“Anything can happen.” – Mark Douglas

Trading is easy—or perhaps not so easy. Last week reminded us all of that. As one of our very special friends, a brilliant engineer and trader, commented “a wonder kid with no experience that made like 30x his return in AI stocks. But the correction made him to get a margin call.”

The trading world watched the remarkable rise and sudden drawdown of Leopold Aschenbrenner. At only 24 years old, he managed approximately US$45 billion before the fund last week faced severe losses and Citadel acquired its assets to meet margin obligations. He is now said to manage “only” around US$10 billion.

The timing is unfortunate, as his wedding to another remarkable young Silicon Valley mind, Avital Balwit, is taking place this weekend. I have enjoyed reading Avital’s posts on X, on searching for God in Silicon Valley and on the art and sef discovery , and I sincerely wish them both every success.

Watching these events, however, raises the same question I have asked for years. Today, the industry offers numerous proprietary trading firms that allow talented traders to manage significant capital without assuming such enormous exposure. Why pursue ever greater leverage and size?

I find it difficult to believe that greed alone explains it. Trading has a remarkable way of exposing our emotions. Greed and fear are eventually burned out by the market itself. If they are not, consistent profits rarely follow.

I continue to see retail traders as one of the fastest-growing forces for positive change in society. They represent a future in which money becomes a tool rather than a master; a world where fewer people are trapped by financial insecurity, forced into work they dislike simply to pay the bills, or prevented from discovering their true talents and creativity.

Trading also teaches humility. Even something as ordinary as a bout of flu can affect judgement and lead to costly mistakes. I certainly do not wish to excuse my own lack of profitability while living under the pressures created by UBS since 2013 or more acuratly since 2009. Nevertheless, if you look at everything that happened during the last week, you may or more accurately agree that I had “a little” stress to deal with.

For a better world to come, I hope more people learn to trade—not as a gamble, but as a profession, a discipline, and a path to financial independence. While remebering:

“The market is an expensive place to find out what you don’t know.” – Adam Smith

I wrote more about this in last week’s Women and Finance in this article.

Please share this article, our petition – it really helps.

May your trading always be disciplined, your risks measured, and your confidence earned through knowledge.

Irina