Tuesday, January 22, 2008

I sold the BOTTOM

If I had held,,,,,I would have made money. Instead I'm an idiot of the internet and I lost almost all my money. Meanwhile people laugh at me. The FED stepped in with the surprise interest rate cut and the market popped up. You have no clue to how I feel right now. Just disgusted.


Anonymous said...

Hey man, sorry to hear that.

Last night I saw your videos and was hoping that you would hold and see if the market would bounce back.

So what's next?

What a bummer.

Check out the Key west guy

Anonymous said...

The fed cutting was hope. Hope is no way to make $. If they didn't and things went limit down in the open, there could have been a gap down to the limit 10% down.

You could have repurchased near your sell point AFTER the fed announced and it retraced back near the low. Obviously stopping out way before it got to that point would have enabled you to purchase when the fed gave the all clear.

All this is easier said than done when you are in the hot seat. The pros knew if they pounded down to limit down they would force people to sell.

Anonymous said...

Don't worry. You just sold a "temporary" bottom. You can feel a lot better about yourself in a few months when we are at DJIA 11k.

Anonymous said...

bah happens all the time, i used to feel bad, now i dont care. Remember it's just money. Money you have aside. It's not like you're gonna starve or anything.
Bleh, in the end it's just about pride and ego, life goes on.
Get a punch bag. It helps, really.

Anonymous said...

You learnt a lot, were brave enough to post the video so taught a lot. If you listen to some of the advice you WILL recover this and be a BETTER trader. A lot of traders are not laughing at you.

Anonymous said...

As stated previously, no matter what you decided you would feel it was the wrong decision after the fact, regardless of the outcome.

I know it is hard to determine good advice and insight from the crap, especially when in the mist of a emotional meltdown. You have received some good advice and could benefit from it substantially.

I again reiterate my previous suggestion about your tax situation needing immediate attention.


J. Parker

Anonymous said...

id be going short right now... i think we will see the market drop to much lower bottoms than this in the next couple of weeks/months


Anonymous said...

Dude, I ve been there


Anonymous said...

You got what you deserved.

Next time, learn about stops and money management.

Thanks for participating in the markets and giving away your life savings!

Anonymous said...


Don't worry about looking foolish or idiotic. We traders have all been there. None have ever sell at the top or buy at the bottom.

What you see now is 20/20 hindsight. You didn't know last night that the Fed gonna cut, did you? So stop beating yourself up over what could have happen.

We can not predict the future with 100% accuracy. All that a trader can do is react to the events in the market.

Keep your chin up and good luck next time.


Anonymous said...

"If I had held,,,,,I would have made money."

This kind of thinking is what got you to -$31k in the first place. Would you ride that trade down to -$40k to make your money back? -$50k? -$60k? When you're willing to take your first all or nothing trade, you're account is already busted.

Anonymous said...

Everyone's who's traded worth their damn has been where you've been. The exact situation wasn't this exact situation and the $$$ amount differed, but the feelings of utter disbelief, despair, mind-blowing anger, self-hatred, etc are all exactly the same. This market makes idiots feel like geniuses on top of the world and makes adults cry in the fetus position every F'n day. Relentlessly.

You are a man, though. Full props there to going through all this publically. Most importantly, you're taking full responsibility. You're not blaming the Fed/PPT or your chart signal or even a blip of insanity when entering the order last week. The life lesson you've learned is priceless.

My advice to you is take some serious time off this insanity. Not a few days or a month. I'm talking about at least a year. Close your IB account today and be thankful you have anything left for them to cut a check to you for. Go to your job, go out with your friends, go fall in love with a girl and hang out naked staring at her two tits on those Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights you've been staring at your two 22" screens the past 2 1/2 years. Go live life with the same gusto and drive that you've diverted into trading.

Come back in a year's time with a clear mind and conscience. With all your regrets and feelings of rage/revenge evaporated and see if active trading still does it for you. Maybe it's your true calling. Maybe it was just a temporary obsession to feed you ego. Every hotshot thinks he's a market guru in a bull. I knew an options "genius" who built up a $1M account from 1995-2000. He was an asst mathematics professor at Pepperdine and used some fool proof formulas to easy profits. He quit teaching to trade full-time. He bought an empty lot in Malibu and was going to build his dream house. The bubble popped. He lost $250K in one day. He kept trading and lost it all. He drank himself to death, left a wife and toddler daughter.

