Quote from Rearden Metal:
Yeah, that would be my most frustrating blowup of all... my last one.
For me to properly explain, I need to provide the entire context of why and how it happened:
On Aug. 20th 2008 I tried to buy a large quantity of H for personal use from my regular guy. It was a setup, and I was carjacked and kidnapped by the federal prohibition enforcement thugs. The government kept me as a political prisoner until I was finally released on Oct. 8th, 2008. Now, remember what the market was doing during those six weeks I was locked up (jail proper for only two days, court ordered rehab for the rest)? Well, I missed the entire party because I don't live in a free country. People on ET were calling it the "best trading market since Livermore's day", and I was stuck listening to 12-step bullshit all day instead of being able to trade. You can imagine how completely furious that made me, and once I was finally released I had a <b>very</b> dangerous mindset- I had missed the most amazing volatility ever, and I 'needed' to trade super-aggressively to 'make up for lost time'. Big mistake! On Oct 10th, 2008 I started the day with about $850,000 in my combined trading accounts. Most of that was with Echo, where I had 30-1 intraday leverage. I blew up over 80% of my trading capital that day... simply because I let my emotions get the best of me.