The biggest mistake I've ever made in trading.

It sucks going from boom times to bust but I learned that keeping the money was the hard part for most people. I told my tax guy I would be wearing sun glasses to hide my tears - he reminded me that all that money I had made I had lost was made from trading - not like I blew an inheritance. He encouraged me to make another go of it after I took some down time an reinvented my trading game. Even when I was broke and had no money I knew I would trade my way back up again to that same level but not loose it next time. It took 8 years to get all the money back I had lost in a week but now I have never had a negative year since 2003 - It was a valuable lesson I do not regret.
 
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It took 8 years to get all the money back I had lost in a week but now I have never had a negative year since 2003 - It was a .
You lost all that in just a week? That sounds like someone's poker bad beat...I never knew you can lose that much so fast in the stock market. You must've had terrible risk management at the time.
 
Been trading for less than 3 months but my biggest mistake imo is
trading without a margin account. (Cannot short positions.) I see a ton of short opportunities everyday but very few long opportunities that would continue to rally by the time I spot them and due to impatience and having no other choice but to long I lose money just like that. I am definitely better at spotting short opportunities than long. Might be it's just been a bad month & approaching another bad month.
I think you can trade puts, level 1, in a cash account.
 
I think you can trade puts, level 1, in a cash account.
I don't have any experience with options and don't wanna lose money trying something new. I am still fairly new to trading equities and just beginning to get the hang of it. It seems 50% of my time was spent on learning from mistakes alone and the other half is a mix of devising strategies and improving on it. I am not ready to try something new.
 
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How do you recover from such a beat? I lose $2500 and it feels like my whole life is worthless.
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I just focused on making my first $10 of profit in a day and maybe a month later it became $20, and so on. I figured I was simply redoing what I already had done before so it gave me confidence. I did have a big capital loss carryover - which meant I would pay less taxes going forward for years to come - if I had profits - another motivator. I just try not to take the losses or the wins personally - a lot of it is just luck that comes from taking risks.
 
Research mindfulness

That way one retains their human-ness..., yet can operate with cold and calculated decisiveness

Emotions add color to the palette of life


RN
I second that. High performance activities almost require the implementation of mindfulness. Trading is a high performance activity.
 
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