What did you do with the 1st million you earned ?

JackRab · May 22, 2017

Picked up the bar tab for the company that evening... not much else really. Not much need for fancy stuff....

I think Baron's story will beat pretty much all others...

franT · May 22, 2017

I didn't even noticed.

Frederick Foresight · May 22, 2017

Baron said:
This is pretty interesting because I've never really told my story to anyone. But since it's been 20 years now, I might as well.

I messed around with trading while I had a full-time residential construction job back in 1995. After a few months of trading on the side, I started doing good at it, so I eventually quit my job and went all in. My living conditions at the time could best be described as a redneck fraternity because I lived in a single wide trailer with a bunch of roommates in North Carolina, just outside of Raleigh. There were 4 or 5 guys in that little shoebox at any given time, and we were all in our early to mid 20's.

I quickly learned that trading from your own home or office was very isolating and lonely. So to fix that problem, I taught myself a couple programming languages and set up a chat room on a new web site I created in the summer of 1997 as a way for myself to be able to communicate with other lonely souls who were trading every day like I was. I named it Elite Trader because that's exactly what every new trader dreams of becoming:

View attachment 173982

The concept of the internet was brand new back then, which means that free little services like chat rooms that we take for granted today were actually big deals back then. I remember had to pay $4,500 just for the chat room software. But I didn't care. I desperately wanted to reach out to others who were just as passionate about trading as I was.

Sometimes people wanted to call me on the phone and ask a question about the course or the chat room. One day the phone rang and I answered by saying "Elite Trader - This is Baron!" and after I hung it up, I looked across the room and couple of my roommates were laughing their asses off.

I said, "What's so funny?" and one of them looked at me and said, "You should have answered the phone by saying "Elite Trailer" instead! They must have said that same joke a thousand times after that whenever the phone rang.

Anyway, I traded for several years full time and certainly made enough to live better than most, but never enough to retire or anything like that. I eventually became a master at tape reading and Nasdaq Level II order flow trading along the way, so much so that I wrote the first course ever on trading profitably with Level II quotations, and it was called Advanced Day Trading.

I charged a $199 one-time fee for people to access the material online. The reason why I did it that way is because I was constantly updating the material as the regulations and order handling rules were changing. So with that setup, I could notify my customers when something significant had changed and they could log back in to check it out. So it was less like a static book, and more like an ongoing work in progress.

Between my trading profits and the book profits, I earned a million pretty quick. There's no need to ask me what the exact split was between the two, because I honestly don't remember. They were both in the six figures though. It was crazy because I had virtually no expenses as I was earning that money because of my living conditions. In fact, I was scared to spend any money because I thought I was just going to wake up one day to discover that the party had ended. It's a good thing though.... because that's exactly what happened.

It didn't take long of course for the word to get out about my course, and within a couple of years, books were starting to appear in Barnes & Noble that were pretty much clones of my course. The first book I can remember that came along was "Stock Trading Wizard" in 1999, which was written by Tony Oz, one of my members. Hey, at least he listed me in the Acknowledgments.

More and more clones came out that year at the normal book price of $29, so that pretty much killed the demand for my course.

But it didn't make any difference. By the time that everybody else jumped into the game, I had already made enough money to move on with my life and live wherever I wanted. So I got rid of all the roommates and gave the trailer to a local church in late 1999. Today that trailer is still being used to give missionaries from foreign countries a free place to stay while they are visiting their supporting church.

I took my money and moved from North Carolina to beautiful Orlando, Florida because it seemed like an up-and-coming area that would be a great place to start fresh, buy a real house, and raise a family.... and that's exactly what happened.

View attachment 173983

I eventually migrated out of trading full-time, not because I wanted to, but because ET ended up becoming so popular that there was just no way I could do both. Even though I never had a losing year trading, I decided that devoting myself to ET was my "highest and best calling" because it was a way that I could truly help people by bringing them together in a way that they wouldn't have otherwise.

Shortly thereafter, the site ended up getting some notable mentions in the media. My dad called me one day and said, "I'm not sure if you're aware of this or not, but your web site is being talked about on CNN right now."

And from that point on, more media coverage continued and it was blatantly obvious that my life was destined to go from "Elite Trailer" to Elite Trader after all. It's been a hell of a ride for 20 years now and although I've made plenty of mistakes along the journey, I wouldn't change a thing about it.
More...

That is an impressive story and must have been one heck of a ride.

birzos · May 22, 2017

Let's see

1st million bought loft apartment, accountant then lost it through his complete incompetence
2nd million partied around the world like a rockstar, Cannes, Las Vegas, Asia, Ibiza
3rd & 4th million was lost by the complete stupidity of family which I didn't see the funny side of
And now I've learnt my lesson so live inconspicuously and no one has a clue

The one thing about me that winds absolutely everyone up, I find it incredibly easy to make a lot of money with little effort, I'm not so good at making a little money with lots of effort, ie. the majority of the population. I once earned in one week what my wife earned in one year, fortunately being from an aristocratic and stupidly wealthy family she didn't care, so I took a few months off and enjoyed my spoils.

Scataphagos · May 22, 2017

Never had a thought about spending/blowing it... instead compounded it up to $10 Million.... then, beyond.

My story could be an inspiration to other traders. (Live below your means, save money to accumulate capital... learn to invest. K.I.S.S. Was proud of myself the when I first made $40K in a year. First time I made $1 Million in a year, I was giddy about it for 6 months. Parents didn't even believe me when I told them. A few years earlier, they'd denied my $10,000 loan request from them to make the down payment on a town home... concerned I wouldn't be able to pay them back. LOL!)

