Prop Blowups, how common are they?

[SupaNovaBLOWHRD]

I was only short two stocks. JDSU and maybe EXTR. I was instantly down $2500 after being up $1200 preannouncement. It could have been a lot worse though. I could have had a short basket as that whole time frame was short city. I didn't have the brains to go long the bank stocks. I just reversed my shorts and went long the high beta Nasdaq stocks.

Did anybody on this board play the crossed stocks on the ECN books that day? There was a tremendous amount of money to be made for about 45 minutes and all those crossed stock trades were not invalidated as I remember.

 

[Urkel]

Quote from Cutten:

I worked at a place with a former Ibank trader who made 20-30k a day trading 1000 lots in the bond futures. He did well for about a year, then averaged into a losing position, eventually ending up long about10,000 lots during a one-way trend. He held overnight and had dropped about 10 million Euros by the time he was forcibly sold out on the open the next morning. He went bust owing millions, the firm was bankrupted, and the general clearer took a 7 figure hit as well. As someone who had just started trading one lots and sat a few places away from him, this was a rather interesting experience.

Just found this thread and i can say I have a bad feeling something like this may happen to someone i know soon.

 

[peilthetraveler]

Quote from MichaelJ:

brings to mind the old expression "tis better to have loved & lost, than never loved at all"

to adapt to trading: "tis better to have made X million and lost it, than never to have made X million at all"

true or false? discuss

Having millions and losing it is much worse than never having had it

 

[stock777]

most big winners can't do it without the risk of blowup.

thats where the $$$ comes from.


it's called gambling. every hear of it?


rare to find large winners where there was no risk or ruin. very rare.

 

[earlybirdstango]

A couple weeks ago as ERS came off its high a scalper friend kept buying 5k shares at a time. He kept DCAing up to 50k shares, and ended the day down over 100k$.

Check out the ERS chart....it truly was a perfect storm.

 

[artis74]

1.3 million short a zonal spread in New York power. 400k on the day they announced the stoppage of the 30 year.

 

[illiquid]

Quote from MichaelJ:

brings to mind the old expression "tis better to have loved & lost, than never loved at all"

to adapt to trading: "tis better to have made X million and lost it, than never to have made X million at all"

true or false? discuss

Sounds alot better on paper. What's harder than learning how to trade besides learning how to trade all over again?

Of course, if you can survive that and come back stronger, you'll believe yourself much better off for it. But I think in practical terms no one really needs to put themselves through the experience unless they had no other choice.

Certian lessons, for certain people, are best learned vicariously if possible. Others will only trust the sharpness of the blade after they've severed their own necks.

 

[cml2949]

I was in my second month of trading at a Prop Group... Being in the gold market, i had accumulated a short position of 10 contracts. Selling one everytime the market dropped 2 bucks or so.. The gold future price dropped over $10 that hour in the day.. End up losing close to 12k.. Got very lucky and didn't lose my job.. About a month later, I traded the unemployment data and lost 3k in the notes. Almost lost my job, but hanging on by a thread now. Great place and I believe I've found my mentor.. He's giving me many chances you think? But I've been more more careful and listen more!!!

 

[0008]

all the stories are minor in comparison to the LTCM

 

[zdreg]

convinced myself that a stock which was going parabolic was going through a minor retracement and kept on buying expecting a short squeeze.
the next day goldman PUBLICLY announces a sell recommendation.