True Legendary Trading Stories

I'm right there with you man. Still kicking myself in the ass for not dropping out to trade and make easy millions. So much for the concept of hard work and discipline, what a scam.
Shiiiiittt, I actually have to use skills to make a few hundred a day now yet I could have used nothing but balls to make thousands a day a few years ago.

 

:eek:

Ok, ill never feel bad again for all the little mistakes I have made in the past

peace

axeman

 

What can we learn? Never cut your losses?

 

IMHO, not with options. I almost did the same.

I had 2 different call contracts for BP. The first ones I bought at an intermediate top hence it was so out of the money. The other ones I bought later at a small dip and for a later expiration. BP was jerking around and my first set of calls expired worthless. The second still had some value and I contemplated cutting a loss. I said "screw it, this aint stock trading, I risk a certain amount and play it out". I ended up selling them over triple what I paid for them a few weeks later.

 

wow wow wow! Excellent story! Excellent writing! More, inandlong, more!

 

Do you have the phonenumber on that chic?

 

The problem with the stock market, is that thousands, millions, of people play it.

And the tail ends of the return distributions produce these incredible stories, even out of pure luck.

And then, thousands, millions of other people play the market in a way as to try and replicate the same unlikely "rags to riches" stories. And, predictably, they lose more than they gain from the market.

Damn, it would be so nice to be one of those that went from $20k to $20mn. But there's a trade off in the market. You pay a price for having a decent certainty on your returns: you pay the price of cutting off the tail of the return distribution. For you to make 20-30% a year (which isn't easy at all), you have to adopt practices that keep you from making 10000% in a single year (as well as losing 99%).

 

My wife's father had 5,000 shares of TASR from 2.05. At the time, last year, his broker told him to sell 300 shares of his ASD (who he had worked for and had a nice amount of shares) and buy 5000 shares each of TASR and SWB.
Well we all know ASD has moved up 50 points from where he sold last year. So he always tells people how he sold 300 shares of ASD 50 points ago, but doesn't regret it. What he fails to tell them is that he sold 4000 shares of TASR at 125 or so! Still has the other 1000.

Not a huge amount of money like some other stories but a nice amount for a broker he dumped in September because the guy didn't call him back one day. Well some people just get lucky. Oh by the way he is still holding SWB

 

How I Survived AAGP

This is about the WORST trade I ever made.

Actually, it was a GREAT trade... until the world went upside down.

It is about a NASDAQ stock called AAGP.

Got up one morning towards the end of 1999 (in the midst of the big "daytrading" phenomena that was sweeping the country) flipped on my monitor (I had live feed) and there was this stock called AAGP.

It was sitting 500% up from its previous closing price.

I started furiously clicking all over the Net to put together whatever clues there were about the possible reasons this stock was up 500% and climbing as I researched.

Very little was uncovered. But, as it was moving past 600% in a blur, this much my eyes caught: Apparently this company had signed a deal with Everlast to market some of their products on AAGP’s website.

Remember the beginning of the Dot Com bubble? Well, an announcement came out, was worded just right and placed smack in the middle of the frenzy... about AAGP.

Stats showed this company should have been vaporized in bankruptcy years ago. Probably about two weeks after it went public.

Its stock price maintained an even losing keel at about a buck for as long as the charts showed it in existence.

What could I do? I pulled up my DATEK trade execution screen and fired - short - presuming this mother was gunna drop like a rock… if I even had time to get in I'd be lucky.

Hey, it was a quick and easy several hundred bucks ... a nice way to start out the trading day, right?

Wrong.

My short (and presumably others') didn't phase its momentum, that actually surprised me.

Undaunted, I loaded up 1/2 my entire account and fired again hitting it hard in the high 7s.

This time I was assured well over a grand when it fell like a dead horse.

Nah...

Up it climbed... 8..9...10...11...

Wait, this MUST be my day! I took a quick account of my balance and just as quickly unloaded everything I had left save enough for a bus ticket over to the soup shelter place downtown L.A.

I immediately grabbed for my calculator to start adding up how many thousands I would make on this SINGLE trade in what, no more than an hour's time max.

12...13...14... all I could do was sit there with my jaw hanging as I read the percentage indicator, 799%... 857%... 980%... 1050%.

