What is the worst one day loss you ever had?

[40yotrader]

Ah, I remember it well. 6/9/2006

I lost $76,227.54 which was 12.3% of my accounts on 226 r/t's in the ES. Every trade I made that day went against me and hit me hard. I was pretty ill that night and didn't tell my wife until I had recovered the full amount.

Made me realize that I needed more diversification and lower risk per-trade. Until you get squeezed you don't know what your risk tolerance REALLY is.

 

[trader1966]

YooHoo that is the biggest bunch of crap I have ever heard. No fund manager is going to book a loss that wasn't his fault. In fact you would be fired if you did. Fund managers hate even having to deal with brokers and they sure as hell aren't going to cut them slack on a $50K mistake.

 

[Surdo]

YOOHOO:

The first thing you learn as a Trader, or order clerk, is to say "S as in SAM" or "F as in Fiction!."

So whose fault was it really?

 

[gertsman]

4.5 sticks and that was not a lot of fun.

G

 

[trader1966]

Exactly Surdo, even a retail broker would read the order back phonetically. I also liked the I called my "broker", as a fund manager you would be dealing with 20+ brokers and probably have a trader to do the actual trading.

 

[Pabst]

Quote from trader1966:

Exactly Surdo, even a retail broker would read the order back phonetically. I also liked the I called my "broker", as a fund manager you would be dealing with 20+ brokers and probably have a trader to do the actual trading.

Although I've had a handfull of minus six figure days (eons ago) the scariest thing was an error as a 19yo clerk. We had a size custumer who would mumble his order and then hang up before I could repeat it. One day he calls and mumbles, "buy a million July-Nov." Bean spreads of course. $10,000 a penny. Back in those days new crop vs. old crop beans had big ranges. The spread moves a nickel against him and I report the fill. He tells me it should be the other way. $100,000 error. 50k lost in the mkt and another 50k owed to him on his fill. I'm making 4 bucks an hour. We listened to the tape. Turns out Mr.Mumbles had put it in backwards and Pabst kept his job.

 

[yoohoo]

As to whose responsibility is was, it was the brokers to spell it back. The tape proved I placed the order and he apologised and said the company would make good the loss without my asking. And as regards accepting the loss, it was a private managed fund over which I was the senior manager - the desision was mine.

 

[riskaverse305]

worst day

-1300 or -7.5%

worst week

-1900 or -6.5%

worst month

-600 or -7.5%

obviously these didn't occur anywhere near one another

 

[DannoXYZ]

Quote from FullyArticulate:

Were they both on CMGI, and both within a week of each other?

Ahh, the good old days of .coms...

Actually the win was on CMGI which I hung onto. The lost was on SCON a couple years later... bet on news correctly one day, then got complacent and everyone else got out a couple days later.

 

[endian]

Quote from yoohoo:

As to whose responsibility is was, it was the brokers to spell it back. The tape proved I placed the order and he apologised and said the company would make good the loss without my asking. And as regards accepting the loss, it was a private managed fund over which I was the senior manager - the desision was mine.

Good story, Yoohoo. I used to know the guy who got a client order for $1m of each DJIA constituent at the close, but put it down as a million shares per constituent...