Making losing trades is part of the game. The key is to make the losses smaller than the wins, in aggregate.

So share, what's your single biggest trading loss to date?

The biggest loss in a single trade I can recall is in ORCL back in 2000, when I held into earnings release - it promptly gapped down and didn't come back for months... I sold it at a loss of somewhere near $1300. So I've never EVER held a swing trade into earnings again. I believe it was something like, I held at $31 a share and it opened at $22 the next day, or something like that.

Sometimes you've got to learn the hard way. The key is just learning it ONCE, and avoiding the mistake again. How about you? And how did you feel about it? I was frustrated because it was beyond my control, the reaction to earnings etc... back in the early years.

Here's a link to the 10-yr ORCL chart, the bad trade I made was that blip back in early '00... :
http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/qui...freq=2&time=13

Ken

I just learned the hard way myself recently with the purchase of BCSI. I bought it a couple of days prior to earnings and even thou they had a good report and the stock was up in pre-market, it shot down 3 points at open. Fortunately, I still made a profit, but hopefully I want make that "Greedy" mistake again, especially in a down market.

David