$5242.96 I thought daytrading was easy when I started and BAMMM! I got run over. Nothing like getting pancaked as a rookie. Lesson learned though!
lol that's how i started out too. i remember back when i would put together a few good days in a row and start to get cocky then... WHAM!!!
-$900 on a 7k account all in about 90 seconds. My worst trade was my first trade I ever put on with a leveraged account. I look back and laugh at it now because I had no idea about risk. I would take my buying power, devide it by the price of the stock, and that's how many shares I would buy. I think i was -$200 just getting filled and was floating around -$400 and couldn't pull the trigger, ended up selling afte it flashed -$1,000. Nothing crazy but that's my story.
LDK solar about 6 weeks ago, when it ran one day from around $32 to $39.00. There was news. Someone knew something. The most aggressive buying I've ever seen. Bids chasing bids, large size continually stepping up, every offer evaporating and pulling back, MULTIPLE SIMULTANEOUS ECN MARKET BUY PROGRAMS WITH INFINITY RESERVES... and I thought I finally had the top, I couldn't believe that that much buying could maintain itself - similar to the reaction people had in the futures squeeze yesterday - I shorted 1000, was instantly 30 cents out of hte money, didn't want to take a 300 hit, held, it went a point against me, came back to 70 cents against me, I shorted another 1000, then it ran such that my position was over $7,000 against me. It came back to -4300ish and at that point I puked the stock when it was jiggling around, consolidating, and looking like it would break up again (it did).
I used to try and be clever by trading reversals, overnight no less. Pick whichever stock mad moved the most in a day, then bet on an overnight gap in the opposite direction. SYX was down 21% in one day (in '06), so I bought a whole bunch of it at EOD. Next morning it gapped down a further 7% and I bailed at 15% Total loss about $2500 (on a $20k account). Needless to say, I had to rethink that strategy Of course, now I trade futures instead of stocks, so I'll be rich in no time
2002 RIMM for $12000 shorting it, not exactly the smartest move. Then in 2006, i think roughly the same amount (11k+) buying gold when it hit the top. I was losing about 1.5k then kept buying and buying... lessons learned.