In 1999, I was day-trading extensively on the NASDAQ. The trading room was full of eccentrics (perhaps myself included), all with methods of trading in and out quickly with thousands.
Our "banks" were a minimum of $25,000 + 25K in margin, so a minimum of $50K a trade.
This one guy in his late 20's sat in front of his computer screens looking for a volatile stock, usually one being pushed on the televisions. When he found it, he had one dice and would roll it - Odds he bought the stock. Evens, he shorted. Simple.
Some days, I watched him rake in hundreds in minutes with a grand total of thousands at the end of the day.
When he was silent, I knew he had lost more than one play in a row. Every few minutes from his cubicle, you heard the sound of the dice rolling on his desk. If there was silence over the next few minutes, it meant the dice was now in his hand again ready to chase his losses.
Weeks and weeks of ups and downs always returning to his original investment.
It went stranger. I would hear him whispering under his breath "Odd...Odd...come on, odd" meaning he wanted to buy but the dice ultimately made the decision for him that he would follow even if his instincts from watching months and months of stock movements told him otherwise.
The people running the room were happy with the commissions and data usage charges so they let it keep going. I know it was just under six months, but he finally cracked under his relationship with his dice and called it a day after a net loss of around 10K.
Around three weeks after he left, I was sitting in the park across from the trading room having lunch and spied something in the dirt by the bench. There, pushed into the dirt by a heel, was his dice.
I dare not pick it up.
I will define "sheer lunacy"In 1999, I was day-trading extensively on the NASDAQ. The trading room was full of eccentrics (perhaps myself included), all with methods of trading in and out quickly with thousands. Our "banks" were a minimum of $25,000