How to lose 13K in 20 days! CL_2016 In retrospect

22 Mar 2017

For the CLK17, my Stop/Loss has popped and I am currently having a different setup and plan that differ from the normal short term strategy! Just waiting for a drop to 46-45 handle!

Look folks if you have a USD 10K Margin account and you trade daily based solely on just bars without indicators, You can easily hit those 20/30 ticks multiple times a day with daily trading of 200/300barrels you can make USD 1,000 by EOM easy! Now as Soros say "I am going for the Jugular"! So a more risky setup is in place for me for the CLK17!

I want to share some risk stories with you, I have been working in Treasury and Risk for the past 8 years. I have been to trading pits where you can see traders not establishing a SL (Stop Loss) when they are winning, and then all the wins that they are making turn sour and bitter. Of course some of them they get really salty and start cussing you for telling them to close the position! They start imploring for more time, but NO! It's time to report the loss to senior management (I feel like a douche)
Some traders on the other hand are cold AF! So nonchalant to huge losses (Of course it's not their money, it's the banks money so who cares!). At one point I was monitoring a trader trading the FX USD/JPY pair he registered USD 110K loss in just 1 trading session. He had a daily trading limit of 150K and he was coming from a renown bank! Anyway the bank fired him at the end, so the moral of the story that the market are uber alles!
Well you have lost 10K 20K 30K! lol I have lost more than that, and the main reason I was thinking I am too smart to put a stop loss since I know risk and stuff which did not apply since 2011 (QE, LTRO, and Abenomics ). I have lost major money then I decided not to come back to trading ever.


Not right off the bat with the positive engineering that took over the world in 2011-2015 I was under so much pressure that my thinking was negative and I have to buy instead of short selling! Buying is what makes the markets and it's positive! So i have this gung ho thing going for me regarding anything risky, And the futures markets provides me with just the risk that I want! And guess what B! It tanked since 2014!! So why not going into the markets again! Took my savings about USD15K dump it all, bought crude at 30.00X made some good money, again with no stop loss! I was so sure about my trades that my margin account was handling the pressure well.

So yeah! Buying is the ****! Sometime in early July 2016 I was like it's about time to buy, I got this fish scale skinned well and this contract right here is going to $60 BOY! From around $50 I started buying and accumulating, dropping and I am buying some more, dropping I buy more! It never stopped dropping! I threw in the towel! That was a double kurtosis drop god DAMN IT! One major problem is that the drop reached the RS of 39-40 handle and that was a major Cuban neck tie!! So if that would have been broken I would have been wiped out completely (PS I hedged couple of hundred shares but that wouldn't cut it)

I had $300 left and then a MIRACLE HAPPENED! The Main Stream start peddling the OPEC Cut spin! The DJ spinning the cuts and the squeeze was MAJOR! Markets went on overdrive Boom! By August 15th I recovered 90% of the money! But that was just luck!
Never again! Even a 100 barrels of oil I secure it whith a SL (Ok not always! )
Even if you don't have a plan and you want to keep your trading to sheer luck just put that Stop Loss! Always focus on your main stock/contract and read what moves it, You will become a professional with time.
With a stop loss you will survive 90% of the time just like me! And you won't be thrown under the steamroller.
Good luck, happy trading!