{"id":15514,"date":"2019-12-16T07:30:10","date_gmt":"2019-12-16T12:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jeffclarktrader.com\/?p=15514"},"modified":"2019-12-16T07:30:10","modified_gmt":"2019-12-16T12:30:10","slug":"how-i-retired-25-years-early","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/how-i-retired-25-years-early\/","title":{"rendered":"How I Retired 25 Years Early"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mike’s note:<\/strong> Mike Merson here, Jeff’s longtime managing editor. Jeff had some unplanned travel come up this weekend, and was unable to pen his regular Market Minute. <\/p>\n

So we decided to share this classic piece on the secret to Jeff’s success…<\/p>\n

You’ll get a better look at how Jeff’s trading career started… and see the expensive lesson that set him on the path to sustainably profitable option trading.<\/p>\n

\n

I was only 19 years old when I made my first options trade.<\/p>\n

I had a gut feeling the market was going to go higher… so I bought four S&P 100 call options at $1.50 – a total investment of $600. A few hours later, the options were trading at $4.50. I sold and took the $1,200 profit – a 200% gain.<\/p>\n

And I was hooked on options forever.<\/p>\n

My next trade was in IBM. I bought 10 calls for $1. This time, it took a couple days to double my money. Next, I bought Digital Equipment put options… which nearly tripled in just a few days.<\/p>\n

I made 17 trades during my first six weeks as a trader. Every single one was a winner.<\/p>\n

Going 17 for 17 was a remarkable feat for a rookie trader – especially since I wasn’t using any sort of fundamental or technical analysis. I was just going with my gut. But I was careful not to put more than $1,000 or $2,000 into any single trade.<\/p>\n

And I still managed to turn my $5,000 brokerage account into $50,000 in just six weeks…<\/p>\n

And then I decided it was time to get serious. No more tiny trades. I was too good for the small stuff. For whatever reason, I had figured out a way to beat the market. Heck, I had just rattled off 17 straight triple-digit winners.<\/p>\n

So I decided to take the $50,000 in my account, add to it my $25,000 in savings, and put it into a handful of options trades.<\/p>\n

You can probably guess what happened next.<\/p>\n

The stock market has a habit of humbling folks who think they’ve figured it out. For me, the humbling started right away.<\/p>\n

At first, the positions started slightly moving against me. It was nothing to be concerned about. One good day would put everything back in the profit column.<\/p>\n

But then, one by one, each position blew up on me. It was too painful to watch. I kept the television off and avoided reading the newspaper for fear I’d see something bad about the stock market and my positions.<\/p>\n

When I finally got up enough courage to call the branch manager and check on the status of my account, I learned all the gains I had built up over the previous six weeks were gone.<\/p>\n

“Just sell everything,” I said.<\/p>\n

That was an expensive lesson to learn. But it’s one every options trader learns at some point. I was just fortunate it happened to me early in my career.<\/p>\n

You see, that experience changed how I looked at trading. Instead of using options as vehicles for speculation – a way to juice my returns and get more bang for my buck – I started using them the way they were intended to be used: as a way to reduce risk.<\/p>\n

Today, I still do my fair share of speculating. But I’m not focused on how much money I can make. I’m focused on how little I can lose.<\/p>\n

That’s a huge difference. It has allowed me to trade options successfully for nearly three decades. And it allowed me to retire at 42.<\/p>\n

Best regards and good trading,<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Jeff Clark<\/p>\n

Reader Mailbag<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Today a Breakout Alert<\/em> subscriber shares her gains with one of Jeff’s recommendations…<\/p>\n

\n

I am presently up over $5000 on one of your Breakout Alert<\/em> trades!<\/p>\n

I am so very thankful to have found someone who is not just so very knowledgeable about all of this, but willing to share it with the average person.<\/p>\n

For the first time, after years of dabbling in the market, I feel like I have a true coach who is looking out for me.
\nI look forward to partnering with you for a very long time. Merry Christmas.<\/p>\n

– Jani<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Thank you, as always, for your thoughtful comments. We look forward to reading them every day. Keep them coming at feedback@jeffclarktrader.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was only 19 years old when I made my first options trade…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"service":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"publication":[10],"person":[7],"newsletter-type":[],"ticker":[],"class_list":["post-15514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-minute","publication-market-minute","person-jeff-clark"],"acf":[],"ai_tts_audio_outdated":false,"ai_tts_legacy_post":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15514\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15514"},{"taxonomy":"publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publication?post=15514"},{"taxonomy":"person","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/person?post=15514"},{"taxonomy":"newsletter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newsletter-type?post=15514"},{"taxonomy":"ticker","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ticker?post=15514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}