Three and a half years ago, my favorite uncle died after a short battle with cancer. Up until the moment he died, none of us even knew he was sick. Uncle Richard was a secretive man who lived a secretive life. He didn’t like to discuss his personal matters. We saw him once or twice per year, at family gatherings, where he usually stood alone in a corner, slowly drinking his brandy and seven-up.

I was one of the few people who took the time to go talk to him. Truth be told, I rather enjoyed his presence. He was a tenacious listener and he had the gift of always making you feel appreciated. After his wife died in her late 40s, I think he had some kind of breakdown, from which he never recovered. I know that he truly loved her and the rest of his life was spent living alone in something he sometimes described to me as an "unending fog." Our family invited him because, well, he was part of the family, and also because he was generous with his bottles of homemade wine, perhaps his only passion in life, or at least the only one that we knew of.

The day he passed away, I learned he was bequeathing me over 2.5 million dollars.

My uncle had never really had a career or a profession of any kind. He stuck to the usual odd jobs, being a trucker here, working in security there, even teaching at some point, but he would usually never last long. When he died, everyone was shocked at the fortune he had managed to amass. But my uncle was an ascetic and austere man: he lived in the same, tiny house he had built by himself for $10,000 decades ago, drove a car that was older than me and wore the same clothes quite possibly since his high school times, year after year. He preferred to repair rather than rebuy and still had that giant, clumsy television from the 80s instead of that shiny new LCD. All in all, it’s crazy to think what an average man, living an average life, can accumulate over 45 years of his life if he puts his will to the task.

He had no one to give his money to, I guess. No children, no wife and no friends that we knew of. I remember I was driving back from some boring class at some boring community college when I got the call. I was so “estomaqué” (stomached?) I had to pull over on the highway, first of all because I had no idea he had passed away or that he was even sick, second to ask the notary to repeat the amount he was reading to me. Up to that point, I myself had been drifting from a place to another, not unlike him, from a formation in accounting that led me nowhere to some useless telemarketer job. The call, from his will executor, changed my life completely.

With his legacy came one small letter, visibly scribbled quickly days before his death, if that, on a single sheet of paper (loose translation):

“Frank,

As a kid, I was told that life was a game. Now that I’m all grown up, I can tell you that life is indeed a game; just not a very fun one.

R.”

And that was it. A few months later, one or two court fights later (some family members tried to contest the will, of course) and I was a rich man, my life forever changed. My first reaction was to want to place half in an index fund and now that I look at it today, I can’t tell you how badly I wish I had done that. But I didn’t and one of the biggest bad streak of my life would soon begin.

I wanted to trade. I had always wanted to trade and the world of daytrading seemed like a utopia to me. At first, I had success. People might remember my big Apple bet a few years ago where I essentially made $30,000 in under a week. Looking back at it today, much later, I regret winning that trade. Perhaps if I had lost everything on that trade, it would have disgusted me from trading forever and I would still have much of that $2.5M today. But I won, and I won for a good while, and it kept me going.

Then, I began to lose.

I lost $500,000 due to the oil crash in late 2014. I had a ton of Canadian stock (the TSX went down something like 30% at some point) and many, many oil stocks. I made it all back in early 2015, then lost it all again in the first six months of the year, plus another $500,000 for the rest of the year. I was panicking, hardcore, as a million dollars is no small amount to lose, Canadian or American.

I lost $100,000 in one night to Brexit. Another $50,000 betting on Hillary. The summer of 2016 specifically was particularly cruel to me. People who were there will remember that I lost pretty much every single time. I was tilting, because I knew I was making the right trades, yet losing time after time after time. But I knew I had done it before and I knew, or at least thought, that I could do it again.

I lost on several failed investments, from a stupid fast-food restaurant I wanted to start (which I won’t name) to an apartment building where I lost my shirt. I also lost a fortune at the casino, mostly on blackjack (man, the swings I got) and certainly poker. At my worst, I lost $30,000 in a week playing $5/$10 poker. I got absolutely horrific hands and I got so many bad beats I stopped counting them. Yeah.

So to make a short story, this brings us to today. From the original amount, I have $325,000 Canadian left. I have a $100,000 personal loan at 8% (yeah), a $51,000 credit card debt accruing at 19% per year and various debts ranging from 6 to 10%. Oh man I feel so dumb – I could have paid the car I am driving in cash, but somehow I ended up getting financing because… Because.

