Just keep slowly growing it. It may take a few years but you'll get there. Thus, MES is appropriate for a 1- 2K. You know this and you still accepted that money from your family...wow. Start all over again but this time with your own money and without the additional financial stress that comes with trading money from someone else. These market conditions, the volatility, most veteran traders can not manage and big losses are very likely for those that can publicly admit they're still a struggling trader. Without knowing you and the type of losses you've described in those very short time span...you're not suitable for trading a large account even though this time you've manage to grow it back into just a 3k loss. Trade small in these market conditions and only trade big if it's your money...money you can afford to lose. wrbtrader
Thanks for all your suggestions! This is not a hypothetical question, I don't understand why anyone would ask fake questions. My family is actually my wife, she doesn't trade but she earns very well. I earned well in my day jobs in my previous life, I treated her very well, now she takes care of me, well mostly. I burned her account once ($17K), she never got to see her account changes. With this new account she demanded to install the trading App on her phone, she checks the account on a daily basis. She is upset with the 20K loss, but she understands that the market condition is extreme. When I recover my first 20K loss, I got cocky and sold options of individual stocks such as GS, MSFT, AMZN and MMM. I cut the losses of GS and AMZN, I have no confidence to hold them. Despite that the market has only rallied 50% of the 500 points decline, I'm almost break even. I wasn't doing too bad. If I only traded SPY options, I would be in green now. But I couldn't help asking myself: what if it dropped 500 points more? With the account fully loaded, it would be more than 40K loss. She will deposit 50K more and insisted it although I told her I can't handle big account. BTW, MMM is really a disappointment, it performed much worse than all other stocks I traded. I plan to hold these 200 shares indefinitely. I won't stop trading. My current plan is day trading a few MES contracts, very small P/L, which won't affect my account much. Sell spy options when good chances come, also trade small, don't use margin. I also like tesla options. My secret trading goal was $1.5K weekly profit by selling SPY options.
Give the money back and trade a small account until you have proven yourself and your wife you can be consistently profitable. If you continue i can almost guarantee you will mess up again.