Anyone who trades equity markets on a regular basis knows all too well the feeling of regret. There’s really no such thing as a contented trader, because if the market is going against us, we wish we weren’t in position, and if the market is going for us, we wish we were more aggressively-sized.
Years ago, I even set up a page called Woulda Shoulda Coulda which lets anyone punch in a symbol, date, and purchase amount just to see what the value of any given security would be in the present day. Try it, and I guarantee you’ll want to tear your hair out.
I was reminded of the topic of regret when I stumbled upon this prominent post over in /wsb:
To explain: this fellow, username CircaMuse, was ambling along with a trading account, slowly accruing gains, when evidently, he got very aggressive on the short side just before the market’s brief wipeout. One particular trade was the standout, which was a large quantity of short-dated puts on Carvana (CVNA) that created over a million-dollar profit overnight.
Glancing at the Carvana chart, it looks like this fellow bailed at the perfect millisecond (and clearly didn’t use one of the huge brokerages which were down for that morning), since CVNA absolutely rocketed after this guy dumped his puts.
When he did his initial “I made a million bucks in just one day” post, the comments were a combination of sneering jealousy as well as some good-natured questions about how he pulled it off. His response was a generous one, but in retrospect it seems the snarkier replies actually hit the nail on the head.
Well, you probably know where this is headed. Only a few days later, he did this post:
Besides this, he shared the rather rapid path his account took. He had already built it up to $413,444 (I assume by way of other aggressive put purchases) only to see it rocket to $1,508,696 by Monday’s close.
It slipped about $100,000 the next day, and then it was just a full-on meltdown. He doesn’t share the trading details, but I think it’s safe to say that, riding the absolutely sugar high of making about 300% overnight, he figured in a week or two he’d be a billionaire, so he kept gobbling up put positions left, right, and sideways.
In four days, he took his account from $1,508,696 to $24,503, which is a 98.4% haircut. Again: in four days.
Naturally, the young lads at /wsb are having a field day with the memes based on this tale.
u/CircaMuse nukes $1.5M
byu/yolocallking inwallstreetbets
Leading, understandably, to the guy deciding to get rid of the post altogether.
CircaMuse did manage to share his feelings with the group, since obviously he feels rotten.
It’s a pretty sorry tale and plainly shows just how quickly greed can infect one’s mind and lead to some very bad decisions.
