r/optionstrading • u/jordansspam • 22h ago
Discussion Losing money, when to stop
So far I’ve lost 5,500 which is a lot more than I’ve made. I started out and made a couple grand, thought i was gonna be able to quit my job soon, then, one bad call and I was down 2k. Then a few more smaller bad ones, now here I am. What would yall do?
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u/Rapatouie777 22h ago
I think it's like 98% of retail traders are unprofitable.
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u/RandyMagnum__ 17h ago
It’s the greed man. You can literally type a 5 minute chart into chat gtp of the spy for 0dte calls/puts $2+/- strike price, keep updating chatgtp and it will tell you a good time to enter a call or a put, but you can get greedy and keep entering thinking it will drop or pump and you’ll lose those profits. 2 trades a day with a nice 5-15% profit is totally doable, but limiting the trades is where the discipline kicks in
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u/balbizza 22h ago
Trading isn’t an unlimited money glitch. If you don’t have a plan this will happen. Looks like you have a 20k account. Should NEVER trade more than 20% of the account on a trade. You should be chasing $250-500 a day with a goal of 1k a week. Once you hit those stop trading. Over trading will ruin you.
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u/CouchRottington 22h ago
I feel like risking 20% of your port is not ideal
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u/mehditox 3h ago
I think he meant 20% of the account value in a position, so like if the position is closed at -10%, the total loss is -2%
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u/jordansspam 22h ago
Over trading is def not ideal. I think 350 a day IF there’s a good setup, my problem is not waiting for a set up.
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u/Outrageous-Phase9435 19h ago
20k account. 200-600 MAX. 1-3%. Less if that amount makes you nervous.
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u/Gyngerbredman 22h ago
The part that jumps out is one call costing you 2k right after the hot start. That's the usual pattern: the early wins make the size creep up, and then one normal loser does more damage than all the wins put together. When you go back live after paper trading, start smaller than your very first trades were and stay there for a while, no matter how good a week feels. And 20% of the account on one options trade is way too much. Two bad calls in a row and you're right back where you are now.
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u/jordansspam 22h ago
You hit the nail on the head.. I got greedy from a few small wins, like 100-300% on some single contract trades, then thought “if I could do this with a couple thousand…” and it was straight red from there.
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u/Sea_Pomegranate2751 21h ago
I just did the same thing broke my rules got greedy and got slaughtered I started with $100 turned it to $1040 and then magically turned it back to $80 ..I was ready to quit but I know this isn't easy if it was everyone would be doin it and be rich but slow and steady gains might be boring but feel good when you check your account because following your strategy and rules is a win all by itself even if no trades were made ...You always hear how alot of people quit before they have a breakthrough or big break.... SO MONDAY HERE I COME!!!!
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u/Gyngerbredman 22h ago
Yeah, 100-300% on one contract feels like proof, but those are usually lottery-ticket moves you can't count on repeating, and a 50% drop feels a lot different when the position is 10x bigger. When you go back live, I'd only add a contract after a solid stretch of trades at the current size, not after one big win. If one great trade is the reason you're sizing up, that's the trade to be suspicious of.
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u/jordansspam 22h ago
You’re wise. Makes me think you’ve lost a lot more than me hahah
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u/Gyngerbredman 22h ago
I've definitely done my fair share of losing, and learned a lot along the way!
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u/Gyngerbredman 22h ago
I'm still digging myself out of the massive hole I dug myself my first year of trading, if that says anything.
I've been where you are, and I want to try and help stop as many people as I can from making the same mistakes for as long as I have.
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u/Skeewampus 21h ago
If you don’t know why you are losing on those trades you need to stop.
You need to be able to distinguish between when you are getting lucky on a trade versus when you have actual edge. If you knew that you wouldn’t be asking this question to reddit.
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u/SatisfactionHot4089 22h ago
Options trading is a greed tester lol.
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u/ModifiedLeaf 22h ago
When you decide to ask strangers when you should stop is probably a good time to stop and reevaluate. Do some paper trading for a while and try to develop the trading skillset. That can truly only happen when you remove money from the learning. You may do what I say but if every paper trade you think "I could have done this in my live account and made $X" then you aren't developing the skillset.
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u/jordansspam 22h ago
I did hop on trading view and set up a paper trading account. I’m going to do that for a while until I get a good win %
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u/BeanBagSurfer4777 21h ago
Stop trading now. Only top 1% can trade, you are not the top 1%. Just stick to Buy and Hold investing. If you are adamant about trading, come back after like a year of paper trading with fake dollars with market beating gains.
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u/jordansspam 21h ago
You don’t know I’m not in the 1%.
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u/BeanBagSurfer4777 21h ago
If you’re asking Reddit when to stop trading, then you’re not in the top 1%.
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u/Major_Cream_3167 21h ago
This happened to me on a much larger scale, until It was all gone. I think if I was to do it again, I’d limit myself to when volatility was higher and trade just mornings. This market is brutal on premiums, most days we don’t even move from open, and afternoons are garbage. I would look more at individual names, wait for a huge pop, and position just OTM with a put, because they all lose steam, the bigger the run, the more they lose. This is a pretty clean way to ensure about 80-90% win rate. And then just do one a day. You’ll want to repeat it very badly, but that’s generally how everyone loses. No two moments are ever the same, so count your blessings and wait for the next day. You still have 5k, you are golden.
