This is what I was trading that day. My last long was bought at 120. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=PMCS&a=03&b=4&c=2000&d=03&e=4&f=2000&g=d
The same suckers who lost billions to us every month back then: People investing their 401K money in shitty mutual funds like Janus & Invesco, of course. Run by managers who probably take the short bus to work, equity mutual funds in these and most other fund families are virtually guaranteed to underperform the indexes. Billions upon billions of dumb money flowing to these guys back then, they'd make it ridiculously obvious when they were buying and when they were selling. We'd just hop on for the ride...
violent, what was your typical size back then??? our what was avg. size of an experinced trader during the bubble. thanks
With about $15,000 in my account, I lost a whopping (for me) $3,700 shorting Copper Mountain about 3-4 years ago. I can't remember any gainers that stuck out as being exceptional.
Best up day $150,000... Worst down day, down around $550,000.... I'll never forget that, was jacked the entire bull market since '96 buying every dip.... thought the bull market was coming to an end, lightened up everything except 5,000 shares of MSTR.... what could go wrong? It was already down from like 330 a share down to 220 (if you check the charts and see the 3000 plus highs, it's because they did a reverse split). It opened that day around 110, I shot the rest of my buying power at it figuring it would bounce.... it bounced to about 113... then sold off the rest of the day... I think I finally hit it out around 96 and left the office. I was absolutely numb. I haven't been the same trader since. A couple weeks after it happened I felt like I wasn't aggressive enough, so I went out and bought a $70,000 Jag thinking it would get me going... didn't work out so well, ever tried reselling a Jag?.... now I average $300 a day and I'm thrilled. But I'm still alive and in the game, which I can't say for a lot of my co-workers from that time. I'll say with pride that a lot of my trainees from that era are still profitable and making their livings off of trading. Oh, that day was March 20, 2000. To me that was the day that started the bear market, and as a raging bull, I took the first shot right between the eyes.
I was only trading 400 shares of thaty stock that day, bought them in 100 lots. I used to mainly trade YHOO in 1000 share blocks.
Biggest perceived loss.........Newbie to the trading world (less than 1 year). When the German Schatz disappeared and the next market that came up was 7.5 (750 pts) handles higher (1999 or 2000). Right before that happened, short 100 and clicked to get out 4 tics higher. System was frozen and did not show me out. 108 handle shows up and my P/L is show me down $750K!! Still did not understand the whole busting trade thing. Body going numb, tears in my eyes. The owner walked over knowing I had been filled for only a $4K loss and asked me if I was OK. I said "no." Walked into the bathroom and vomited.
+50k -50K Both were when I was a floor trader. My numbers aren't nearly that big now, but my trading is much less stressful.
I had on the largest short postilion of my career during the down trend during september of 2001. It was a fully hedged position and still in place on the morning of the 11th. Covered the morning of the 17th, up just under $9 mm. Sometimes better to be lucky in life than good. Lost over $5 million the day of the October 87 crash holding collars. Clearing firms were not answering phones. Unable to close out my open positions. They auto closed out the written call side of my positions and let my written puts remain open. Wiped me out. They took my exchange seat away. Bankrupted me. Long painful road back from that trauma.