Chapter 16 – The Prodigy Trader
Jake didn't leave the house for three days.
He barely spoke, barely moved from his desk—except to eat, sleep (barely), and stretch just enough to keep the blood flowing. From the moment the broadband was installed, he had transformed the living room corner into a full-fledged trading station. Charts, spreadsheets, and earnings reports dominated the dual-monitor setup. Sticky notes lined the desk like battle plans.
Judith watched from a distance, increasingly baffled. She expected Jake to be smart. But this? This was obsession. Precision. Genius in real-time.
He started with modest moves—an aggressive swing into a rebounding semiconductor stock, a perfectly timed buy on Apple after a market dip. Each trade was like a scalpel cut: exact, clean, and profitable. Within two days, Jake had turned $10,000 into $13,200.
By the third day, he was moving faster. More confident.
Options trading. Riskier tech plays. Shorting volatile biotech after earnings leaks. He wasn't gambling—he was reading the market like a book he'd already memorized.
And the weird part? He wasn't wrong.
Not once.
Judith finally confronted him on the third night.
"You haven't left that chair all day."
"I made thirty-eight trades today," Jake said without looking away from the screen. "I was right on thirty-six."
Judith blinked. "Is that... good?"
Jake glanced at her, deadpan. "That's impossible."
Judith sat down across from him. "And yet, here you are."
Jake finally leaned back, rubbing his eyes for the first time in hours. "Mom, this isn't just about money. It's about leverage. Capital gives me time. Freedom. Control. If I keep this up, I'll have enough to invest in something bigger—maybe even start my own company."
Judith ran a hand through her hair. "I just don't want you burning out before you even start college."
"I'm not burning out. I'm just getting started."
She sighed, standing up and placing a hand on his shoulder. "Fine. But promise me you'll take breaks. Go outside. Be a kid for, like, ten minutes a day."
Jake gave her a tired smile. "Deal."
Then he turned back to his screen.
The market opened in five hours.
And Jake Harper—the ten-year-old genius—was already five moves ahead of it