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I finally blew up an account


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I finally blew up an account

  #1 (permalink)
blew
CLE, Ohio
 
Posts: 3 since Apr 2021
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So I just need to get this off my chest. I just gave away all my gains on the year. I went from 7k -> 70k -> 10k. I blew most of it revenge trading and taking too big of position sizes. I got so comfortable scaling up as I was profiting consistently, and I threw it all away in like 10-15 trades. All the work I put in.. day and night studying all the styles of trading, figuring out what worked for me and what didn’t, and I blew it all within a few days by emotionally revenge trading and scaling up higher as the losses got deeper. How could I be so stupid?! I’m still in disbelief I blew an account. I was happy to be one of the ones who didn’t blow up an account because I remained disciplined enough to run up basically 1000% in 5 months.

I can’t bring myself to tell my spouse. She would be really supportive I know it, but I can’t even face myself at the moment, let alone have to explain what happened. Disgusted with myself. Utterly disgusted. I can’t believe I let myself get so emotional and out of control. What in the fuck was going through this dense skull of mine?! My confidence is shaken but it’s not at the same time. I’m confident that I just made 1000% in 5 months, and I’m also confident I just blew that 1000% in 3 days. So what does that really say about me as a trader... that I’m probably not too good I’m thinking.

The problem is trading is now apart of my identity it feels like. I love it but right now I hate it. Before a 4K swing up or down was no big deal, cause I’m some big shot or some shit I guess. But now 4K would axe me for good damn near. I want to give up but I don’t cause I love trading. What can I learn from this? Don’t revenge trade. But I knew that. I knew it while I was doing it and I know it now. So why didn’t I fucking stop?? I don’t know what to do from here.

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  #2 (permalink)
 ZB23 
Atlanta Metro Area
 
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I somewhat know how you feel. I lost $35000 in 15 minutes back in 2017. I will never forget that sick feeling in the stomach, that feeling of despair. I quickly got over it, took the rest of my money off the table, and took a seat (a very long seat, a three year seat).

It's a learning lesson, a tough one. You'll get over it, build up your funds, and return to the arena smarter and wiser.

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  #3 (permalink)
Thatoneguy
USA. TEXAs
 
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What caused you to deviate from the process that allowed you to make solid gains for 5 months? Do you feel like that consistent success inflated your ego and created extreme overconfidence? Why don't you have some type of % risk per trade based on account size? What exactly are you trying to get revenge on, because market doesn't care who you are. You need to go back to drawing board and figure exactly what lead to your success in those 5 months. Overall it sounds like you need to focus on managing risk, so that you can survive to trade another day.

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  #4 (permalink)
blew
CLE, Ohio
 
Posts: 3 since Apr 2021
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BA 21 View Post
I somewhat know how you feel. I lost $35000 in 15 minutes back in 2017. I will never forget that sick feeling in the stomach, that feeling of despair. I quickly got over it, took the rest of my money off the table, and took a seat (a very long seat, a three year seat).

It's a learning lesson, a tough one. You'll get over it, build up your funds, and return to the arena smarter and wiser.

Yeah I feel like just taking my money and saying I'm done, but then the other part of me knows I was solidly trading there for a while so I just need to get back to that.


Thatoneguy View Post
What caused you to deviate from the process that allowed you to make solid gains for 5 months? Do you feel like that consistent success inflated your ego and created extreme overconfidence? Why don't you have some type of % risk per trade based on account size? What exactly are you trying to get revenge on, because market doesn't care who you are. You need to go back to drawing board and figure exactly what lead to your success in those 5 months. Overall it sounds like you need to focus on managing risk, so that you can survive to trade another day.

Extreme overconfidence for sure. Basically, I took a few bad trades in a row (not emotionally, just didn't workout), and it didn't seem like a big deal at the time... a $3500 loss here, then a $3000 loss, then a maybe a slightly emotional $4000 loss, few "small" $1000 losses. Then one day I realized I'm down around 15k after all these losses, that is going to take some time to get back (not compared to where I'm at now though, smart huh). I started off the day with a bad trade, went down 3k on the day. Now down 18k. So it tilts me, and I take a monster position size and actually win a trade for like 6k. Felt great, now I'm only down 12k. Just repeat what I did 2 more times and I'll be good... but as you can guess, that involves me taking a big position. Next one went against me, and I lost 10k. Down 22k. Full tilt activated and I basically kept getting back in the same trades with huge sizes full on emotional revenge trading. Losing 8-10k at a time, not giving any breathing room for the trade so just getting stopped out constantly etc. I knew I shouldn't of been doing it, but for some reason I couldn't stop myself and just thought the market would gift me. Totally ignoring all the patience and analysis I had the entire time building the account. I slipped up, and I slipped up badly. My goal was simply $300-$500 a day and it I was doing great at it. Some days were much larger, red or green. I told myself 1% a day and my account would be huge in no time, lots of people say it isn't possible, but I was basically doing it. Until now... so maybe it isn't possible lol.

