Good story, Phil. I often pray before I enter the market that the Lord would protect me, guide me and help me make the right decisions. So far it works! to
When I was a new trader at the NYFE back in the 80's, a veteran there told me about a new trader he had observed at the COMEX. First day on the floor, the kid steps into the silver pit to make his first trade. He buys 5 contracts. About 10 mins. later the news broke that the Hunt brothers were trying to corner the silver market. Futures prices when to the moon. Within the hour, the kid sold his 5 contracts for a $350K profit and walked out the door, smiling. They never saw him again. saxon
Congratulations, I think allot of traders forget about the spiritual side of this business. I commend your faith in God. I pray for guidance with my trading career all the time and he is always there for me.
Louis had been on vacation, I don't remember where, but he wasn't there Monday. He was Tuesday...and in a big way. As the market was about to open, paper was offering 200 lower than the close. Almost without hesitation Louis bellowed, "I'm 300 lower!" Paper countered with 400. The exact numbers escape me, but I remember Louis moving the market to 600 or so lower, and buying them. The price bounced off that low like a superball and I saw Louis sell his cars and get out of the pit. Later I learned that in the course of a few minutes, Louis had made over $1,000,000 on that trade. Now that is one heckuva scalp. __________________ Then, he went into the bathroom and THREW UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's the truth. BTW, he was in Europe and his brother called him to come home.
some of these stories are completely bananas... some ppl either have a lot of balls, or a lot stupidity... and in turn have a lot of money or a lot of losses...
Is this an urban legend?How could he not come back?Why was he there in the 1st place?He must have gone through some training.But for 1 trade?Surely after that trade he would have been hooked.
I'm sure we all have one of these... This was my first or second time trading options. I don't remember the exact numbers, but I had straddles on AOL. After about a week, I doubled my money because of the puts. My profit target was reached so the puts were cashed. The day I sold the puts was 9/10/01.
A buddy of mine from school used to trade eurodollar options. He had a massive guts on the market around the time a big number was coming out. The expectancy was for the Fed to remain unchanged - but it didn't - for the worse. He lost $500,000 and had to sell his house. At the time I knew nothing of trading (do I now?), but it made me think - if a dude can lose that money, then a dude can also make that money. BUT - and here's the crunch - YOU GOTTA BE A DUDE! Got me interested in trading anyway and here I am!
He mortgaged his house to the limit, borrowed every dollar he could get his hands on and bought as many shares of Resorts International before their casino in Atlantic City was a sure thing. He made millions, moved to a nicer house and I never saw him again. (this same guy told me about a small company called 7-11. Why would anyone over pay in a little store when they could go to the supermarket?). My history in the stock market is abysmal: When I was 15 my father let me trade stocks in his brokerage account. I would look in the paper and pick from the most active list. I forget the first stocks I bought but they went up. Then I bought Avnet Electronics at $17 and each week it was up dramatically. One day at school (Wharton) my friend who was the youngest guy on the Philly Exchange and taking classes at night, told me that there was some problem with Avnet and I should sell. Reluctantly, I took his advice and sold at $60- watching it go to $68 within the next couple of weeks. Man I was pissed at my buddy and told him so on that friday night. The next monday they halted trading on that stock and it collapsed. I took that money and bought a company I never heard of called Burlington Industries. It went up like crazy too so I sold it and bought myself a Lincoln Convertible. The my father told me about some oil company in Canada(Saphire Petroleum) his friend thought was a winner and me, like a fool, I buy all I can get. Well, it turns out I think it was owned by some crook- maybe Bernie Cornfeld, I don't remember. Bottom line it goes to zero! Last time I ever bought stock. Swore off them forever. You know what they say about one door closes and another opens? My friend, who was a programmer for INA and his friend were trading something called commodities and making enough so that they could buy new cars every six months in 1972. They were happy to show me their charts on pork bellies and soybeans at the time with something they called technical analysis. I went to a technical book store and bought all the books on TA I could find. One, contained a great deal of info on Elliott Waves and it looked like the 3rd wave was where the real moves were. I told my buddy who was not at all impressed, so I used that book to get started myself in my own way. My buddy, Jay, went on to become an artisan and his friend graduated from medical school and became a radiologist making over $100K back then. Were it not for them I would never have gotten interested in the futures markets after being burned by my stupid trade in the stock market, as the trending bull moves in the 70's got under way. Markets trended up so much back then that the first major short I did was in crude oil (margin was only $1,000) in the early 80's at about $30- it went straight down, week after week until it was around 10. I was in a 7-11 parking lot in San Diego at the time, before the markets opened on monday morning, reading a Wall Street Journal when a bum came up and asked me for change in a manner that put me in a bad mood. I went to the pay phone and told the broker to sell all on the open (9.95) and in short order crude was back up to at least 13. Last time I ever traded crude! Moved on to live hogs.