I had $68,000 in my account last night, now I have $9,000. And yes, it was a real account. You can say I was stupid but I did trade the system for a little over a week in a demo account. It seemed simple enough, and is, I didn't feel a need to trade it demo any longer. And still don't. What would have trading demo done to avert this situation?
Was there a way out of this? Could my demo skills have avoided this catastrophe? I don't think so. I just held on...there were no "save your ass" tactics here I didn't know about.
The only thing I could have done in hindsight was put in that short hedge order for the total number of trades I had long. I set up that trade, but later took it out feeling that I was not expressing faith in the system...and I was certain it would turn around and head back up before that trade could do any good.
Well...easy come easy go I guess. I will eventually recover I suppose. That IS a lot of money and I will feel it, but it won't kill me.
I do wish I didn't trade this on my real account, of course. If this had happened with a demo it would have taught me not to touch it. So that was where I was stupid. But I did believe in the system, too much.
For it to work I think I would have to trade micro lots or trade minis with a much larger balance (I was trading 2 or 3 minis per trade). If I had traded 1 mini per trade the return would be so small and the work to get it so large I just don't know if it would have been worth the hassle.
Now I wish there was a way I could recover from this. I have $9,000 in my account. I could probably get some more in there in a week or so. Not up to $50,000 (my financial adviser has the only direct acess to all my cash and I don't want to tell him I blew $50,000). So do I go long on the GJ believing it will retrace much of this? I may as well do something crazy. I don't care about the 9k I have left (I sound like I am in a Casino now!!)
I will go back to being a good boy and trading almost risk free if I recover. I had a system going for me that made $100k into $400k since February. With no where near the exposure. Why didn't I stick with that? Ah...nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Thanks to all here...and Elijah, I of course put no blame on you or your system. I went into this eyes wide open. It is a cool system and I liked playing it. We just hit a rare occurrence....too bad it was on my second time out.
I will trade this on a demo I suppose...just to see if this breakdown ever happens again.
Good trading!!
