Talk about horror stories in trading. I relate this story in hopes people derive lessons from it on what not to do in trading! I have this doctor friend who I was teaching (mentoring) how to trade options. So, we have a trading plan (mine), risk management (mine), entries and exits, stock selection. All the pieces of the puzzle together. I teach her how to read stockcharts. Now, to make a long story short, she managed to lose 7 figures in the stockmarket. She continues to lose even now. Now, I love her as a friend but, her trading is horrendous. The BS reason of not having enough capital has been put to rest! If you have $1,000,000 and cannot produce any profits inspite, of all the knowledge, there is something wrong! Now, why did she lose so much monies? The reasons are: 1) Lack of risk management. Imagine risking hundreds of thousands in one trade. Multiply that by the number of stock options traded. She is trading way beyond the 2% risk parameters per trade. 2) Trading against the trend. Despite, our trading plan clearly stating to trade with the trend, she continues to take positions against the existing trend. 3) Refusal to create a trading log. I have repeatedly told her to log all her trades and reasons for it so that, she can review her mistakes. She refuses to make a trading log. No trading log, no way to correct her mistakes. 4) Arrogance and Ego is a big one. If you have either one and think you are the world's best trader, you are in for a rude surprise! The stockmarket will take your monies, all of it! She refuses to accept when she is wrong. Like the VRX/BHC trade, the stock was in a downtrend yet, she bought calls. I told her to buy put options and get out of her position and close the calls. She refused and instead, bought more calls! She lost 90% of her monies! 5) She said she will just follow my trades which I share with her. So, if I share 10 trades within say 6 weeks, she will pick 2 trades and take them. Now, I have a 40% win rate, lose 60% of the time on my options trade. Most times, she gets the losing trades. Common sense would dictate to take all 10 trades because I do not know which ones will work out and turn out to be good trades with decent returns so, why gamble? If you want to be a successful trader, do not do these things!