Whats the Worst Loss You've Taken??

[BennyHey 10]

In this thread I want some real life confessions on the worst hits we've taken.

 

About 6 months into my day trading career I was into the CME currency futures. I had some ups and downs to this point but had yet to have the market really show me what it can do to a traders acct.

 

I was trading between 2-4 cars on the Canadian Dollar and was having some good success averaging down on my losers. The CAD had been stuck in a range so any time I got caught on the wrong side I would keep throwing more cars on the fire, lowering my average cost and then when the market turned my way I would get out B/E or a small profit.

 

One day I was trading on a 5min chart and we became oversold on my stochastics so I got long with 2 cars. The market continued lower, never attempting to come back a little, 30 pts lower I added on 2 more cars.

 

From this point we got a little bounce(About 5 ticks) and proceeded to drop another 30 pts. Well I stayed true to my plan 4 MORE cars LONG!!!!

 

I remember saying, they are just trying to shake out the weak longs before they rally it. In another 30-45 min we were another 40 pts lower.

 

I am starting to chain smoke and pray. My 5 min chart looks like a red ball has just fallen off a table. I tell myself with sweaty palms that we MUST get a little bounce from here, I've never seen a chart drop like this without some kind of re-trace. I decide to go for broke.....4 more cars long...and......you guessed it down another 30-40 pts.

 

I was done adding on as my acct leverage was maxed out and any lower would be a market liquidation by my broker. I still have NO stop and a limit order at B/E some 80 pts higher. From here the market drops another 40 pts and trades sideways for a while. I sat in my position another 2 hours watching it dance from -1400 to -1700. I curled up on the floor and prayed I would wake up from the nightmare I had gotten myself into but no. Finally I closed my position at 4:58 2min before the session closed. Its not a lot of money for most but for me and my $5000 acct it was quite a hit.

 

This was on a Friday afternoon so it gave me all weekend to stew over my loss and what a crappy trader I am. I seriously considered giving it all up that weekend. Eventually I decided to keep grinding and to not ever let it happen again.

 

I've had plenty of losses sense then but never that much on one trade.

 

When you newer traders hear pros talk about "experience" this is what they are referring to. Anyway I think there are plenty of good stories out there for us to laugh, cry, and learn from. Can't wait to hear some of yours.

 

BennyHey:missy:

[brownsfan019 17]

BH - the only thing that really comes to mind was trading on a new platform and not fully understanding the functionality. Bad idea. It's been awhile so I can't recall the specifics other than to say that I used the simulator till I knew the software inside and out.

[Dacamic 10]

Ah, yes ... re-opening old emotional scars by taking this trip down memory lane will be a great way to start my day ...

 

I track my biggest losses by writing them down on an airplane "motion discomfort" bag tacked to my office wall. One stock appears several times on that memorial: Montana Power Company (MTP). To make a long story short, I suffered more than a few cuts trying to catch a following knife while this stock's price fell from $40 to $0 . It was inconceivable to me -- for a few reasons -- that this company could collapse so quickly. My equity has been hit by larger single-day losses, yet this string of "oopsies" is still notable.

[daedalus 10]

Benny my advice to you is NEVER add to losers. EVER. Thats like the first rule of trading IMHO. But it sounds like you found out why thats a rule. THe key to this game is staying solvent through your bad decisions, not adding to them!

 

To the OP - my worst loss wasn't my fault actually... I got stuck in a position when my broker went down. Couldn't exit, some of my orders to get out actually doubled my position size and there was nothing I could do but sit and watch as the pit launched the market against us.

 

Thankfully, the broker refunded the loss as I was documenting the problems with screenshots and video during the entire process.

 

One of the worst and most emotionally stressful days of trading i've ever had. Its one thing to make a bad decision, its quite another to be unable to fix it.

[diablo272 10]

On my first day trading the ES, I lost about 1/3rd of my capital. I knew almost nothing about risk management, and I overtraded--I went from making 1 trade per day on SPY to over 40 trades in my first day on the ES. The only thing that saved me from completely blowing out is that I kept my position size small (at least I thought it was small at the time). My risk/money management really improved after that though, and that day showed me that I wasn't nearly as emotionally neutral as I thought I was at that point. It was quite a wake-up call. I'm actually glad that it happened, because at that point, I was profitable trading SPY, which increased my confidence. If I hadn't taken such a big loss right when I moved to ES, my confidence probably would have grown to the point that I would have severely over-leveraged myself and eventually taken a crippling loss.

Edited January 22, 2009 by diablo272

[Jimmy 10]

My first interface with market, I did buy share at the price of 240 and it landed at 230 immediately I did my stop loss at that point, hence the share jumped up to 600:doh:, recently I’ve learned my lesson, patience, and speculations, had drove me over,, never trust the market even though it’s right

[BennyHey 10]

Ah, yes ... re-opening old emotional scars by taking this trip down memory lane will be a great way to start my day ...

 

I track my biggest losses by writing them down on an airplane "motion discomfort" bag tacked to my office wall. One stock appears several times on that memorial: Montana Power Company (MTP). To make a long story short, I suffered more than a few cuts trying to catch a following knife while this stock's price fell from $40 to $0 . It was inconceivable to me -- for a few reasons -- that this company could collapse so quickly. My equity has been hit by larger single-day losses, yet this string of "oopsies" is still notable.

