Quote from flipflopper:
Yup I am.
I was up $1100 trading 3 contracts of the YM yesterday. I was short at 13640 with a stop at 13650. I thought they were going to pop it before a dump at the close so I removed my stop loss planning to cover about 5 minutes after the cash close.
From 3 minutes before the close to 15 minutes after I had lost about 40 points!??! So of course I started averaging!! I knew it was stupid I knew it was armatureish and ignorant but I didn't care I was pissed thought the pop was bs.
Anyways to make a long story short I had been shorting since after the close yesterday to this morning and afternoon.
Finally covered for a 17K loss. Yup, turned trying to prevent a $150 loss into a realizing a 17K loss.
I knew I deserved to be punished for my rookie move but this was excessive.
Oh yeah... did I mention it's my birthday today? Yay!!
First of all, happy birthday, hopefully you have enough reasons during the day to celebrate despite the economic setback.
As far as your loss, this is exactly why averaging down is the devil. It usually works, until it does not, and when it does not the loss is monstrous. Contrary to averaging up, once again I can't stress it enough.
Unfortunately, I got more bad news for you. It sounds like you are not prepared to trade, I would stop immediately until you can prove to yourself you have a proven good system and the right discipline for it.
Sorry for your loss, now don't try to revenge trade it, I assure you, the loss will just get bigger and bigger.