I knew what I was doing at the time was wrong. I need to just smash my monitor and computer next time I try revenge trading, it'd be much cheaper in the end. I feel like I want to get back on the horse next week, and just try to accept what I've done. Be patient and realize day by day I can build the account again. I'm willing to top off the account 5k-10k more and if I blow up that 15k-20k then I'm just done for a long while. I'm not going to literally drain my bank accounts to fund my trading. I need to just start with 20k so I have a little breathing room and stick to what my plan was before. There is 7 more months left in the year, I will attempt 1% a day again and hopefully succeed back to where I was. The biggest issue is I'm trying to get my confidence back in full because it's like I told myself I wouldn't do this ever, and it paid off the entire time, I was doing great. Then I broke my rules and everything having a bad few days and I lost it all. So my confidence is shaken because what if I do end up getting back to where I was and do it again?? I knew I shouldn't of done it this time, knowing the outcome, so how do I stop myself next time since I already knew this time it was bad... gahh. I just wish the terrible feeling would pass.

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  #5 (permalink)
 
matthew28's Avatar
 matthew28 
United Kingdom
 
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So you went from a $7k starting balance to $70k in the account and are now back at $10K.
I hope you at least withdrew some profit and paid yourself for your effort as you went along. Unfortunately it sounds like you didn't though.
Yes it sucks to be back down to $10k, but that is still $3k more than you started with. Most people aren't lucky enough to make a lot of money before losing a load, instead they lose all their initial capital.

Sounds like your problem is looking at your high water mark of profit and trying to revenge trade back from losing trades. Trade losses happen, you can't predict whether an individual trade is going to work or not. Seems like too much focus on trying to make 1% per day and potential profits, fixating on money made; instead of concentrating on risk management and being able to accept that some days market conditions will be good for your trading style and other days they won't. Try to make as much as you can on the good days and lose little, or stop quickly on the poor market condition days.

You don't need to put more money in to your account, you already have more than you started with last time and you managed to make profit from that quite happily.
If you add money to your account now to try and make back your money trading large size straight away that could go badly very quickly.

Depending on what class of product you are trading focus simply on starting again from scratch (not trying to make back a $60k drawdown, that money is gone and is now irrelevant to your current position). Start slowly, use micros if an option, build confidence again then increase account size again as the account grows and withdraw partial profits along the way.

Focus on trading well, whether the trade is profitable or not and switch off the computer when you aren't trading well. It is not fun to sit in front of your screen and be down money at the end of the day. But much easier to accept a small loss knowing that you can easily make it back another day, and feel contented with how you personally traded and handled yourself, than lose more than planned and feel wretched.
(All very obvious and easy in retrospect I know, and probably not suggesting anything you don't already know).

You do not win as a trader, you just get to play again the next day. If that game doesn’t appeal to you then you should not trade. Gary Norden
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  #6 (permalink)
 
MrMojoRisin's Avatar
 MrMojoRisin 
Graz/Austria
 
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Sonds like a pretty bad situation you're in. I'm not as far in my trading yet as you are, so take what I'm saying with a grain of salt.
First: You have a methodology that appears to be working and you know that losing money was an emotional mistake, so you exactly know which part of your trading is the weak part and where you have to put work in. That's good news.

Like I see it, everybody has a sense of what he or she "is worth" moneywise. That's ingrained somewhere in the back of the head and is mostly unconscious. If you start to approach that sum or maybe even project your previous results into the future and see that sum in front of your inner eye, you start getting into a dilemma.
You get scared maybe of losing sense in your life, if your single goal for years was becoming successful as a trader, or it maybe separates you from your loved ones and friends by seeing all the possibilites that open up for you with a lot of money, that are not open for them.
So to prevent you from that pain, your subconscious kicks in, makes you emotional which causes you lose all that money and releases you.