 

LOL you really write your biggest losses on a barf bag??

 

:missy:BennyHey

[Dacamic 10]

LOL you really write your biggest losses on a barf bag??

Indeed, and it's displayed on a wall in my office.

[O-3 10]

I'd love to see a photo of that :o

[ZenWarrior 10]

Worst loss? LOL... probably around $600k-700k in a single day?? Enjoy a read about my past "fun" (I'm Jon BTW): http://www.netfragz.com/articles/Businessweek2.html O.o

[Eiger 10]

There were many "worst losses" for me. All had one thing in common - I didn't learn from them.

 

Eiger

[VolumeJedi 10]

I don't know about worst loss, but what about worst win? My first trade. I made $32,000 in less than two weeks starting with $2,000 on a currency futures trade whilst working at Burger King. And doing all the wrong things.

 

Since that time I have wrecked a few ships on the rocks (never a blow out) blinded by the seductive sounds of the Market's siren call...........

[Stockmock 10]

A woman of course, they'll hit you harder than any market

 

Hehe....Nice one! Been there and done that too. Have the hat and Tshirt to prove it.

 

[tblack 10]

The bubble bust was the single most important event that boosted me to a serious education into the trading profession. I appreciate your honest and realistic experience as a trader. We all need our constant reminders to sharpen our discipline swords.

[hedonQ 10]

you're going to puke when you see this ...

 

shorted 40 lots in gbp/usd between 2.11 and 2.1140 with stop at 2.1150 on Nov 9th 2007. Lost 10K but the risk/reward I had in mind ...

I felt that day cable is finished. The opportunity cost was undescribable.

 

:crap:

[COTtrader 10]

I thank you for throwing your money away so that I can make mine. Without your losses I would have no winners. Next time when you sell I will buy.

 

Seriously..., I received my "come-upons" in forex and only later learned what a trading plan and good money management were about. That was a 5k education and then some.

 

COTtrader

[Sledge 13]

you're going to puke when you see this ...

 

shorted 40 lots in gbp/usd between 2.11 and 2.1140 with stop at 2.1150 on Nov 9th 2007. Lost 10K but the risk/reward I had in mind ...

I felt that day cable is finished. The opportunity cost was undescribable.

 

:crap:

 

JESUS- $10K Really man? I think I would have put a bullet in my head on a $10K loss... seriously.

 

The question though is- WHAT DID YOU LEARN? I have had my share of losses- I LEARNED something from every single one of them- without the lesson- the monetary loss is second stage to the knowledge gained and the idea that once that mistake was made- to never repeat it. Figure it cost you $10,000- I'd sure as hell be certain to be sure I learned something from that. Hope you figured it out.

Aaron

[great1one 10]

2002 Grand Final.. bloody umpires

[myndex 10]

This recent March 9th - I lost around $2000, when I got caught with several pharmaceutical companies and Obama made a statement about national health care that sent that sector into the dirt. I also had some shipping stocks that day. YUK.

 

Dumped out taking the loss, as I was afraid things were just going to get worse. Good call on the drug stocks - they continued to fall. Drag is the shipping stocks rebounded over the next two days, and would have washed the losses. BLECH I suck.

 

 

Today made me happy though!!

 

 

 

ANdy

[myndex 10]

Worst day loss is recent - March 9th - about 2K. Had a bunch of Biotech and Shipping stocks.

 

1) General market fell (we know)

 

2) Obama said things that directly impacted drug stocks

 

3) Shipping stocks have been volatile.

 

YUK!

 

Market fell so fast, so far I got rather freaked that day, and dumped all the biotech/drug and shipping stocks at a loss.

 

Drugs went lower, sadly Shipping rebounded the next few days, and it would have washed my losses. DRAT!!!

 

 

 

 

Today (Mon Mar 23) made me happy though!

 

Andy

[rossini 10]

Hi all. A great topic to make my first post on lol. I can't remember exactly, this was around 2 years ago. I was shorting the Gbp Jpy (and was up around £8k on the day. I took the profit and went long, why I don't know!! I lost £9k in about an hour. The size of the loss didn't bother me as much as knowing that it should have been my biggest daily win up to that point....

[ave 10]

November 2007. Coming from being a floor broker to trading off of the computers I learned an expensive lesson that the 2 are completely different in nature. I was short 100 dec/march cocoa spreads at even money. I went to take a bathroom break and it traded up to 70 premium!! By the time I got out at 65 premium I had lost everything!! (65,000$) I was gun shy for a long time after that!!

[xx3xxx 10]

simple

 

you can trade against your gut reaction

 

 

this way, you will be a big winner !!

 

 

 

but easier to say--- very hard to get it into practice, even demo account

[Robert337664 10]

The most important thing to remember is to place your stop loss. manage your losses and let your winners run. You can have nine small losses and one big gainer and still walk out a winner.

[enochbenjamin 10]

You wanna loose money fast? Try trading wheat while over leveraged. I lost $3600 in about 10 seconds. But that didn't hurt as much as being up 9 grand and finishing the day with 2 grand. Needless to say, i don't trade ANY grains these days.