Juggling a big family, a career, and an active pastoring role, Ashley had a very busy life when he found Stock Navigators. But that didn’t stop him from carving out time to learn a crucial skill that would ultimately help him prepare for retirement (something that seemed like merely a dream before).

Taking the Expert Trader course was a game-changer for Ashley after experiencing some major losses and almost giving up on “professional” guidance. The proven strategies he learned from Tom and the team helped him get back everything he lost and now earns a regular income! Retirement isn’t so far away anymore. In fact, it may be within reach for Ashley very soon.

Learn more about Ashley’s full journey below!

Ashley’s Story

With five kids to raise and full-time jobs, Ashley and his wife had their hands full! When we met him, his youngest was in kindergarten and his oldest was a junior in high school. In addition to supporting his family, Ashley served as a pastor on the weekends at his local church. Needless to say, this man was busy.

But even after putting 20 years into a career as a project manager and functional technical lead, the thought of retirement wasn’t an option for Ashley. He knew that if he didn’t want to work for the rest of his life, it was time to figure out how to bring in more income and prepare for retirement. But not only that. As an active person, Ashley wanted to find something fun he could work on when he retires that wouldn’t require 40+ hours a week from him.

“I’m active and I want to be doing something in retirement maybe 10-12 years down the road.”

Ashley decided trading was the route he wanted to pursue. But up until then his only experience in trading was losing. Since he didn’t know much about it, he had sought help from so-called “professionals.” They recommended a basic “buy and hold” technique that ultimately resulted in a massive loss for Ashley. 

What started as a $50,000 investment ended up dropping to around $20,000. The “professionals” lost Ashley $30,000, which was over half of his capital. Experiencing such a huge loss left Ashley frustrated to say the least.

“I said enough is enough, I’ll take full control of my investment if I have to.”

He thought there had to be a better trading strategy than “buy and hold” and he was determined to figure it out himself. After dabbling on Robinhood and seeking out trading lessons on YouTube, he saw an ad from Tim that led him to Stock Navigators. Once he heard Tom’s genuine story and how he had been able to overcome similar significant losses, Ashley was intrigued and signed up for Expert Trader.

Like many of our students, Ashley was a complete beginner and had no experience with technical analysis before he started the course in January 2021. It took him 2 months to complete the course between juggling family, work, and church, but he was committed to learning.

“It took me about 2 months to actually go through the full class. But even after the full 2 months I hesitated because I was like wait a minute, I’m not comfortable with everything. So I attended almost every Q & A.”

He started slowly with simulated trades for about a month and a half, revisiting the course materials for refreshers, and getting clarity through the weekly Q & A calls with Tom to better understand challenging concepts. Once Ashley saw consistent success on the simulations, he knew it was time to go live.

And his hard work and practice paid off big time! Ashley applied the strategies he learned from the course to his live trades and started earning profits consistently. In our follow up interview a few months later, Ashley reported that he usually sees great daily earnings.

“I’ve been really hitting. I would say almost every day [I make] anything over $5,000 in profit. There are days where I can get $7,000 or $8,000. But today was a very difficult day and, as difficult as it was, I still got $2,500.”

Even on his “difficult” days, he still typically ends up profiting!

How Stock Navigators Changed Ashley’s Life

After bringing in trading gains consistently for a few months, Ashley is on track to replace his full-time income. We asked him if he was planning to leave his job at some point and just trade for income instead. 

He was excited to share that when he first began trading profitably, he thought maybe in 2-3 years he could leave his job. But now that Ashley is averaging about $5K a day, he said that timeframe may shrink to a year or less!

“It’s really incredible. I’m seeing light at the end of the tunnel. I’m seeing a strategy in a plan down the road for how I would like to trade myself out of doing what I’m doing into trading.”

He reached this point about 6 months after starting the course, practicing on simulated trades for about 3 and a half months, and then beginning to make live trades on a daily basis. So in just half a year, the entire trajectory of his life has shifted in a very positive way, which goes to show how much dedicating time to learning can truly pay off in the end.

With all his new trading gains stacking up, we asked if Ashley had any exciting plans to do with his profits. He was very excited to share that his large family can finally afford to expand their home with a huge home improvement project!

“Actually for next year the plan is to add a second floor to my house!”

We are thrilled to see trading open doors for our students that were not possible before. Beyond simply saving for retirement, the income that students like Ashley are able to generate after taking our course allows them to invest in fun personal projects, from home renovations to finally taking those dream vacations.

Ashley told us he’s really looking forward to transitioning out of the 9-to-5 grind. (Something he probably wouldn’t have believed if you told him a year ago where he’d be today!) Now, Ashley is really glad that soon he’ll be around a lot more for his wife and kids.

“This will allow me to spend more time with my family, which is good!”

For those of you who are interested in taking a page out of Ashley’s book, read on to hear his advice for new traders.

Ashley’s Advice To Others

Ashley had a lot to share with anyone who may be considering joining the Expert Trader program to help them get the most out of their experience.

First, he advised new students to take baby steps and not to rush into live trades ASAP. Every new trader will go through the initial struggle of comprehending and applying the learning material, but don’t give up! Push forward, revisit the course modules you didn’t fully grasp, and ask the head traders to explain confusing concepts. Ashley told us the weekly Q & A sessions were crucial to his education.

“I learned more by listening… a lot of the members were asking the exact same questions that I had.”

Next, he cautioned not to overtrade. Many new traders are overly eager to jump in and start earning profits right away. But in order to be successful, you have to wait for the perfect set up. It’s not worth risking losses on imperfect setups and the market will always be there. 

Simply listen, study the charts, and don’t make a move until you’re certain that conditions are ideal for a profitable trade. And if you don’t see exactly what you’re looking for, the best thing you can do is nothing! Simply check again tomorrow.

“I’ve adopted this methodology: when the market is really bad, I don’t force anything! I will sit out if I have to.”

Alternatively, when market conditions are good Ashley advised to let the charts do the talking and execute trades based on what you see. Once you establish a target — as long as it’s based on the strategies and indicators you learned in the course — wait until you hit it before taking your profits. It’s easy to want to get out once you have a good looking profit, but trust your education to get the most out of your trades.

Finally, Ashley wanted to emphasize how pivotal the community was in helping him get to where he is now. He said everyone is there to help each other out, no one is selfish, and if you need help, you will get it.

“I have to say, the community as a whole really contributes to to full experience”

Having a hub where traders can share information has been hugely helpful to Ashley, and many of our other traders’ experiences. He said that certain members will contribute tremendously to the community by offering crucial tips, highlighting opportunities, and showing everyone how to approach trades.

Plus to anyone who needs advice or has a question, everyone in the community is very willing to help out. This is a rare, one-of-a-kind community where people are dedicated to giving back to each other which makes it really strong.

Overall, he has nothing but high praise for our trading program and to anyone considering joining he said:

“It’s well worth it! Trust me it’s well worth it. I was able to pay off the whole thing with my profits and beyond. So it pays for itself as long as you follow through and don’t give up!”

To hear Ashley’s full story, check out the video above. And check out other Student Success stories like these below: