Investing at 17 is Paradise

As soon as I wake up every morning the first thing I ask myself is “red or green?”. I decide today is a green day. I run by Starbucks for a coffee and drag myself to my 9 am lecture. I’m an academic weapon, so I always take notes. For the first 28 minutes at least. At 9:29, I load up my brokerage account and pull up the SPX options chain.

“I like the 3600’s, that’s a nice round number” I think to myself. I check my buying power, it’s up to $1200. I spend it all on 2 contracts, sit back and wait. I spend the rest of the class staring at the chart, trying to figure out when I should pull trigger and sell… I’m up 20% after all.

I pack up my stuff and head off to my next class. 15 minutes later, I slide into my seat and check my phone. Down 10% now. “No big deal” I exclaim. I was just up twice that amount a few minutes ago.

I start talking to the boys about the game from this weekend, watching myself flirt the line between red and green. We grab some lunch after class, and then I head to the library to get some work done.

Shit. I forgot about my calls. I frantically open up Robinhood and see that I’m down 35% now. Theta is a b***h. We’ve chopped all day, the S&P is barely down from open. I decided to keep an eye on it while I start my homework.

I look up and I’m greeted with the biggest, fattest, juiciest red candle I’ve ever seen. It’s 2 pm. I forgot about meeting minutes. I watch in horror, nothing but sell orders coming in. 3950. 3875. 3700.

I slam my laptop closed, absolutely sickened. I blew another account. “Oh well” I say. I just smile and think to myself how if anything, I’m just helping out my future MD with a charitable donation to his bonus check. One day, I’ll be able to laugh about this with him over drinks. For now, I’ll just fund my account with another $1,000 from my Dad’s credit card. Life is good.