daytrading may 21 afternoon, page-72

I read McKagan's post in the morning thread and just wanted to say couldn't agree more.

Before the GFC hit, I was able to day trade, (but mostly with warrants) and make between $5000 - $20000 a day. I thought I was invincible. Started buying stocks without reasearching them. If I saw something drop, I would buy more of it. Then October 2007 hit, and I lost $120,000 in one day trading RIO Barrier Warrants. Biggest mistake of my life, or at least I thought at the time. Started putting more money in warrants and specs, confident that I could do it all over again and start seeing the $5000 profits again. Lost a further $580,000 in the next 12 months because of greed. Profits of $300 were too small for me to even consider taking. When I finally woke up and realised I was on the verge of folding, I changed my strategy. Trades became $10-$15K not $75K+ anymore. A profit in excess of $50 became acceptable and welcomed. Holding overnight became a big no-no unless absolutely necessary.

I've learnt my lesson and learnt it the hard way. I had a fulltime job at the time paying me $50,000, 4 mortgages for investment properties and a $200,000 line of credit for share trading. There were days where I didn't want to wake up. So guys and gals, when you think losing a couple of thosand on a stock is bad, think about all the people out there that still haven't been able to recover from the GFC because they thought the stock market was their ticket to financial freedom and were too stupid to believe otherwise. I count myself lucky, that I still have a well paying job and have been able to reduce part of my debt by selling a property for a very handsome profit, however there are days where I still think, if I didn't start in the stock market, I might have been so much better off now.