I'm not really profitable yet, but what I have definitely realized is, that people I thought were good for me in my life and on the surface supported me in my trading endeavour, start to act differently the more they realize that I'm serious with what I'm doing and I have to push them away if I don't want them to sabotage me. That's a painful realization. Maybe you have such people in your life as well, you know it, but you don't want it to be true and close your eyes for that, which leads also to sabotaging yourself.

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  #7 (permalink)
 
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 Botts 
Penetanguishene, Ontario, Canada
 
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I agree with @matthew28, the reality is you're still up $3k from where you started.

And there is no denying you clearly have "issues" you need to address regarding the revenge trading you mentioned.

One thing you could do is have your broker wire transfer you your original $7k and then trade with the remaining $3k.

If you can manage to build your $3k account into a $30k account (without the excessive risk) good on you.

If not, at least you won't have lost your initial investment.

Good luck on your journey.

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  #8 (permalink)
 
SBtrader82's Avatar
 SBtrader82   is a Vendor
 
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blew View Post
So I just need to get this off my chest. I just gave away all my gains on the year. I went from 7k -> 70k -> 10k. I blew most of it revenge trading and taking too big of position sizes. I got so comfortable scaling up as I was profiting consistently, and I threw it all away in like 10-15 trades. All the work I put in.. day and night studying all the styles of trading, figuring out what worked for me and what didn’t, and I blew it all within a few days by emotionally revenge trading and scaling up higher as the losses got deeper. How could I be so stupid?! I’m still in disbelief I blew an account. I was happy to be one of the ones who didn’t blow up an account because I remained disciplined enough to run up basically 1000% in 5 months.

I can’t bring myself to tell my spouse. She would be really supportive I know it, but I can’t even face myself at the moment, let alone have to explain what happened. Disgusted with myself. Utterly disgusted. I can’t believe I let myself get so emotional and out of control. What in the fuck was going through this dense skull of mine?! My confidence is shaken but it’s not at the same time. I’m confident that I just made 1000% in 5 months, and I’m also confident I just blew that 1000% in 3 days. So what does that really say about me as a trader... that I’m probably not too good I’m thinking.

The problem is trading is now apart of my identity it feels like. I love it but right now I hate it. Before a 4K swing up or down was no big deal, cause I’m some big shot or some shit I guess. But now 4K would axe me for good damn near. I want to give up but I don’t cause I love trading. What can I learn from this? Don’t revenge trade. But I knew that. I knew it while I was doing it and I know it now. So why didn’t I fucking stop?? I don’t know what to do from here.

Look at the bright side, in one way or another you managed to turn 7K to 70K which is quite impressive. Since you have experienced this, somewhere in your mind you have the state of mind and the feelings that you experienced in doing this. You should now find them and replicate the result.
I think that turning 7K to 70K is not something many traders experienced, so you are in a priviledge position.

In this regards I would like to ask you some questions, that might help me to replicate your success and take the positive side of your experience. I would like to know:
  • -how the good days looked like? how much did you use to make on good days?
  • -what did you consider as a normal "bad day"? how much you used to lose?
  • -what product and size did you trade?
  • -how much did you consider a normal gain per contract? for instance if I say to you that I made a winning trade yesterday trading NQ, which gave me 2000 USD with 15 contracts, would you consider it a good trade or not?
  • -what was your average holding time? few minutes, hours, or days?
  • -what platform did you use?

do you have some pictures of your good trades to share?

I know I am asking too many questions, but I promise that I will give you a great feedback to your answers since I blew up a couple of accounts myself.
Few days ago I gave a look at my old videos and images of trades and I realized that I was so naïve at the time.

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  #9 (permalink)
 ZB23 
Atlanta Metro Area
 
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blew View Post

...I told myself 1% a day and my account would be huge in no time, lots of people say it isn't possible, but I was basically doing it. Until now... so maybe it isn't possible lol.

...There is 7 more months left in the year, I will attempt 1% a day again and hopefully succeed back to where I was.

Instead of daily targets, have you considered monthly targets? To me, it seems that is a less restrictive target.

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  #10 (permalink)
 
matthew28's Avatar
 matthew28 
United Kingdom
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: Bookmap
Broker: Stage 5, Rithmic
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Posts: 1,250 since Sep 2013
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.....Or scrap the targets and use process goals to measure your self against each day. (1. Identify a trading problem. 2. Develop a solution. 3. Determine how I will implement the solution. 4. Measure the effectiveness of the solution).
When you have been trading well the profits have managed themselves.

You do not win as a trader, you just get to play again the next day. If that game doesn’t appeal to you then you should not trade. Gary Norden
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