Need desperate help (Lost life savings)

[Laissez Faire]

How much was your life savings, i.e., how much did you lose in total? And you lost this trading what exactly?

Cheer up, pal. At 28 you're still young and have plenty of time to make it back. It would have been way worse if you were an older guy and literally had no options or time. Mark D. Cook, market wizard featured in Jack Schwager, lost it all and even went into debt quite a bit. Incredibly, he spent the next years paying back his debt and getting back into the markets and came through successfully in the end.

To be honest, though. Succcess in this business really is for the few, so might not be a bad idea to consider doing something else. The best advice would probably be to get an actual job in the industry. That's what I would have done if I were young and found the opportunity.

Good luck either way.

 

[JSOP]

Ok I will pretend this is not a troll post and will attempt to answer your questions.

Have been trading for about 8 years. Last night and I revenge traded the fuck out of everything, deposited life savings after my ~25k account went to zero from revenge trading.

I am a little confused about this one. So you revenge-traded and lost $25K and then you revenge-revenge-traded by depositing everything from your life savings and now you lost the first $25K AND the rest of your life savings from two revenge-trading?? Anyway, it's not important. I was just curious.

I think I might need help from gambling, I couldn’t stop until my account become zero and deposited all life savings. Well fuck.

I’ve read trading in the zone etc. But need desperate suggestions and help. I plan to at least work on my psychology for the remaining of this year before I get back to trading.

You need help from gambling AND trading. Gambling first if you think it's gambling that made you deposit your life savings after losing $25K. But it wouldn't hurt if you learn a little more about trading too.

I’m 28 and was saving up for my wedding, literally lost everything that I’ve earned since I started working. Not a fucking clue on how I’m gonna tell my family.

You tell them the TRUTH, EVERY SINGLE OUNCE OF IT! Do NOT hold anything back, do not sugar-coat anything, do not omit anything, do not skimp over any details. If it helps, you just copy and paste your post here from this thread and just text or email your family. If this person is going to marry you and spend the rest of his/her life with you, he/she deserves to know all the truth about who you are especially about your financial management. You are only 28, chances are this won't be the last of your trading and if trading is going to be part of your life, your future life partner needs to learn how to deal with your trading losses. I will tell you trading losses is a very common and normal part of trading as any traders here will tell you. If your future life partner doesn't think he/she can handle that then it's best to walk away now. A marriage with somebody who can't and/or is not willing to handle trading losses with is extremely painful for both you and him/her. It will even affect negatively your trading performance as well. Better to avoid it now, for both of your sake.

What should I look into? Gambling or trading psychology. I’d still want to make it as a full time career (trading), but really need to spend at least this year fucking analysing my mistakes.

But, fuck. Me. Feels fucking horrible.

Don't worry everybody has been there and done that. Just need to take some time off from trading for now, work hard to build up some savings and try again. Next time just don't revenge-trade ever again!! The market didn't do anything to you. There is nothing to revenge upon!!

 

[JSOP]

When I was 28 I had been trading on the side having spent my youth around the market. My father made his living trading grain futures off the floor for large grain houses and I had a great education in options clerking for brokers and market makers aged 16 - 22 summers, breaks, and for a year out of college in a different role in market making firm. Then I went into being a teacher administrator etc for various reasons but kept trading on the side mostly option plays. I thought I was good took on some money from friends. And then one shitty day I was legging out of a wheat spread in Minneapolis wheat and wasn't filled on the short calls that were left naked. Bitch went lock limit up that night and I blew out the account and all of my friends money as well. I puked outside my office, shook all day, and had the sweats. I had to cough up my own 403 b to hit the margin call and make my investors whole as even though they knew the risks I wasn't asking them to take the hit. Was trading their accounts as POA. I learned a lot from this experience. I felt awful telling my investors what happened and then started to reflect on what the fuck was I doing trading other peoples money when I didn't have a very long track record of making my own and then trying to do it while working a full time job IMing my broker during my prep period. Anyway you learn from it and go on. My dad helped. We had a beer and a cigar and he told me about the first account he blew out as well. My uncle who was a CIO for a mutual fund called and gave me a similar story. I learned that what I enjoyed was the excitement of the trading. I made the decision my life should be exciting and my trading boring and went about educating myself to that regard. We're human we have emotions and managing them and understanding them is part of learning. Telling my wife. I never did. We're divorced now. Go figure. Friends for the kids sakes though. We all have our own shit to work on.

Glad you had such a supportive family to help you deal with the losses.

 

[Arnie]

Last thing the OP should do is try to get back into trading. Sad truth is he is not cut out to be a trader, at least not now.
Dollar cost average into some blue chip ETF, get married, have a life and give your self time.

There's a great story ( in "Pit Bull" I think) where he talks about taking a big loss in a market and the waiting patiently like a Scillian for revenge. Minus the revenge part, that's what you need to do.

 

[nursebee]

Dude, you said you lost everything. You have no more money left. So how the hell are you trading your life away, again?

Because you never traded your life away in the first place.

Your story STINKS to high-heaven. Why don't you come clean and tell us what is REALLY going on?

"...I’m way more honest now than before last night..."

Indeed. You need pie. But first you need Cylons.

I'm willing to go either way on this.
Anytime I've blown out, or anything similar, I could not string coherent sentences together for a while. I sure as hell had no freaking clue. It took weeks to not have catatonia and look back on things with any semblance of objectivity.

if the OP is telling a real story, it seems like he wants back in the game quick. He/she is not telling a tale akin to the poster that vomited. Like literally, his potential marriage is on the line and he is talking about some book to read to get back in the zone.

25k LOL!

 

[SunTrader]

I've made baaad trades ... still do on occasion. I've revenge traded ...once. I've never lost everything in my account and then some... and never will.

But if I had that would be it. Put whatever I had left in an IRA and 4getabowit.

 

[destriero]

Fess up to your girlfriend as soon as possible and be prepared for the hell it will bring. She will get over it and you have learned a lesson. Hopefully.

Look on the bright side you could have gotten ran over by a car and spent way more in medical bills than you lost learning that the market is no place for you to be.

Women love gamblers? I am convinced that 90% of ETers are incels. C'mon. Imagine her reaction when he tells her. He traded (gambled) their nest egg. May as well be lottery tickets or heroin. I hope for his sake she doesn't, but 90% of women would leave before the wedding.

There is no teaching moment in being hit by a car. The problem here is that the OP only feels alive when he's losing.

OP you're a degenerate gambler. You could be handed a foolproof edge and still go bust. It's cognitive dissonance--the market is wrong and you're right and you're going to show 'em!

Get out of the markets. You have no edge unless it's the goal of producing tax losses. Get a job doing whatever and get your degree.

 

[destriero]

Last thing the OP should do is try to get back into trading. Sad truth is he is not cut out to be a trader, at least not now.
Dollar cost average into some blue chip ETF, get married, have a life and give your self time.

There's a great story ( in "Pit Bull" I think) where he talks about taking a big loss in a market and the waiting patiently like a Scillian for revenge. Minus the revenge part, that's what you need to do.

Pit Bull guy got old and decided to short puts or whatever. Lost $30MM being an idiot.

 

[Scataphagos]

Have been trading for about 8 years. Last night and I revenge traded the fuck out of everything, deposited life savings after my ~25k account went to zero from revenge trading.

I think I might need help from gambling, I couldn’t stop until my account become zero and deposited all life savings. Well fuck.

I’ve read trading in the zone etc. But need desperate suggestions and help. I plan to at least work on my psychology for the remaining of this year before I get back to trading.

I’m 28 and was saving up for my wedding, literally lost everything that I’ve earned since I started working. Not a fucking clue on how I’m gonna tell my family.

What should I look into? Gambling or trading psychology. I’d still want to make it as a full time career (trading), but really need to spend at least this year fucking analysing my mistakes.

But, fuck. Me. Feels fucking horrible.

In your "rebuilding", you'll need to learn to identify "good probability trades" (probability of being correct and risk/reward is favorable)... Price TA is the key to that. You'll also need to develop discipline to take only good trades and to use stops for when they don't work out. (Almost impossible to succeed at trading without discipline.)

Right now sounds like you have neither, but those things can be learned.

 

[DevBru]

Women love gamblers? I am convinced that 90% of ETers are incels. C'mon. Imagine her reaction when he tells her. He traded (gambled) their nest egg. May as well be lottery tickets or heroin. I hope for his sake she doesn't, but 90% of women would leave before the wedding.

There is no teaching moment in being hit by a car. The problem here is that the OP only feels alive when he's losing.

OP you're a degenerate gambler. You could be handed a foolproof edge and still go bust. It's cognitive dissonance--the market is wrong and you're right and you're going to show 'em!

Get out of the markets. You have no edge unless it's the goal of producing tax losses. Get a job doing whatever and get your degree.

Exactly this. It might not be what you want to hear but this is the truth.