Well, my trading career took a major blow, not sure if I'm going to be back to trading after this. Here's the quick version of the story. I shorted EFUT yesterday, 200 shares at 8.75. It had spiked big a couple days earlier based on a sketchy earnings report. The original earnings report was terrible, then they suddenly revised it. "Did we say we LOST 8 million dollars!? we meant we MADE 8 million dollars." Sounded sketchy to me, who makes a mistake like that? Either they made a gross error or they were just lying about the updated report, either way it seemed pretty sketchy, which is exactly why I should have stayed away from it in retrospect.
Anyway, the stock dropped off from the highs it had previously spiked to and was continuing down when I shorted a couple hundred shares around 8.75. It continued down for the day and at closing it was at about 8.15. I decided to hold overnight, I do that a lot to avoid the PTD rule, there was low volume, no one seemed too interested in this stock, and we are heading into a holiday. People are focused on the holiday right? What's the worst that can happen?
Let me tell you.
I went shopping after market close to pick up some stuff for Thanksgiving and by the time I got home EFUT had spiked up to $22.00 and eTrade had called in my margin requirements. so I lost my original $2,000 and lost an additional $2,000+ on the margin call. I had to sit and stare at the computer for a bit to absorb that this had really happened.
So my account is not totally blown but my confidence is. I've been at it for 6 months and it's probably time to admit that I just suck at this. I've put in hundreds, possibly thousands of hours watching videos HTMM,Penny stocking 1 and 2, every online video lesson Tim puts out on Profit.ly, followed the watch lists, paper traded a dozen strategies, read a book every 2 weeks or so and I still ended up here.
I'm not blaming anyone but myself, no one twisted my arm to make the trade, and I'm sure people will have plenty of advice with benefit of hindsight, it won't be terribly helpful at this point. I'm putting this out as a warning I guess, though I don't know what to warn you about. Sketchy earnings "winners" can drop for days and then triple after hours for no apparent reason. Maybe that's the lesson here.
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1329365/000094787115000857/ss465505_sc13d.htm
I feel for you man but just remember that most successful traders blow up their first 1 or 2 accounts before figuring this thing out. I hope you decide to stick with it after all of your efforts and after the valuable lessons you've learned. Just think about how much encouragement you can provide to someone a few years down the road when you're a success and they're in the same position that you're in right now. I wish you the best no matter what you decide to do.
Be careful with margin in general. It's like you have a credit card and you leave it unattended in a shopping mall accidentally. Before you even realize you're without it, you could possibly be down 5-10 thousand from some lucky asshole who took advantage of it. In hindsight, protect your credit with your life.
You see , all those thousand hours werent enough for learning, there is still much to learn , you never end up learning, thanks to this post I wont have to learn the lesson. ;) JUST MOVE ON MAN, Ive lost thousands in cars ive sold and ive learned and that reflects in my results , its normal man! :)
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