On Sunday, July 12, 2015, 21-year old Elijah Oyefeso had a bad morning.
Somehow, he managed to crash his blue Bentley Continental into his metallic gold Lamborghini Gallardo.
Before:
After:
But for Oyefeso, the crash was of no consequence. "Life goes on," he said, laughing off the accident.
Why was a wreck involving nearly a half million in luxury cars no big deal for Oyefeso, you ask? Because this college dropout makes between £70,000 £80,000 on a "good month" trading stocks just one hour a day - or so he claims. According to the Daily Mail [8], Oyefeso "started by using his student loan" which he apparently pyramided into a small fortune. His Instagram profile [9] reads: "MY NAME IS ELIJAH, & BEFORE I TURNED 20 I BOUGHT A LAMBO/BENTLEY WHICH REALLY PISSED ME OFF CUS I WAS TOO BROKE TO BUY A JET," a riff on a now famous line from the big screen adaptation of Jordan Belfort's story.
In addition to luxury cars, Oyefeso has a thing for fine watches and flashing his wealth on social media. Have a look, for instance, at the following image which depicts a Rolex, some money, and, somewhat inexplicably, a Wing Stop to-go cup:
With a bit of hard work and dedication, you too can have a $20,000 watch, a roll of 20s, and carryout from Wing Stop: "If you work hard you don't need to look at the price tag, you just get it," Oyefeso boasts. Here's more:
Elijah went to the University of Buckingham to study business management but put his student loan to good use.
He said: 'I used my student loan during university and I thought "I could actually do this".
Elijah dropped out of university and started investing in the stock market with the cash sum. Within nine months, he claimed he was making tens of thousands of pounds.
He claims his income on a 'bad month' will be between £20,000 and £30,000, while it can be over £40,000 more on a good month.
Elijah, who featured in Channel 4's Rich Kids Go Shopping on Channel 4, was filmed as he traded online, making £1,000 in just 15 minutes.
'I've been trading for three years, I know when to stop,' he said.
The most he's lost in one go is nearly £10,000. 'When you lose it, you get back up. If you lose 12 times, you get back up 12 times.
'You want to leave a name when you're gone. Think about JP Morgan, the assets are worth 2.6 trillion. So that's a lot.'
Elijah, who listens to classical music while trading, said: 'There's a saying, you are who you chill with. I chill with people who have half a million in the bank.
'Earning £20 to £30,000 a month, in my world that's not good. It motivates you to do more.'
Elijah also has a collection of expensive watches, ranging from a Rolex to a Cartier watch costing £21,000 which he has only worn a couple of times.
But he loves his watch collection, he said: 'You've got to treat them like princesses.'
He's even given them names, calling one watch Michelle and another Aaliyah after the singer.
There you have it. The American dream, only across the pond in the UK. Take out a student loan, invest in stocks, and ride the central bank put on your way to social media fame and fortune. But trading isn't Oyefeso's only source of income. As the Mail goes on to document, "he set up DCT Training Group to help others to get into trading, but after a free trial of five days he charges £107 a month for his expertise."
Catch us on @Channel4 [10] Right Now!!!! #DCT [11] ???????? pic.twitter.com/TYSmtbugJ2 [12]
— DCT Trading Group (@DCTTradingGroup) January 4, 2016 [13]
Every new member gets a big shout out on Oyefeso's Twitter account [14]. Here's a representative tweet:
Big welcome to @chrish9070 [15] who has just joined the trading team #DCT [11] ????
— Elijah Oyefeso (@itsoezz) January 5, 2016 [16]
What does DCT do you ask? Well, let's ask them. Here's a bit of info from the official webpage [17]:
The benefits of options trading include low capital investment to get started and no leverage on your investment. Meaning if you invested £10 on a trade you could only lose £10 and your balance could never end up in the negative. It allows high rewards with fast returns. We don’t have to sit around waiting for weeks to see a return on our investment as returns can be made in a matter of minutes. Everything is a controlled risk as you set the investment amount and duration.
We provide real time signals to new traders who do not necessarily hold the experience or skills to analyse markets for themselves or use technical indicators to predict the movement direction on an asset. These signals are sent out to notify them on when we spot a potentially profitable trade. Signals are calculated indications produced from our own technical analysis of the current markets and will guide you on the start time of the trade, expiry time, and the execution range.
- We send around 10 signals throughout the day. Return rates are usually around 70 – 85% profit back on successful trades. We advise spreading your investment by putting a small % of your balance on each trade.
- Trading signals simplify everything for you and enables you to place educated trades within a few minutes. You simply set the trade and wait for the expiry time. Hassle free and no waiting around or having to keep an eye on the markets.
- We average around 7/8 successful trades out of 10 on a consistent basis.
Basically, for £107 a month, Oyefeso will send you 10 options tips per day out of which "7-8" will be "successful."
As anyone who's ever traded options knows, that's a virtual impossibilty. The idea that DTC bats .800 on 10 options trade ideas each and every trading day is borderline absurd and it's also worth noting that Oyefeso isn't exactly being transparent when he tells clients "your balance could never end up in the negative." An amateur could, for instance, forget to close an in-the-money position at expiry and get assigned. That wouldn't put someone "in the negative" per se (you'd be "in the positive" by definition), but coming up with the cash to buy 100 share lots of expensive stocks might not be what some of Oyefeso's clients bargained for. Also, successfully trading options requires the careful and vigilant management of volatile positions. It's not exactly a job that lends itself to working "one hour" per day.
In addition to equity options, Oyefeso is apparently an expert in commodities and FX. "We produce signals for all major markets (commodities, indices, stocks and forex) the right asset, predetermined time period and direction for a profitable trade," DCT's web site says. We assume he's 70-80% accurate on those calls as well.
We imagine there are plenty of "traders" out there who would enjoy living a lifestyle of Cartiers, Bentleys, and Wing Stop, especially if all you have to do is follow Oyefeso's "alerts". The question is how he and the legions of CB put-surfing, 17-year old hedge fund managers will fare on days like August 24, when everything falls apart in a harrowing bout of flash crashing madness during which not even the "all weather" Ray Dalios of the world manage to make money. Actually that's not the question. The question is whether Oyefeso is for real, or whether sometime in the not-so-distant future, we'll discover that the old adage "if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is," applies to 21-year old college dropouts driving golden Lamborghinis...
