The Art of Blowing Yourself Up.

[PohPoh]

No No No...I'm not talking about suicide bombers...I'm talking about your personal account...
not your clients (if you have had any), but YOUR OWN PERSONAL ACCOUNT.

Have you blown it up? And I mean blown it to pieces....like 100+% loss....

If not, what's the furthest down you went?

 

[stock_trad3r]

If your account drops more than 40% your FUBAR since it would take over 80% to break even

 

[PohPoh]

I'll tell you my story...
With ZERO trading experience, I Made a ton of money trading options in ONE market...just bought and rolled and bought more and rolled...we must have rolled 6 times....

I opened a new account, put 200K of it into a trading account, and proceeded to lose 97K in 7 months, trading E-mini SP, grains, meats, softs.

I was much better off the LESS I knew...

 

[STEERAM]

Yes I blew up. I was a daytrader back in the late 90s and early 2000's. I made some pretty good money. Daytrading wasnt the problem, I knew going into everyday I would make 1k or so at a minimum. Then I moved and thought it would be nice to semi retire and I found the wonderful world of naked commodity options. I was dogin great for a year making about 20k a month or so. I did not really know each commodity well, adn I just sold nice premiums. So in feb of 03 I sold a ton of natty gas options( calls). The over the weekend there was some sort of weird supply issue. Natty gas went from 5 to about 11 that monday. Needless to say I lost my whole nestegg, everything I had was in that account. I had like a grand to my name. I lost over 500k . So i was completely broke, lost my apt , car everything. Worked some odd jobs just so I can eat and get by. Now I am trading again, I actually just started a CTA firm with a few partners. Its funny the things you learn when you lose money. I know every commodity inside and out now, humility like it can never happen to me. You learn so great things when u blow up. I would never want anyone to go thru what I did and after that as well. I have a new respect for life and real jobs other than trading. But the one thing thatv kept me going was, I really loved what I did its a passion and dont give up. I read reminisces of a stock operator. So now I trade futures and options still as well, but am very prepared and protected in what I do. But I can tell you going from making a ton of money every year and then to 6 bucks an hour it is humbling. If you do trade your own money please dont do like I did and keep it all in one place. I only wired money for bills as needed so I was screwed!!

 

[PohPoh]

Quote from STEERAM:

Yes I blew up. I was a daytrader back in the late 90s and early 2000's. I made some pretty good money. Daytrading wasnt the problem, I knew going into everyday I would make 1k or so at a minimum. Then I moved and thought it would be nice to semi retire and I found the wonderful world of naked commodity options. I was dogin great for a year making about 20k a month or so. I did not really know each commodity well, adn I just sold nice premiums. So in feb of 03 I sold a ton of natty gas options( calls). The over the weekend there was some sort of weird supply issue. Natty gas went from 5 to about 11 that monday. Needless to say I lost my whole nestegg, everything I had was in that account. I had like a grand to my name. I lost over 500k . So i was completely broke, lost my apt , car everything. Worked some odd jobs just so I can eat and get by. Now I am trading again, I actually just started a CTA firm with a few partners. Its funny the things you learn when you lose money. I know every commodity inside and out now, humility like it can never happen to me. You learn so great things when u blow up. I would never want anyone to go thru what I did and after that as well. I have a new respect for life and real jobs other than trading. But the one thing thatv kept me going was, I really loved what I did its a passion and dont give up. I read reminisces of a stock operator. So now I trade futures and options still as well, but am very prepared and protected in what I do. But I can tell you going from making a ton of money every year and then to 6 bucks an hour it is humbling. If you do trade your own money please dont do like I did and keep it all in one place. I only wired money for bills as needed so I was screwed!!

Thanks for sharing...
Was your position too big? Or was it just the magnitude of the move on a normal sized position?

 

[stock_trad3r]

I buy and hold quality stocks like DDM, GS,AAPL,CHAP,BIDU,GOOG,AMR,MA,RIMM so I dont have to worry about blowing up

I trade to make money..40+% YTD returns without hedging or options.

Buy & hold the play to pay trade to make $$$

 

[STEERAM]

I traded natty gas before but I was so new to commodities but not options, I knew the risk in naked calls. But I felt like i was selling premium far enough away for a few weeks. But I hadnt reseached all that could affect natty g or what moves it has made in the past. If you know NG it doesnt take a lot of contracts to kill you. I think I only had around 13 or so. It was all my fault for not doing my due diligence. I was cocky from making a lot of money daytrading. But I figured i can afford to lose a bit no problem. It was a big problem. I spent the last couple of years getting to know all the commodity markets and know them well and all that affects them now. I was also greedy then as well and loved the huge leverage, I would leverage out till the verge of margin calls all the time

 

[stock_trad3r]

Wells that just dumb..leverage is like a double edged sword. Try going 2x leverage on DDM..thats risky enough..now go 400X margin leverage on currencies? WTF are people thinking? Enron was rsiky enough,..now pwople want to do the sorros thing..go hedge go on margin double up and max out the account on the flux of interest rates brneenke says rates go up and then the cyrewenciesmove up on the numebr ecvonf data coumes out and p0000000000f a llfucshsh your scerred and then you go jump off a briedge ...aghhh fuuckkkk ffffe

Blowing up means you lose EVERYTHING ...it aint a joke and it shouldn't happen if you don't act dumb

I traded stocks and nver had to worry about blowing up cause I didn't use those UB3R 7R4 11337 trading.

 

[TudorJones]

I've been up since day ONE.

 

[STEERAM]

I always say you never know what can happen. Hey some people are a little more risky than others, and when you use the leverage thats there you can make a ton also as I did, but obviously lose it. Just a matter of personality I guess. No risk no reward