Walk away. I know you want to pick up the pieces. Take the remains of your scrawny account and build it up again steadily to $20K, $30K back to $55K. Maybe you can do it this year. You still think you have the Midas touch. Just fucked up this one time and you won't repeat it. Trade smaller, trader smarter, honor your stops, blah blah. Please. Every Mickey Mouse trader knows the rules, but you fucked up. You fucked up HUGE for a reason, and you don't know it yet. Don't try to figure it out. Walk away and it'll hit you later. Cash out, pay your upcoming tax bill and go live life.

bigbear on 9:56 AM said...

i feel your pain.

IB auto-closed my position of 8 NQs 1/2 point above limit down.

my realized losses came up to nearly 30k.

after the fed cut and bounce, i could not get back in to reduce losses as my excess liquidity was only enough to open 1 position.

so we learn ...

Ragin' Cajun on 10:06 AM said...

Nobody is laughing, it happens to the best of us. The key is to not let it happen again.

Tim Knight on 10:12 AM said...

We've all been there. And the anonymous jerks telling you that you got what you deserved can fuck themselves. I'm just sayin'.

Anonymous said...

If you read my comment, the Fed move was NOT a surprise move ... less for its "mates"

One tip from me ... I trade since 1982 ... start to get your act done, stop the whining. You have my sympathy AND respect, if you MOVE ON, earn your money back with HIGH PROBABILITY strategies.

Take care and start to learn out of this mistake.

YOUR life just starts!!!

Cheers Oli

Anonymous said...

Thank you for randomly found great entertainment. Certainly a story to learn from. I do feel sorry for you, but then again this is part of the game.
Cheer up you old bugger and look for the bright side of life. :)

Anonymous said...

The worst thing that could have happened in your trading career would have been if you didn't lose 31000, and actually made a profit.

It was a bonehead move to hold any futures over a holiday weekend.

It was a bonehead move to not have reasonable stops.

It was a bonehead move to make one trade more important than any other trade.

Now, hopefully you learned a lesson. If you make the same mistake again you deserve what you get.


Anonymous said...

been there. you will bounce back and be better for it. today shook even the best. good luck to you.


Anonymous said...

"Instead I'm an idiot of the internet"

You are only an idiot to those that don't have a clue about the mental rigors of trading.

To those that pile on with their inane comments...try posting in ALL CAPS next time, it will really show us all how important and knowledgeable you really are.

And to reiterate what a previous poster said.

Fuck Off.


Anonymous said...

HPT: i'm not sure how much money u have in your account, but IB removed the lesser intraday margin requirements...more than likely u would have been liquidated...honestly, then i think u would have blamed IB for screwing u

read your succession of posts again after u liquidated...the best thing to do is quit blaming others and yourself right now...its done!

learn from it, and move on...i'm sure you'll be back, but if u don't learn this lesson now, the tuition will only go up...i'm not calling u an idiot or anything...i have done the same thing, and after a huge loss, i finally learned the lesson

honestly, think about where the mistake started? was it timing? was it going into the weekend long? truthfully, the real problem here is that u were using too much leverage...the reason i know that is because u couldn't take the loss when u knew it was the right thing to do...again, i've done the same thing...i'm sure most traders have

Anonymous said...





Anonymous said...

cheers from germany. go out and get you some ass tonight young lad.


Anonymous said...

Casey Serin

Anonymous said...

we've all been there

a few years back, i sold short a stock at 5, it went to 4, i was happy and gonna hold till 3

within 2 days, it jumped to 10 and my entire account was liquidated by my broker at the high of the day

it drifted down to 9 and i was pissed that they closed me out

my account balance was now negative - yes, negative - meaning i lost 100% of everything i had plus i had to write them a check for more

i was so digusted

then i watched the stock over the next few weeks

it went to 95

no joke

Anonymous said...

I think the huge loss is basically a rite of passage of trading. Seems like any trader who makes a living off it has been there or worse. Imagine losing a million dollars. Plenty stories of that too.

In your future trading - make sure your trading plan has a plan for the unexpected. Don't be too attached to your analysis. Perhaps if you hadn't been overconfident in your original choice, you would have been open to the idea early on that you were wrong and flipped your position, captured the short on the way down.

Anyway - you'll never forget it night as no one (including me who lost the same amount one day in an instant) won't forget their day.

It's the day you learned to respect the market.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the courage you have in posting about your tragedy.

I have been there as well and to see you just gave me the creeps - to remember when I have made exactly the same mistakes (and lost more than you did).

I have resuscitated from there and now I am a winner and I don't make any more big mistakes.

You'll be stronger for the future, you'll win again. You can't be a winner if you don't lose a lot first.

