What is your biggest intraday loss ?

[combotrader]

Today I had my biggest intraday fall - 2,500 GBP. This is probably something noone wants to talk about. But having suffered it - esp on the back of a string of good trades - I want to know what others did about it.

Some background - last few weeks I have had 2 main trades running. Long oil/ short dollar or vice versa. The dollar crosses have been euro, cable and yen.
Last week my daughter was born, so I halted a profitable run for 7 days. I wanted to get back. So I started again on Tuesday with the idea of geting stuck back in.

I could not. I had the usual baby duties ( a delight, of course) and tending to new grandparents etc. I chose my usual time frame - 1 hour. I look at daily and 4hrs first, try to get the trend and then trade the retracements. I also use fibs. Very simple, and it works. Price is the best indicator I know.

Yesterday,I got the trend right in oil - going up - but despite a 100 point SL got stopped out twice. It was frustrating, ended with 500 loss.
Today, I started at 15.30. I thought crude was nearing 23.6% fib support on the 1hr and 4hr chart. I WENT LONG, DESPITE PRICE BEING 150 CENTS AWAY FROM SUPPORT.
Price duly crashed. Those who have been trading crude last few days will know what a white knuckle ride it has been- even for crude`s usual volatility. Anyway.

15mins later, price was 30cents away from support, I went long again. BUT THIS TIME I TRIPLED MY SIZE. This was unlike me. I am normally a cautious person. Price crashed again. By now, I was checking out 5min charts - this has been following the 21d ema quite well last 2 days. However, I NEVER TRADE OFF THE 5MIN CHARTS.
Next, I examined the 1 hr charts closely. This time I shorted. Immediately made a little bit but did not take profits, as I thought now the trend would carry on to my new target.

Suffice to say it did not - and this time, crude started surging back up from about 131.70. Its now around 135.00. I stopped as all my risk measures had been breachced.

I think it all happened as I was desperate to get back in to trading. I wanted to carry on with the profits I had made - but ended up just givingthem away. In fact,I should not have been trading it all. Goes against my grain, but thats what I should be doing now. I know what I am doing wrong, but still doing it - again this is unlike me.
Perhaps I should cut my risk drastically and spread bet for a while with £1/point. Recently, I have also been thinking about quitting my job and trading full time. I think this added to the pressures, and the need to take the odd positions I did today.

Apologies about the long tirade. A tirade against lack of psychological vigilance. Has this happened to others - and resulted in big losses, maybe even the biggest ever ?

 

[LiggerPig]

Whenever we get over-confident in our ability, the market will put us back in our place
You're doing the right thing by analysing what you did wrong and trying to figure out why. The important thing here is you will learn from your mistakes and not return to revenge trade.

I'm sure we've all done similar at one stage or another and used the experience to add to our rules, our knowledge or swept it aside and gone on to repeat the experience!

Reducing size (and therefore risk) is never a bad idea when humbled by the markets though I'm sure those of you who trade crude face occasional unavoidable big spikes against your positions?

And, Congratulations on the birth of your daughter

 

[rathcoole_exile]

congrats on the birth of your new baby.

my biggest single loss was approx $12,000
easy come, easy go ........ it was part of the $45k I gained from an Options play when Dendreon were going through tesing & approval for a new drug.
I used part of the dendreon windfall to short the **** out of Delta when it was re-floated after having been suspended. I got the short right, but I was a month too early :-(

 

[Deucalion]

congrats on the birth of your new baby.

my biggest single loss was approx $12,000
easy come, easy go ........ it was part of the $45k I gained from an Options play when Dendreon were going through tesing & approval for a new drug.
I used part of the dendreon windfall to short the **** out of Delta when it was re-floated after having been suspended. I got the short right, but I was a month too early :-(

Last year - gained 350K on two trades, thought I was king of all I surveyed. Market thought I was being an arrogant so-and-so and duly took away 200K. No joke. I gained 30pounds, lost a girlfriend and my social life.

Now I am back, wiser and poorer....determined more than ever to listen to what the market is telling me...and she is being kind to me. :clap:

 

[Deucalion]

And oh yes, combo dude - screw money, you got your baby congrats. You'll get the money back in due time. It's just money.

 

[Stuart14]

Personally lost more than £20k in a day before. Bad risk management from my side. Live and learn.

You should definitely not have tripled up. Position Sizing is definitely very important, don't let the gamblers instinct kick in!

 

[FXSCALPER2]

£2.8 million

 

[winmoney]

2.8 mil ?

£2.8 million

!!!??? Tell me that wasn't your money ?

............ also it wouldn't be so bad if you trade a 1bn account, as you're using
a less than 3% lot

 

[FXSCALPER2]

!!!??? Tell me that wasn't your money ?

............ also it wouldn't be so bad if you trade a 1bn account, as you're using
a less than 3% lot

It was

 

[the blades]

It was

then why are you surfing these boards? Why aren't you sunbathing on a boat?:cheesy:

UTB

of course the £2.8M could have been the boat

 

[winmoney]

then why are you surfing these boards? Why aren't you sunbathing on a boat?:cheesy:

UTB

of course the £2.8M could have been the boat

I think anyone reading this thread would like to know a lot more about what happened. As a figure like 2.8 mil is always going to have an interesting story behind it. Are you willing to divulge more ?? .............

 

[FXSCALPER2]

then why are you surfing these boards? Why aren't you sunbathing on a boat?:cheesy:

UTB

of course the £2.8M could have been the boat

How do you know I am not subathing on a boat while surfing these boards. Have some self-esteem.