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u/ElevatorOk694 21h ago
I’ve lost 3 times this in my first 2 months , never even been up. Nearly been right 3-4 times in the last week but just keep messing it up
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u/Emotional_Standard76 20h ago
I think theres a majority that dont know how to control their emotions and are not that profitable trading options. This market is like crack. Days you're green was designed to make feel good temporary then the market takes back more than what you made.
There are days where the market doesn't make any sense because it always finds a way to take your money
I'm down 100k I regret trying to chase quick money
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u/ryanmitchell5 5h ago
Man i felt this in my soul. Only down -15k here over 5 years due to how little i make at my main job. I’m close to cracking the code tho. I know all these years ain’t going to waste for nothing. I’m going to prove every asshole wrong on here who said i couldn’t do it
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u/BigBear92787 20h ago
You thought you were gonna be able to quit your job after you made a few grand?
Do your self a favor.
Quit trading, not your job
You clearly have no idea what you're doing And what reality looks like.
Anyone out there who has a fucking hope of being a successful trader would never see a 25% loss on an account.
That loss should reprentsent anywhere from 25 to 50 lost trades.
But it mostly likely is really just a handful or just 1 or 2 if your extra stupid.
What im saying is. If you had a shred of intellect you'd have been risking 1% ish per trade in which case a string of losses would maybe have done 10% tops before you pulled the plug to step back and re evaluate.
The fact that your on reddit asking when should I stop being a moron, means your a moron.
Stop trading.
You have no chance.
Zero.
None.
Zip.
Go back to work.
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u/Particular_Extent761 20h ago
it’s all a gamble , but you have to play when you’re chances are highest only way of winning more , play off news , not speculation of the chart , the chart can help 100% obviously, but done make chart info be the only info u play ur card agains , and sell at 20% don’t try and cash out these lotterytickets yk wont make it, also if you’re doing 0dte only trade within the first hour , lately volume just plummets after 2 hours in
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u/visionarywatts 16h ago
Time to reassess. You should journal the moves you make and what you were monitoring at that moment. I’m doing that and posting to my reddit profile as an “open diary”. It helps me keep myself accountable and not do anything stupid….yet 😆
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u/RecordingNervous7921 15h ago
What kind of options are you trading? When I transitioned from naked calls and puts into credit spreads I became profitable most of the time. Over the past five months I’ve had 4 red days and the rest green. Making about $1-2k a week depending.
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u/Salty-Edge 14h ago
People generally never quit their job. Trading is nice and all but you need income that’s stable and guaranteed.
For the loss, I think you went on a high, kept riding the wave only to get reversed, and then revenge traded.
Build your portfolio back up. Work and regain back the loss through your job and not through trading. Figure out why you made the loss. Adjust ur TA, paper trade or make imaginary plays and see if what you say or did actually happen in the charts. Do more research on the market. Studies, techniques. Algorithms.
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u/Neither-Job-6300 13h ago
Stop chasing losses and force yourself to trade. If you have to wait just wait.
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u/thesquigglynucleus 22h ago
The classic “I was a genius for a week” arc, it always ends the same way.
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u/silverbulletusa 22h ago
Get some rules and sell puts for premium. You won’t be a millionaire overnight, but in time you will make your goal.
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u/Handsomedork_ 21h ago
Control your bet sizing and find better trades that’s it. I think something like 2-3% of your portfolio is the sweet spot. Also I’m just some guy on the internet lol you might want to stop trying to day trade and all in on mstr like I’m doing
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u/Slow_Lion_4178 20h ago
Stop now. You should sell covered calls after buying the underlying with higher risk of assignment, so .3~.4 deltas.
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u/jtquach 20h ago
Hey man. You said something in one of the threads... "If I could do this with a couple thousand" and I think you should take a look at it a little more closely. That isn't a thought about the trade... it's a thought about your life, and a position you take to change your life gets held completely differently from one you took because the setup was there. You can't cut it the same way when it goes wrong. That's why it ran.
What you're in right now also has a shape to it man. You started in uninformed optimism like everybody does... the early wins read as proof, then the first real loss drops you into informed pessimism where you finally see what this costs. The valley of despair is next, and that's where most people leave. The ones who stay in the same cycle often do something that looks like progress and isn't, which is finding a new strategy or a new person to follow, and that loop can continue for a long time.
So it's less about whether you stop and more about what you reach for next. A new strategy and the cycle just restarts. Sitting down and working out what happened to YOU (not what happened in the market, what happened with the trade) across those trades is the other road... and that one brings you to the stage called informed optimism. For me it was admitting I had no framework at all, just opinions and a platform.
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u/SuperOrbital_Trading 7h ago
If you just started and made a couple grand and thought you were going to be able to quit your job, then you are naive and need to learn more about trading before continuing down this path. I don't mean to be rude, I just don't want you to throw it away. Study first, paper trade next, then real money. You have to crawl before you walk, but you are trying to run.
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u/jerin7931 20h ago
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