Worst Trade ever

[Sieve]

If you are like me, you don't really have many people in your circles who understand the pain and agony you go through every day to scratch out a little money.

Anywho.. I'll make it simple. I was having a pretty decent week. Yesterday morning I gave up on one underlying that I had for a couple of days. Wasn't doing horrible, not horrible enough to trigger any stops, just didn't "do it" for me. So I bailed on it. I initially planned to just sit on the cash but I had a couple of other plays I had been following so I went with one that had already had a nice run up, but it looked like it might have a little juice left. I got in, then just hung out. Before I knew it it was down about $.10, not biggie, but I was watching it close. I was already doing really well with the other couple of plays I had, I had a pretty hard stop on this one. Before I knew it, it started to slowly creep up, $.10, .20 .30 before the last hour I was up about 17% in just that one underlying. I wanted to just unload it but I was down to one day trade left (another rule I hate, but i'll save that rant for another day) so I figured I'll just ride it out. I'll be great. Anyway, finished the day up almost 20%. Call me lucky. This is great. I just backed into this thing. So afterhours, I set an order for the morning for a trailing -5% stop. This was a $4 stock, that I bought for $4.21, and was now at $5.10. I figured I would still get out at $4.80 or so, at the worst. So morning opening.. stock opens down .05, typical, no big deal. Within 5 min, its at 4.95, I for some stupid reason, take off my stop.. WHY!!??? My thinking was that the day before I watched it fall near the open and bounce back.. so I didn't want to miss out on it going to $6. Greed is bad kids. Bulls and bears make money, PIGS GET SLAUGHTERED. Cut to the chase.. I watched frozen, in horror actually as it went to the low 4s. Again, I thought, "it was here yesterday, and bounced around at about this time, before catching on" so I thought it would happen again. Does it ever?? It didn't . And now I had the realization that I had just lost 150$ in about 20 minutes. Not a good feeling. I wont give the play by play of the rest of the horror, but it closed that day at 2.20. And to make it worse, I sold half my shares at some point, in the 3s at least (I think, its still a whirl wind) then later in the afternoon, bought back a bunch at $3.14, when I thought (don't we all when we are scrambling for reason??) it was surely making it's grand come back and I could recoup some of my loses. But it quickly sold off again. So I took a +100 gain and turned it into a -300 loss. Really smart .

Moral.. BE MECHANICAL! Obey your rules. And take profits dummy!!!

(sorry for the novel, I meant this to be short, but I am long winded)

[livermore2016]

Sounds like you have good instincts and you're just going through the initial "hard knocks" phase of trading. You'll have many bad days as a trader but as long as you have good days than bad you can't go wrong. Its good that you are under the pattern daytrader rule because it makes you very selective about your trades.

Anyway, keep on trading. It gets better.

[Wall Street Forum]

Sieve, part of your story sounds like a trade I had early in my career. I was in a slow moving stock that started to tick up rapidly towards the end of the day. It rose more in 30 minutes than it had for the entire week I held it. I took my profits and ran before the close. Always take windfall profits when you get them.

[BondsGuy]

I've had a few pretty bad ones. Lost 130K on an options trade in a week. Probably the worst.

[Craig Lewis]

I haven't been at it long enough to have any bad ones and I have a small account

[FlipperMan]

I haven't been at it long enough to have any bad ones and I have a small account

Hang in there, you'll have a crap trade soon enough LOL

[Abromovich]

I don't think i've had anything bad enough to post here...*knock on wood*

[StoneF]

I remember I had a trade some years ago that was going great. The market was up big the next day so I loaded the boat around 10am. The market started to tank and because I loaded the boat I lost HUGE.

Always follow your rules.

[Smalls]

My worst trade ever was a swing trade that I thought was done for the day. It kept going up about 6% more until the close. I was PISSED. That's when I started working on my trailing stop strategy.

[StoneF]

My worst trade ever was a swing trade that I thought was done for the day. It kept going up about 6% more until the close. I was PISSED. That's when I started working on my trailing stop strategy.

that sucks. Trailing stops can be a double edged sword too.. sometimes you end up with a smaller profit than if you had just sold

[LiamHarris]

If you are like me, you don't really have many people in your circles who understand the pain and agony you go through every day to scratch out a little money.

Anywho.. I'll make it simple. I was having a pretty decent week. Yesterday morning I gave up on one underlying that I had for a couple of days. Wasn't doing horrible, not horrible enough to trigger any stops, just didn't "do it" for me. So I bailed on it. I initially planned to just sit on the cash but I had a couple of other plays I had been following so I went with one that had already had a nice run up, but it looked like it might have a little juice left. I got in, then just hung out. Before I knew it it was down about $.10, not biggie, but I was watching it close. I was already doing really well with the other couple of plays I had, I had a pretty hard stop on this one. Before I knew it, it started to slowly creep up, $.10, .20 .30 before the last hour I was up about 17% in just that one underlying. I wanted to just unload it but I was down to one day trade left (another rule I hate, but i'll save that rant for another day) so I figured I'll just ride it out. I'll be great. Anyway, finished the day up almost 20%. Call me lucky. This is great. I just backed into this thing. So afterhours, I set an order for the morning for a trailing -5% stop. This was a $4 stock, that I bought for $4.21, and was now at $5.10. I figured I would still get out at $4.80 or so, at the worst. So morning opening.. stock opens down .05, typical, no big deal. Within 5 min, its at 4.95, I for some stupid reason, take off my stop.. WHY!!??? My thinking was that the day before I watched it fall near the open and bounce back.. so I didn't want to miss out on it going to $6. Greed is bad kids. Bulls and bears make money, PIGS GET SLAUGHTERED. Cut to the chase.. I watched frozen, in horror actually as it went to the low 4s. Again, I thought, "it was here yesterday, and bounced around at about this time, before catching on" so I thought it would happen again. Does it ever?? It didn't . And now I had the realization that I had just lost 150$ in about 20 minutes. Not a good feeling. I wont give the play by play of the rest of the horror, but it closed that day at 2.20. And to make it worse, I sold half my shares at some point, in the 3s at least (I think, its still a whirl wind) then later in the afternoon, bought back a bunch at $3.14, when I thought (don't we all when we are scrambling for reason??) it was surely making it's grand come back and I could recoup some of my loses. But it quickly sold off again. So I took a +100 gain and turned it into a -300 loss. Really smart .

Moral.. BE MECHANICAL! Obey your rules. And take profits dummy!!!

(sorry for the novel, I meant this to be short, but I am long winded)

Have a great experience, thank you.
Just like you said at the end, you have to be smart and smart.
And a whole lot of creativity is needed to lower and raise stocks to get the right result.
And you know you spend in a prestigious place.

[JImtrade1niner]

My worst was some years ago. I had a winning trade and oversold it. I ended up short on the trade and didn't notice until the next day. It took back half my gains. I was more pissed than anything.

[LiamHarris]

Congratulations on your patience.
It was a good story
Thank you for sharing with us