Does anyone have some stories of really bad blowouts (or worse) from the trading realm? I don't mean people opening up a $25k account and blowing up ofc.
A guy I used to work with blew a fairly large seven figure year (we got paid out based on annual performance) from mid October-early December and ended it in the red. This was several years ago and he's still trading now. In my eight+ years of trading, this guy is by far the best trader, with the worst discipline (if that makes any sense) that I've ever met.
In the 1980's a friend took up day trading. He was quite good at it, made a lot of money, had a very expensive custom home built, and as his success increased, he began leveraging more and more. In October 1987, he had swing trades in place that were levered to the hilt prior to leaving for vacation. If you're familiar with October 1987, you know the rest of the story: Black Monday, vacation was over and he had to liquidate EVERYTHING to cover the margin call. I guess that's the downside of being a hugely successful beginner; you never learn what a "stop loss" is for.