CHAPTER 21
The Worst Trading Day
When you’ve started in the morning with no premarket preparation, you’re trading on pure emotion, and your analysis and maneuvers are about as consistent as the capricious Northeastern weather, you’re about to have your worst trading day.
I’ve had days like that as a greenhorn, and I’ve seen them happen to others. While trading near Wall Street I’ve witnessed lone rangers come onto the trading floor, and get wiped out in just a few hours. As incredible as that may sound, it happens all the time. It’s possible to break every day trading rule in one single trading day, and I’m going to show you how.
One exemplary trader I saw especially sticks out in my mind. To me he’s like the memory of a crazy car accident scene. Although he’s an actual person, he and others like him remind me of the character called Quick-draw McGraw. Remember the Hanna-Barbera cartoon with that hyper, temperamental little gunslinger?
I’ll call this trader Quick-draw McLoser.
The following is a description of what I’ll assume has been a day in his life.
EARLY MORNING ACTIVITIES
It’s dawn.
Quick-draw might be prostrate, balled up in bed, hiding deep under his covers. Or maybe he’s wired and pacing his floor. Either way, this guy’s a mess. He’s so depressed and worried that he’s sleeping way too much, or else he’s insomniac.
Quick-draw has recently lost lots of money. The prospect of trading today makes him scared, and very rightly so; in his state of distraught exhaustion ...
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