What's the dumbest thing you've done?
- Thread starter 88888accountant
- Start date
Did they let you keep the 5k you made on their dime? They just took back the wrong amount credited??Quote from Lotus 7:
All right this is worth telling about. I few years ago as a struggling small trader, (did I say struggling) i had a small account and it went down to $500.00. So i decided to add some cash the the acct. i sent a bank wire for I think 3k dollars right, now i can trade again ( I was trading the ES )
The next morning when i looked at my statement it had like 13k in the account. i knew they made a mistake, But i thought "hmmm i wonder how many contracts i can trade". so i threw a Limit order above the market for 10 cars, OK i can trade 10 how about 20, ... you get the picture. Well i never called the broker to tell them of the mistake and i started to trade with 10 contracts. Not only did i trade with 10 ct, but i started to over trade. as a small trader i learned for me that it was easier to trade larger size because i was able to take profits quickly. My issues as a trader has always been about EXITS i stay to long, i get greedy, I get stubborn. So i traded the account and made some good money the broker didn't figure out the mistake until 3 days latter
I ended up trading the account up +5k in the 3 days and was able to trade with 10 from that point on. Of course I over traded and gave back much of it. (stipid trading) silly guy i am
What do you learn from this? How stupid was I. Dont anyone ever do that you can get screwed. No one ever accused me of not having any guts......
Anyways I thought some of you might like this story. I would imagin that some can relate unfortunatly. If you went down on the floor of the exchange in Chicago CME, CBOT, or the CBOE you would hear some crazy storys. (a dime a dozen)
Take Care
Lotus 7
Yes of course, they let me keep it, on the third day they took out the 10 grand that was mistakenly in my account and i had like 9k left in the account from the 3k i originally added.
Belive me this in nothing to brag about..........I was trading highly over leveraged... "It can Kill you" . I knew what i was doing.. I knew the risk....But did it anyway...
Reminds me of Borsellino in his book when he described how in 1987 he made his first million bucks took a high leveraged position against the grain and it worked out but he still went into the restroom and puked his guts out.
of course I have done even worse stupid things........
Lotus 7
Belive me this in nothing to brag about..........I was trading highly over leveraged... "It can Kill you" . I knew what i was doing.. I knew the risk....But did it anyway...
Reminds me of Borsellino in his book when he described how in 1987 he made his first million bucks took a high leveraged position against the grain and it worked out but he still went into the restroom and puked his guts out.
of course I have done even worse stupid things........
Lotus 7
I am surprised they let you keep it since you made alot of the profit on their dime. Years ago I had this brazilian bank stock that busted up. My shares supposedly become practically worthless. One day i got up and checked my account and viola my stock was worth close to 100 grand! My worthless shares had become prefered stock! Intead of selling them i called the broker and they researched it out and alas my prefered stock was no longer the prefered but one of the other 12 to 13 companies stock that spun off this bank bust up. Over the years I have wondered if my broker did really somehow keep those stocks and put back in my account the worthless ones. Maybe I should have sold the things without saying a word to the broker to see what would happen.
Smuggled 2 people ( a woman and her daughter) into the United States "THRU" the port of entry. It was about 4:30am and there was only 5 cars waiting to cross into the USA. When i got to the border guard I was completely calm and collected and answered all the border guards questions and they let me thru. Found out 2 weeks later that 93% of people that smuggle people thru the border this way get caught! I'll never do that again.
nah i wouldve never got caught...if i did i just wouldve used the ol' jedi mind trick. "you dont need to see their ID" ***waving hand*** "these arent the illegals you're looking for"
But seriously...It was like have a 5k account with 2 million BP and trading 5000 shares of GOOG. Couldve really turned against me but oh what a rush Dont know how i was able to stay so calm, look the border guard in the eyes and answer all her questions.
But like i said...I'll never do that again...it really was alot like playing russian roulette now that i think about it, only in my version there were 5 chambers loaded and 1 empty one...but at the time I didnt know that the odds of getting caught were 93% I thought i was playing with 5 empty chambers and 1 loaded one
But seriously...It was like have a 5k account with 2 million BP and trading 5000 shares of GOOG. Couldve really turned against me but oh what a rush
Dont know how i was able to stay so calm, look the border guard in the eyes and answer all her questions.But like i said...I'll never do that again...it really was alot like playing russian roulette now that i think about it, only in my version there were 5 chambers loaded and 1 empty one...but at the time I didnt know that the odds of getting caught were 93% I thought i was playing with 5 empty chambers and 1 loaded one
Quote from Trader2020:
I quit a well paying Job to take up trading full time. In hindsight that is the dumbest thing I ever did in my whole life. I gave up a nice income working 9-5 and lost my entire savings and went into debt learning how to trade 24 hours a day 7 days a week, I have no health insurance, no 401K plan matched by my employer, no paid vacations. After 1.5 years of losing and eating through my savings, at least now I'm breaking even and have a few Job interviews lined up for 2006. I'm going to work fulltime and swing trade part-time
Hey Trader2020,
Your honesty is refreshing, i feel your pain brother. Sounds like your doing what most everyone else is trying. I've been doing very,very well since I threw out all the crap the so called experts teach as market gospel. I'm keeping it real simple, trading trip Q's based on Intraday Market Timing advice I'm subscribing to. My guy is 18-4 since I've been signed up. Today at 2 pm EST I knew the close was going to be flat, so I went shopping. I'll do a post at 2:10 FRiday, and let you know what he's calling for.