All the best for your trading. Good luck.

Unknown on 10:44 AM said...

Yes, I laughed but I've also been there when I lost on Enron years ago or some option trading. I too have an IB acct. but while I worked with option contracts in a derivatives course I haven't touched as it don't take much for an option call. No positions overnight is great advice cause of the unknown. DEFINITELY have felt the same years ago...its money yet depressing

Anonymous said...

We all as traders want to see the market continue going in the direction it was going that caused us pain - AFTER we get out. We want the market to validate our decision to stop the pain. Often it does just that (momentarily anyway) after we get out. The best thing to do is quit looking at the markets for a few days. Right now your emotions are too raw to look at the market objectively. How do I know? Because I have been there man, with ER2 as my house of pain during the first major selloff last summer. Trading is clearly in your blood, and you will fight back. Just give yourself a little time to get over the grieving process.

Anonymous said...

trading is a grown man's casino, time to let the ivy league men finish this one bro. The move down has just begun, get short with 10 ER2 and turn off the computer, you will be a rich fuck.

Anonymous said...

About a decade ago, I put $10K, my life savings, into the market one week before the summer Russian currency crisis cracked the market. I "diversified" into 3 "awesome" stocks (according to Fortune, Money, Kiplinger's, WSJ and all those other great publications I was eating up at the time for expert financial opinions): EMC, CSCO and LU. I can still remember the panic I felt trying to bail out of those stocks on my Mac Powerbook 5300, running AOL 2.7 at 33.6K speed. I sold out low on that day, too, and watched the bounce in despair. My $10K was done to $6K. Down 40% in a week. Shit. But I regrouped, plowed back into some tech stocks. Then the Asian IMF Crisis rocked the markets in October. I repeated the same damn shit scene, and I was down to less than $4K now. It was a tough lesson, but I'm glad I experienced it. Unlike the other newbies at that time ready to ride the upcoming monster bubble, I knew I was not a genius. I knew the very real risk of being able to bust out in a single day.

Yeah, things turned out well. I was back in tech stocks, and my account was over $10K by Xmas, and I never looked back financially. But I knew it wasn't me. I was still the same clueless schmoe, whether losing big or winning big. We're all clueless. You, me, the screaming trader on the floor, the guy running the hot hedge fund of the moment. We all have our comeuppance coming to us at anytime if we, for an instance, get cocky, feeling a bit bulletproof and think we actually know something others don't. We don't know shit. Just show up day after day and give and take what the market wants or gives. The goal is to take when the taking is good, and limit the giving when the market is hungry. It's all money management. Aside from that, your super duper edge is no different from my super duper edge.

Anonymous said...

New subscriber to your YouTube account, and I feel for ya man...

You got your ass whipsawwed.
Live and learn though, eh?

You're young... you'll bounce back. Just be happy you ain't some 58 y/o Boomer who's seeing a lifetime of work whither away.

Anonymous said...

The stock mkt is and always was driven by people like yourself, and thats the reason for the bottom.
What would seperate the winner from the pack?

Anonymous said...

Sorry to hear about your losses, man. And no, you're not the "idiot of the internet". As someone so intelligently put it earlier, anyone who hasn't actually traded will never understand the position you were in. Granted, it was INSANELY risky, but we've all taken some serious lumps in the past and know the feeling.

On a bright side, think back to 2000... Lots of people lost more than just their money. They were margined up the a** and lost 3-4X their worth, lost houses, wives, kids and more. You'll make it back over the course of time, but will have learned a harsh lesson on risk management.

Hope your head feels better.

tradelikemike on 11:14 AM said...

Been there, done that. Take some time off, get your head together. Then come back and 1 step at a time do all the things that made profitable the first time around. Don't try and make it all back right away. This will make you better trader long term- I promise.

Anonymous said...

Fucking traders never learn. Now look at his buddies offering consolations so he can trade some more (and yes, he will!). It's like druggies really.

Anonymous said...

you need to take wha'ts left and spend it on the finest hooker available. it will be well worth it and act like you blew $40k+ while you are taggin it.

Anonymous said...

There is no excuse for swearing, young man.

Anonymous said...

Dude, we've all done it. I wouldn't be so hard on yourself. Actually, by posting that video you've earned my respect.

Anonymous said...

I have been there (blew through 39k in 2 months with options on ACI, BTU, and CNX back in 2006), so I am sympathetic with what you are going thru.

Take a break and regroup. Consider this your support group (ignore the stupid flamers of course) and find courage to CHANGE what you have been doing, trading-wise.