 

[BSD]

Combo, congrats on the baby

Sounds like you have a good, robust trading strategy.

Also sounds like what you don't have - or at least not during these trades you described - the absolutely and totally essential detachment to the individual trade.

The individual trade should be totally meaningless in the big scheme of things, win or lose !!!

Some of the wealthiest traders out there have win rates of 30, 40 % !

Win rate is just about the most meaningless part of the equation when your main objective is to maximise your profitability.

But even if you have a high hit rate with smaller profits than losses the individual trade still needs to be seen with detachment.

Even high hit rate strategies can and will have strings of losses where you simply cannot afford to throw all discipline overboard just because your ego starts strutting its stuff wanting you to be right, rather than the wiser you that just wants to make money.

You're not in this business to feed your ego, you're in this business to feed your bank account.

Way to do the latter is by ensuring that you make as much money as you can in the long run, with a system that plays out its edge in the long run, not in every individual trade.

You have a good, robust trading strategy aligned with what markets are doing, looking for trend on various time frames, and entering on retracements etc.

That's good stuff.

What's bad stuff is, next to your momentary loss of discipline, your money management.

Strings of losses can and will occur no matter what you do - if you're trading real money and not selling a holy grail to gullible wannabees that is haha - then you simply will get strings of losers in real life !!!

Question of IF, not WHEN.

Which means that betting anything beyond 2 or say 3 % MAX of your account per non correlated trade spells eventual severe doom and gloom, a drawdown that will take you ages to climb out of.

And the last thing to EVER do is get mad at markets just because you had some losers and, in attempt to show "em" what'swhat and who's got the bigger stick, lol, go ahead and triple your position size.

That's just crazy.

I thought women get postnatal depressions what with the hormones acting up and all, but what you've done sounds, if you don't mind me saying, like you're overdoing your husbandly duties by experiencing a phantom version of PND.

;-)

Just for the sake of argument, and don't hold me to the exact figures, but let's say you risk sthg like 0.3% / trade day, while you average out at roughly three times that profit wise, ie you net 1% / day, and keep compounding, that then translates into a mind boggling compounded 1000 % gain for the year !!!

People ALWAYS oversetimate what they can do in the short term, while ALWAYS underestimating what they can do in the long term.

Good luck !

PS: brain farts can and do happen to everybody, I mean even Jesse Livermore got em on a regular basis.

Trick is to recognize em coming up, and react in time by doing anything but trading for the duration of the olofactory onslaught.

 

[rathcoole_exile]

The individual trade should be totally meaningless in the big scheme of things, win or lose !!!

Combo,
listen to what Markus is telling you - he truly is an expert on the meaningless

:clap:

 

[Stuart14]

Just for the sake of argument, and don't hold me to the exact figures, but let's say you risk sthg like .3% / trade / day, while you average out at roughly three times that profit wise, ie you net 1% / day, that translates into a mind boggling 1000 % gain for the year !!!

People ALWAYS oversetimate what they can do in the short term, while ALWAYS underestimating what they can do in the long term.


Love that. So true. I want to hit 40-50% of bank capital profit per year. Seems totally acheivable when read like that!

 

[the blades]

How do you know I am not subathing on a boat while surfing these boards. Have some self-esteem.

fair enough, but when I can afford to lose £2.8M is a day, my hands wont be fiddling with a keyboard. In fact they wont be fiddling with anthing they currently do - I'll pay somebody for that:whistling

UTB

 

[lazerradial2003]

I'll second that

I think anyone reading this thread would like to know a lot more about what happened. As a figure like 2.8 mil is always going to have an interesting story behind it. Are you willing to divulge more ?? .............

Yeah I'd like to hear the back story on that, anyone whose lost that in a day and is still going must have a story to tell!

 

[combotrader]

:clap::clap:

Thank you - my baby girl is indeed, worth it all.

Woohoo, boys, especially BSD, whom I think we should rename the figures man (?TFM) for all the pictures he posts - my cup runneth over with all your soundings.

I am aware of all you are saying - the nonsense of focussing on win rates without adequate postition sizing etc but .....its awful being caught in a position of wanting to earn a living from trading and doing something else instead. I think the time is approaching to pack the dayjob in. This is a big switch for me, so I think I need to ease into it. I will keep having silly days unless I set up my trading business from home. Trading should be boring and predictable....

And BSD - thank god I was playing around with mini futures. I risk 0.75% on each trade. My aim is to make 30-40% per year. I take 3-4 good trades in a week and some rubbish ones in between. Just need to weed out the crap.

PS - does anyone use the Schork report for their energy trading ? seems to have good reviews. Expensive, but there might be a reason for it.

Thanks
CT

 

[Stuart14]

Combotrader, sounds like we are in very similar positions.

 

[BSD]

BSD, whom I think we should rename the figures man (?TFM) for all the pictures he posts

Hehe ;-)

I love the idea of trading for a living, absolutely nothing can beat that (well, OK, maybe being Paul McCartney or Mick Jagger comes a pretty close second ;-)), but I honestly think you'd be putting unbelievable pressure on yourself if you quit your job for that at this stage with a baby girl and all, I'd keep the job until the trading account is padded enough to survive bad patches.

If it already is my apologies, then all this doesn't apply obviously.

Or if your wife works - after the baby pause obviously -, let her generate a steady income to pay the daily bills and soothe the nerves, while you're responsible for the fortune.

But wife, baby, no steady income, and tradings pressures without a lot of dough stashed away somewhere, sounds a bit scary.

But good luck !!!