Take a moment to ponder the life of a typical teenager. Not the big things such as SAT scores or choosing a college, or even who to take to the prom. Instead, think about the daily routine going to school, doing homework, chasing the opposite sex, talking on the phone, or the time-honored tradition of trying to convince your parents to let you borrow the car. For decades thats been the bread-and-butter of a high school senior. Unless your name is Mark Oryhon.

At age 17, while his classmates were busy playing video games, Oryhon was spending four hours a night studying stock and futures charts. Instead of asking for money to spend on a car, he was convincing his mother to open a brokerage account for him to trade options one of his mothers friends a trader at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Oryhon switched to trading futures.

As geeky as an obsession with the markets at age 17 might be, Oryhons dedication has paid off well. Today, Oryhon is not just a successful trader, hes one of the largest individual traders in the DAX (German stock index) futures.