i figured it'd be good to have one of these threads so we can learn from other people's mistakes. It can either be from trades you made personally or someone else's trades. I'll start with this one:

https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetb...y_margin_call/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ed-huge-losses

Can someone explain this one a bit more to a noob. I assume he had to be buying with margin. At some point he got margin called by the broker who sold all his contracts at a huge negative price? If had just bought them in a cash account he could have just held them and sold them once positive again no?

Edited to add: I assume they expired EOD?

Dndn. Feels like forever ago.

One full dose of their treatment was over $90,000.

3 things i remember:

1. one older seeking alpha guy posting pro dndn articles for years, then tripled down as the ship sank. He mysteriously disappeared from the platform one day near bankruptcy.

2. I asked a family member, who is a multi-decade board member on a leading cancer association, what she thought about that dose price. Her absolute clarity about the company’s inevitable failure was a great lesson. Personal experience in an investment space is soooo valuable (and also comes with bias too.)

3. It was my first introduction to Valeant, lol. I should have known what was coming just from the deneron acquisition.


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Bought MSFT when it went public. Sold before 87 crash. Never bought it back after the 87 crash even though I went long 2 weeks after the 87 crash. Still hurts .

1. The guy didn't know what he is trading.
2. Normal option contract become worthless when reach 0.
3. Oil option contract can go to Negatives number.
4. Oil option contract mean you have to take delivery if you hold the contract
When it expire or paid a fines.
5. IB are stupid because their software did allow to show negatives number.

If you hold oil option contract when it expire you will have to drive to Cushing OK to take delivery
And find storage space for it. If you don't they will find you.

Guess how many day trader or retail investor got hit with that.

The same software snafu also hit Chinese Retail Investor too.