The Friday Fiasco

It will take me quite some time to forget June 5. It doesn't come to me as a surprise that it was a Friday. It had to be a Friday. Losing days more often than not happen to be Fridays. Illogical yet true.

The day started with open positions left on the previous night. It was already showing a pretty large number in red. But then, what the heck. 23 out of last 25 trading days had ended with gross profit. I would manage to turn things around, I thought. A decent run of profitable days does fill one with naive confidence which, of course, can backfire.

The non-farm payroll data which hadn't caused much turbulence in the market during last few months was due in the evening. It came, it saw, it conquered. Pure and simple. Whatever gains I had mustered during the last month was wiped out in a matter of minutes. Prashant, my manager, had told quite a few times that market can be a monster. I was aware of that but I guess I had to experience it for myself in order to know and understand what that monster is capable of. Despite the huge loss that I made, I took it unusually well. Though I wasn't too flustered, I knew that I could have avoided a large chunk of that loss.

Most if not all the guys in my pit had made losses in those few insane minutes. After dinner, Prashant took us out for coffee. Quite amazingly, the guys didn't look gloomy at all. Prashant quipped that the money management session that we recently had didn't come our minds ( and rescue) while piling the loss. Trading, as they say, can be learnt only by trading. The work teaches how to do it.

We laughed at each others' losses and mistakes, came back to office, watched Netherlands win a nail-biter against England and left for our respective homes. It was an amazing day for sure. Invaluable lessons were learnt. And how.