In response to our Big Story, The Great Indian Slaughterhouse, published in bl.portfolio edition dated September 29, 2024, we got many e-mails from our readers sharing their traumatic experiences related to F&O trading.
We had published one such reader’s experience a few weeks ago, with his full consent.
In today’s edition, we are sharing another story of how unrestricted F&O trading has caused havoc in a trader’s life.
However, the person’s name has been withheld and a few other details have been changed as per the person’s request to keep the identity confidential.
- Read Part 1: The diary of a F&O Trader
Here is the story in his/her own words:
“I am a professional based out of ******. I wanted to share my experience of how the F&O slaughterhouse has completely destroyed my entire wealth, and that of my family’s, including having stripped me out of properties.
There is a cycle to this process. As a professional, with almost 15 years of experience, I had been to various firms for work. However, I was unable to retain any of the jobs. This is one of the starting points to get into the F&O slaughterhouse — unemployability.
I had a net-worth of ₹2 crore built, over a decade, through hard work. My father had a net-worth of almost ₹50-60 lakh. Now, our entire net-worth is zero, thanks to my obsession with F&O trading. Up until November 2023, I was indulging in safe investments, shares and bonds, and things were seeming fine. After reading about F&O trading in a credible and widely-popular online resource, I came to realise that F&O trading could be used as a faster way to create wealth. In the first month, I made ₹50 lakh, and I got used to trading in large sums. The cycle began, and I started breaking my fixed deposits, corporate bonds, equities and any other form of investment, including my child’s life insurance policy to ensure there were funds available for trading, and that at no point of time, I was in a loss. Day after day, the exposure kept mounting, and before I knew it, I had blown almost my entire capital of ₹1.8 crorein a span of six months.
This is when I got into the personal loan bandwagon. I first borrowed around ₹25 lakh, which too I lost in F&O trading and the loan was repaid by my dad. I then mortgaged my car and dipped into my provident fund to generate money for trading.
Much obsessed
The obsession did not stop there! I raked up credit card bills by withdrawing lakhs of rupees a month, burnt them in the market, and withdrew more promptly for months on end. My inability to find employment made me desperate to continue in this line. Consequently, I kept adding lakhs of rupees with the hope that it would generate 5-10x returns. I am not a bad trader. But I am a greedy one with no discipline. Even if I did manage to make profits in the morning, I would end up being in a loss at the end of the day. With the fear that my properties would be mortgaged, I was stripped off my ownership rights. I even went to a gambling rehabilitation centre, only to come back and start trading all over again. On September 12, I had made over ₹1-crore notional profit in a single-day’s trade, but instead of booking profit and paying my debts, I ended up losing the entire amount to greed. The market takes back what it has given, when risk management is inadequate. I am a perfect example of that.
Currently, I am on the verge of divorce, having credit card bills mounting to lakhs, along with a massive amount of loans. I fear for my life and that of my family members, given the high-handed tactics that loan recovery agents adopt to get the loan amount back.
I wish that my real life story is told to the public so that people can learn what terrible consequences uncontrolled trading in F&O and desperation to recover losses can lead to.”