Definitely a stock to die for.

Evidently half the world had that dawn on them at that same moment thus presumably equating this stock's movement with being beatified in stock heaven on earth.

Obviously it was the next Microsoft (what stock wasn't back then?).

I didn’t know how to use a stop loss or much anything else beyond Buy/Sell @ Market. As I saw my margin balance moving into deep red at Warp III speed I thought about all the Longs who were doing just the opposite.

The next thing I knew the closing bell rang.

Yahoo message boards lit up with posters from all over the globe bantering that this stock had just begun to climb and it would be at... 15 tomorrow.

Indeed it was! Only... it was just beginning to take on momentum again.

News stations were going nuts with this. Even interviewing the president of AAGP (Active Apparel) who looked like he had just spent about 6 months in the same homeless shelter I was now looking up the address for.

The more the news made of this company the more the stock climbed. 18...19...20...21 - 1600% without losing an iota of steam.

Remember, I was in this puppy SHORT wayyyyyyyyy back....

If I covered I'd be wiped out with one click. If I didn't, doubtless DATEK would be sending an adjuster over to size up the value of my car (surely it was worth at least part of what I was going to owe them in lost margin costs).

After spending yet another day in my chair that had become a sopping wet squish seat from sweat, and having my tongue dry out so bad from my mouth hanging open that I couldn't talk, I glanced at the clock - 1 hour and 45 minutes left 'til closing.

Yet another news story... portrayed the beaming cherubim face of the now cleanly shavin and barbershop-spruced CEO. He even had a new set of clothes on! Probably borrowed from his brother-in-law.

I reached over and turned off the monitor, slumping over in my chair from over a day and night of no sleep.

When I got some of my strength back I started researching cardboard box durability. Hey, you think I wanted something that would dissolve easily when rained on? We're talking classy housing here, guys, nothing cheap for THIS boy.

Somehow I made it through the night without scraping together the last of my petty cash for a plane ticket to the Bermuda Triangle. Next morning, after taking my seat again in what looked like a 3/4 stained coffee napkin that used to be my chair, I painfully reached over and clicked my monitor on, inwardly hoping it would not work.

The depressing sound of crackling gave way to the room being lit with the stark electric-charged light that stuck my sore and tired eyes like a knife.

I tried to squint away both the eye pain and the crushing inner pain that confirmed 100% that I was THE loser of all time.

Only a REAL loser would have been sucked in by such an easily recognizable money destroyer trade as AAGP short.

How the heck could I have let this happen to me??? I had just joined the ranks as the newest statistic of those who I had heard about all my life "losing all their money in the stock market."

My stomach was churning on its knots but since I was trying to ration the remaining food (surely it would take DATEK a few days to reach my house for their cash I lost for them in margin) I had little in it to throw up.

My view adjusted on the newest shining star of Wallstreet... AAGP, at a blazing 1800% up ... 23 and continuing its ascend into the Heavens where God himself was probably awaiting his chance to add it into his Divinity Retirement Fund.

My mind froze.

"News... news... check the news...something has got to be wrong here...." was all the blown gears of my cerebral cortex could come up with. "Surely NASDAQ had issued a statement that it had all been a joke of horror in honor of Halloween approaching in a few days." Of course! They would HAVE to stop the trading of this stock!

1900% my live feed reassured me in the hissing silence echoing from my monitor. 24 read its current price.

That BUM of a CEO had just had a 19-fold increase of his net wealth.... Oh yeah, he had my money too.

For some reason that thought brought me no comfort.

I reached back over and jammed my finger deeply into the monitor’s on/off button, almost knocking it off my desk.

That's it, I sighed, I've got to go for a walk. I hadn't seen the light of day in over 72 hours.

As I made my way down the morning sun lit street, I was still in shock at how suddenly my whole life had changed.

I had absolutely no liquidity left to my name. Rent was due. Utilities, that, yesterdays gone by, used to be paid, would be getting a letter returned in them instead saying how I ... how I ... how I what?? "Dear Sirs, I daytraded stocks in the NASDAQ and ...."

Oh, good Lord, the Devil surely got to me. "Sure," I pondered, as I made it past the second then the third street over from where I used to.. I mean where I live, “The Devil is IN the stock market!”