My 1st investment was $25/mo on a bank draft into Templeton Growth Fund. I was living in a 1-bedroom apartment and drove a VW Beetle at the time. I still remember signing the forms.

Unfortunately... $1,000,000 isn't even "real money" these days, sadly.

J.P. · May 22, 2017

Baron said:
Even though I never had a losing year trading, I decided that devoting myself to ET was my "highest and best calling" because it was a way that I could truly help people by bringing them together in a way that they wouldn't have otherwise.
More...

ET may well be your "highest and best calling." But never having had a losing year trading is something to which very few former traders in the world can attest. Very nice bio. Thanks for posting that.

Max E. · May 22, 2017

What did you do with the 1st million you earned ?

Bought alot of speculative real estate as it was right at the end of the housing crash, then thankfully paid off my house, so i will never have a house payment, then donated most of it back to the stock market, a crooked broker, and the government.

Hate to break it to you but a million bucks isnt alot of money it goes pretty quick, when it gets cut in half by taxes, but ill have to admit life has been pretty easy since then, its alot easier to trade when you arent struggling to make ends meet.

Max E. · May 22, 2017

Frederick Foresight said:
That is an impressive story and must have been one heck of a ride.
More...

Yeah interesting story indeed, i had never heard Baron's actual story, so didnt know if he was just a computer guy or if he actually went the trading route, also didnt realise how influential he was to the industry at the time.

volente_00 · May 22, 2017

Baron said:
This is pretty interesting because I've never really told my story to anyone. But since it's been 20 years now, I might as well.

I messed around with trading while I had a full-time residential construction job back in 1995. After a few months of trading on the side, I started doing good at it, so I eventually quit my job and went all in. My living conditions at the time could best be described as a redneck fraternity because I lived in a single wide trailer with a bunch of roommates in North Carolina, just outside of Raleigh. There were 4 or 5 guys in that little shoebox at any given time, and we were all in our early to mid 20's.

I quickly learned that trading from your own home or office was very isolating and lonely. So to fix that problem, I taught myself a couple programming languages and set up a chat room on a new web site I created in the summer of 1997 as a way for myself to be able to communicate with other lonely souls who were trading every day like I was. I named it Elite Trader because that's exactly what every new trader dreams of becoming:

View attachment 173982

The concept of the internet was brand new back then, which means that free little services like chat rooms that we take for granted today were actually big deals back then. I remember had to pay $4,500 just for the chat room software. But I didn't care. I desperately wanted to reach out to others who were just as passionate about trading as I was.

Sometimes people wanted to call me on the phone and ask a question about the course or the chat room. One day the phone rang and I answered by saying "Elite Trader - This is Baron!" and after I hung it up, I looked across the room and couple of my roommates were laughing their asses off.

I said, "What's so funny?" and one of them looked at me and said, "You should have answered the phone by saying "Elite Trailer" instead! They must have said that same joke a thousand times after that whenever the phone rang.

Anyway, I traded for several years full time and certainly made enough to live better than most, but never enough to retire or anything like that. I eventually became a master at tape reading and Nasdaq Level II order flow trading along the way, so much so that I wrote the first course ever on trading profitably with Level II quotations, and it was called Advanced Day Trading.

I charged a $199 one-time fee for people to access the material online. The reason why I did it that way is because I was constantly updating the material as the regulations and order handling rules were changing. So with that setup, I could notify my customers when something significant had changed and they could log back in to check it out. So it was less like a static book, and more like an ongoing work in progress.

Between my trading profits and the book profits, I earned a million pretty quick. There's no need to ask me what the exact split was between the two, because I honestly don't remember. They were both in the six figures though. It was crazy because I had virtually no expenses as I was earning that money because of my living conditions. In fact, I was scared to spend any money because I thought I was just going to wake up one day to discover that the party had ended. It's a good thing though.... because that's exactly what happened.

It didn't take long of course for the word to get out about my course, and within a couple of years, books were starting to appear in Barnes & Noble that were pretty much clones of my course. The first book I can remember that came along was "Stock Trading Wizard" in 1999, which was written by Tony Oz, one of my members. Hey, at least he listed me in the Acknowledgments.

More and more clones came out that year at the normal book price of $29, so that pretty much killed the demand for my course.

But it didn't make any difference. By the time that everybody else jumped into the game, I had already made enough money to move on with my life and live wherever I wanted. So I got rid of all the roommates and gave the trailer to a local church in late 1999. Today that trailer is still being used to give missionaries from foreign countries a free place to stay while they are visiting their supporting church.

I took my money and moved from North Carolina to beautiful Orlando, Florida because it seemed like an up-and-coming area that would be a great place to start fresh, buy a real house, and raise a family.... and that's exactly what happened.

View attachment 173983

I eventually migrated out of trading full-time, not because I wanted to, but because ET ended up becoming so popular that there was just no way I could do both. Even though I never had a losing year trading, I decided that devoting myself to ET was my "highest and best calling" because it was a way that I could truly help people by bringing them together in a way that they wouldn't have otherwise.

Shortly thereafter, the site ended up getting some notable mentions in the media. My dad called me one day and said, "I'm not sure if you're aware of this or not, but your web site is being talked about on CNN right now."

And from that point on, more media coverage continued and it was blatantly obvious that my life was destined to go from "Elite Trailer" to Elite Trader after all. It's been a hell of a ride for 20 years now and although I've made plenty of mistakes along the journey, I wouldn't change a thing about it.
More...

What years did you actively trade ?

Do you still trade any ?

RosyScenario · May 23, 2017

@Baron: This is all very impressive. I gather that you are fully a self-made man, started working right after high school and never went to college?