Takes guts to acknowledge and whip yourself online. I would never be able to do that. Good luck and see you in back the market in better times.

Cheerios, mate.

Anonymous said...

raped idiot.

Anonymous said...


Anonymous said...

What's with all the puzzy-ass anonymous posts?

Fvkkin cowards.

Anonymous said...

I don't now a single trader that hasn't been given a very painful lesson in the markets.
Yes, your trade was stupid, for a lot of reasons!
Take some time off, get away from trading, clear your head.

Anonymous said...

damn, sorry though.

jsp9999 on 11:48 AM said...

I hear you, bro. Thanks for the courage to post your pain. I have had those moments myself not just in market but in life as well. I am still learning to get back as well and I hope time will bring back your determination. Sometimes, all it takes is a little time, not thousands of consolations. On positive note, at least only thing you lost is money, not your health and knowledge of market. There are a lot more valuable things to lose in life than money if not done properly. Hope you come back and come back strong. Peace.

Anonymous said...

At one point, I also wiped out nearly all my capital. I kept hoping & praying that it would reverse. As the poster above correctly pointed out, ya can't make money on hope. But you know what, there's always another day. Moreover, this bear market is just starting to rock & roll.

Anonymous said...

So you blow out your account last night when the dow futures were down 300. Now you are patting yourself on the back because the market went lower after you got taken out on a stretcher? You lack the single most important thing in trading....discipline. You are nothing mroe than a degenrate gambler who deserved what you got. Glad I was short a bunch of Sp's over the weekend. Unlike you I slept fine.

Anonymous said...

Personally I started with a buck at 24yo. At 59 it hit $2M last July and again in October. I'm down 500K from my peak now. Not pleasant. Today down 20K on just one stock alone but I'll make 80K in the LatAm markets today. Not wise to put all your eggs in one basket when first starting out. A total wipe out (at a young age) is very demoralizing but recoverable due to your age and time left in front of you for recovery. When I make a move in these volatile, insane conditions its only half in or half out at a time. If conditions worsen I'm only getting hit half as hard. If conditions continue to improve or correct I can always move all in with the rest later. I survived the dot com bubble that way.

You have a LONG way to go before you hit those golden years. I hope you haven't set your life's goal to retire at 45 or some dumb objective that continually goads you into making irrational decisions. Don't get in a hurry and don't be greedy. Calculate your winnings in percent for the year and NOT in physical dollar amounts - You'll get into trouble that way.

Personally as the world moves into very uncertain times I'd stay away from day trading altogether. A bear market has its own traps to contend with. One blip and you are back to flippin' burgers for a second job. Heck, you can make 5% in money market funds right now that are totally safe bets. Give yourself a break with "no worries mon."

Anonymous said...

Giggle ..

Drink some beer

Luve www.flamehaus.com

Anonymous said...

My sympathies .. You'll get it back, but don't be a stupid idiot and don't forget to cut your losses..if it's not working out, it's not, get to the next trade .. ok?


Anonymous said...

You are a gambler, not an investor. Please seek help.

Anonymous said...

There was no surprise by the FED. If you did not know they were going to cut, you are not paying attention.

Did you know that overnight it was down 650? By the time I woke up (6am eastern) it was -500. Why? talk of a rate cut. Market opened about -450, and headed for -150

You got what you deserved, gambler. I, for one, am chuckling - "Another one has learned his lesson". Which is why I think we need to go through a depression. The lessons have been lost, and need to be relearned.

Anonymous said...

The stock market consumes your every waking moment, every breath you take, every thougt, every aspect of your existence..when you trade and try to make a living at it...either as a licensed registered rep (as i was for 12 yrs) or as an individual with every so called edge, piece of equipment/ trading platform/ etc...it owns your ass...i lost 300k in the market...i thought i knew it all...i was very bitter for years maybe 4-5 years total before getting back on my feet starting a new business (get this a mortgage company back in 02.. it was great then and now..well you know the story) so often my friends would want to go to the casino- foxwoods, mohegan...i would tell them i live in the biggest casino of the world for 10 hours every day...bottom line..shit happens what you do going foward and how you act is going to determine your character and how others viewed you...believe me being bitter for so many years...many thought i was an asshole....who knows i still might be even after making all of the money back and more...good luck....funny saying....years ago i would brag...i dont need luck...i hit books a million from 2 15/16 to 49 3/4 on instanet...naw i dont need luck....after i went through what i did...i will take all the luck someone wants to offer...gladly...

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