Trembling, I reached my hand up to calmly touch my face as I tried to grasp the underlying meaning of it all.

Nah, I'm just bordering on a mental breakdown. Devil... HA! It was ME who slammed in all those shares short into that stock, the Devil... or whatever "Evil" there was in this world had nothing to do with it! It was all me.

Somehow, that reasoning calmed me inside and I started breathing normally again. Yeah, sure, life goes on... even though I lost everything I have... there's always tomorrow... yeah....

"What am I thinking?? This is the STOCK MARKET! These are very serious matters! You just got bagged is all. How does it feel, son?"

The sun was getting warm enough to make me break out in a sweat, signaling NY was nearing 1/2 day into their trading session. I soon found myself relaxed enough to at least begin putting things into perspective.

Maybe I could just lie to DATEK and say I wasn't home during the past few days and my 3 year old somehow started clicking around on my computer, that's all! Yeah, I didn't DO it, therefore could NOT be held liable for the tens of thousands of dollars most likely missing from DATEK's account ... with my log-in name on it ... with my 12 digit password on it. That realization took my breath away. The fact that I didn’t have a 3 year old didn’t help.

No matter, I was back in my chair now once again reaching for my monitor’s On switch.

Sizzling to life in a dry laughing tone at me, the betraying screen lit a pathway for my eyes to see into Hell.

Something looked different in all the windows I had glaring back at me covering the extravaganza called AAGP. My live feed recorded a smoldering 2000% gain, with the stock's price now hovering between 25 and 25 5/8.

Wait.

My mind's process of thought assimilation was now relaying something I had not seen once during the last 2 days. What felt like billions of inter-fraction-ated thought patterns of what must be referred to as some form of rationalization were making my head feel like it had been blown off by a 12 gauge shotgun. The same kind I used to blow away jack rabbits with for fun back on the ranch when I was kid.

"Yes. Yessss... this is it... this IS something different," my thoughts told me. What is wrong in this screen?

I reached over and adjusted the monitor, leaning my face so near to it my eyelashes almost blinking the dust off it.

Part II con't...

 

"It's... hovering," was the mechanics of countless interrelated neuron processes used by whatever I had left in me to confirm what appeared to be … a new reality.

It's not... climbing. 2000% up it mockingly sat. 25 3/4 points (making it a clean 24 point gain). "Oh, you **&^%$. Stayyyy therrrre," is all my breath uttered from deep inside me.

No! DON'T stay there! Get DOWN! Go down! WAY DOWN! Oh my God, I bowed my head and prayed to whatever forces ruled the NASDAQ... Let it go down... please... Make it go away....

I raised my head to behold it just making it into the 24 number range. I shot my eyes over to the live feed with a snap that could be heard over the roaring sound blasting in my ears. I forgot how long it had been since I took a breath of air. Upon realizing this I inhaled as hard as I could. The cool air felt good as it passed my lips filling my lungs and head more full of oxygen than I had ever felt.

24 1/2... 24 3/4... 24 1/8...

I gasped, then went semi-brain dead as I propped my head up with my hands staring into the depths of my worst fears.

1850% screamed the live feed as I affixed my eyes upon it. 1790%... 1750%... 1690%.

I sat back, my mind trying to fathom between the need to blink or exhale.

22... 21 3/4 ... 22... 21 1/8... 20.

I willfully chose the later, letting out a sigh of relief that I had held in for over 2 days.

All the muscles in face relaxed. The black cloud began to diminish. Yes... this .... this ... piece of garbage called a stock.

“I was right!” I punched the words out as the clocked ticked one tick at a time, timed around each fraction of a falling stock that embraced $1000s of dollars of my money.

It was past noon now (PST) and the market was nearing the final bell. AAGP was now under 17.

It took 2 additional days for it to reach 11 where I closed my third short position at entry. Later that day I closed my second position somewhere in the neighborhood of 7, then the first. My account registered $50 that I did not have before.

Let it be known too that “AAGP” is history. I am sure there are price charts somewhere of it on the net.

Perhaps a few traders here were in the market at the time AAGP did this thing.

Well guys... that is my "worst trade" story. And it happened. Even though months later places that contained such data of the enormous price increase would settle upon a lie, reflecting that it only climbed to right above 20. But they altered the truth. Oh well....

Regards,

trade off