< Those of you, SI members, longtime or recent, if you day traded, I would like to hear your stories - whatever they are, and whether or not you feel inclined to seek damages. >
You want stories? Okay, here we go. I've been trading, both intra-day and position trading since April 1996. I've had winning trades and losing trades. Some were big losers that offset a lot of small winners. One year I had 76% winners are was barely profitable. But I blame no one other than myself for allowing losing trades to get away from me that first year. I could have closed out such trades at any time. But I was stubborn; I didn't want to be wrong. I didn't want to admit to making a losing trade. But losing is part of the game and always will be. I learned from my mistakes that year and each subsequent year I've traded and have been profitable every year since 1996. I traded "hype" stocks from CNBC at times, picks from Jag Notes, picks from Pristine, chose trades from IBD and the Wall Street Journal. If I had losing trades from any of the above sources I didn't blame them. I may have entered (long) too late and missed the momentum or vice versa on short trades. Some traders don't have discipline and allow losses to snowball. I watched traders lose a LOT of money trading high flying stocks in the late 90's. No one forced them to buy the stocks they bought. And no one forced them to hang on and hope and wish that they might bounce back. Often the trades headed further south and reached a point when the trader could endure no more pain and closed out the trade with losses in the thousands of dollars or even tens of thousands. Whose fault was it that they lost money? No one other than the individual trader IMO. They consciously chose to buy (or short) the stock. Yeah, lots of traders lose money; maybe 90% fail. But ... that's not any different than small business startups where the failure rate is similar. If you want to succeed at anything in life, including trading, you need to work at it. There's no holy grail and no "easy" picks from stock web sites, newspapers or any other media.
And I feel compelled to ask a question. I believe you originally stated that you'd retained 2 legal firms on a contingency basis. If you feel so strongly that your case has merit and can be won then why would both firms apparently ask to be relieved from the case in the past month or so. Geez, if I had invested time and effort and felt I had a high probability of winning a massive settlement I'd certainly not walk away from the case. Can you imagine the lawyers who fought the tobacco industry walking away as the case worked its way through the courts. I can't ... your posts leave many questions unanswered. Again, it's unfortunate you apparently lost a lot of money.
And last, do I plan to seek damages? What for? My being a naive and inexperienced trader in the beginning? That's life and part of the learning process. I'm responsible and accountable for my own actions and choices. None of us is perfect and it's easy to want to blame someone other than ourselves for our own failures. But if you want to grow and mature as a trader you accept the negative results of your trading and turn the mistakes into learning experiences. |
