Bump. Surely there are some more people out there that have lost loads in the recent market? Great thread btw.
This is a great thread. Im a bit surprised there are not more responses, but then again, i guess everyone is busy making a killing day in and day out, its ET, you gotta love it.
It could be a 10 year old thread, shouldn't matter. Im sure there are still people out there that prob don't use proper money management and have that disaster day. Lets hear those stories. Maybe someone else can learn from that.
I lost it all. I was in my early twenties at the time and had saved about $5k to trade with. Built it up to about $15k and then went all in on a company called Bre-X Minerals, who was touting the largest gold find in history. I bought it at $2 and watched it go up to $13. The company hired Freeport-McMoRan to come in and do a comprehensive audit of the site to determine exactly how much gold was in the ground. When the report came in, it read something like this: "The Bre-X Minerals site is certainly not the largest gold find on record. In fact, we can't find any gold at all." Party...... Over. It gapped down to like 12 cents or something ridiculous like that the next day.
I remember that. From wikipedia: The fraud began to unravel rapidly on March 19, 1997 when Filipino Bre-X geologist Michael de Guzman died by falling from a helicopter in Indonesia. His body was found four days later in the jungle, mostly eaten by animals and identified from molars and a thumbprint.
I don't keep track to know about worst one day losses, I've had many bad losses. Amounts surely into five figures. Percents approaching 25% when I dabbled in futures with a small account overleveraged. I bought a solar company at it's exact top fully margined. My worst losses are really from the gains I did not get by selling too early on many excellent ideas.