i figured i would start this thread up after seeing that youtube video of the trader blow up. well here is my biggest loser.... i lost about 108k after my foray into merger arb with the HAR deal. the worst thing about that trade was i had bad dreams about me losing over 200k in that trade before it happened. it was pretty "funny" how all this went down too. it was about 7am CST and the guy I trade next to at my office calls me to wake me up. He says "Hey Robbie you awake?" Me.."nah I'm just getting up" Him..."Well...I'm calling you for a pretty GOOD reason" ...My little monkey brain is thinking the HAR deal is going thru... He continues "HAR is trading at 100 and there is talk that the deal won't happen" My reaction was similar to the trader in that youtube blow up lol. So then I rush into work and read the news stories. I evaluate pretty quickly that stuff doesn't look good for the deal and exit my position. I should have just gone short after I got out!! To finish the story I ended up making back my losses within about a month.
I've lost around $40K twice. The first loss in 2006 left me with $25K and I almost gave up trading. The 2nd loss wasn't as devastating.
I have had about 5 or 6 $20,000 loser days. I now keep automated liquidation on my daytrading accounts to ($5000). I don't have the up $30,000 days anymore but net net its a plus avoiding the big down days while still being able to have the occasional large winning day.
I lost 15k about a month ago. I was DEVASTATED for a couple days. Looking back on the whole situation I see it as a huge positive for the lessons I learned from it.
3 50k+ days in over 10 years, but much more days like that to the upside. I was obviously hung over on the very bad days, but it hurt the same.
I started trading on 06/10/2007 and my first really big (and biggest till now) losing trade came on 11/08/2007 when I lost ca. $9000 that evaporated my 80% gain in one month.