If I liquidated all my positions and stopped trading today, yes, I could probably repay my debts. And then what? I would have almost nothing left, nothing at all. My $2.5M would be gone forever and perhaps most of my mental sanity along with it. What’s the point? Truth be told, at this point, I have really nothing to lose. Worst case scenario, this yolo fails and I go bankrupt. If I'm going out, well, I'm going out big. I'd rather take my chance to get my money back.

This is perhaps my last chance in life to “hit it big,” aka be someone. I won’t get another chance like this. Look, I’ll be blunt: I want my two point five million back. It’s mine and I want it back, period. Unless you’ve hit it big and lost it all, you don’t know how incredibly painful it is to look at $325,000 and think, “Yeah, this used to be 7 times higher.”

And here comes the Yolo.

I began my career with Apple, I’m ending it with Apple. No matter what happens, this is going to be my final Yolo. I’m sorry, I wish I could continue, but I’m tired of trading. It's morally and emotionally exhausted and over the last two years, it's really taken a huge toll of my health, both mental and physical. Some of you might have noticed the (subtle) changes in my personality and demeanors. It is time for me to stop making a fool out of myself and stop suffering. I am tired of perpetually losing money. That Google trade was the last straw. Even though I called the earnings perfectly, I still somehow lost money. The stock market is rigged and I am done with it.

People who know me well know that I am an Apple expert. Without a doubt, Apple is my specialty. I called the exact iPhones sales, revenues and estimates pretty much every quarter, and I can tell you Apple is about to get a massive miss. Notice how there is no real “hype” around those earnings? That’s because for the first time in, like, forever, Apple has failed majorly. They don’t want to foam around it because they know very well it’s going to be catastrophic.

iPhone sales will be down 10-15% - and that will be the good part of their earnings report. iPads are basically dead. The iPad pro is nothing more than a joke. It probably sold less than the Pixel. Okay, not that bad, but trust me, iPad sales have been terrible for a while and this time, they’ll be so bad Apple might actually throw in the towel. Truth be told, Apple is 2+ years late and 5+ years late in some sectors when compared to the industry.

And apart from iPhone and iPads, What else does Apple has at this point? Mac sales are down, the iPod is dead, the Apple Watch… let’s not even mention the Apple Watch lol. What else does Apple have? iTunes revenues? That’s like a billion dollars, who cares.

Look at recent tech earnings: Google, WDC, QCOM… All freaking terrible! The entire sector is going down and Apple, with its overpriced crap (it almost hurts me to write that) is at the forefront. An iPhone is up to $ 1,400 here. I mean, like, what were they thinking?

I could go on and on explaining why Apple is going to crater after earnings. Basically, it almost always does. Look at the past earnings: even when it did beat earnings estimates, it crashed afterwards. Apple is just a very emotional stock and people like to mass sell it after earnings. And with how bad things are, there is no chance in hell Apple will beat earnings.

Apple is not dead, but it’s going to slowly drift down into the abyss (See: Blackberry, Nokia, etc.). No one can remain at the top forever and with so many companies producing phones, many of them far better than the iPhone, it simply doesn’t stand a chance. I mean, the iPhone is like 65% of the profits. And this brings me to my main points: the iPhone 7 is a fiasco. Worst, it is going against the VERY popular and lucrative iPhone 6s (the “S” series always earns Apple more profits as the machines are already calibrated) AND the strongest line of Android phones of all times.

Okay, name me ONE thing about the iPhone 7. Go! When you think iPhone 7, you think…

… no headphone jack. That’s it. The iPhone 7 has no headphone jack. I dare you to name me ONE thing that is different with the iPhone 7 when compared to the 6s. Go. Without looking it up, even I couldn’t find anything. And when your main selling point is a feature disappearing, it’s not good.

For the first time in like forever, it seems the iPhone had no hype at all. Perhaps everyone has one yet, perhaps no one saw enough reason to upgrade (waiting for 7s?) or perhaps no one cared, but I can tell you the iPhone 7 is an astounding failure. Oh, they sold tens of millions, but it’s plain and simply not enough. Have you seen many people with an iPhone 7? Have you seen many people with an Apple Watch (which has been turned into the subject of a mockery) Yeah, I thought so.

In simple words, Apple has lost it. It went from being a simple company with a simple product line to some jammed messed. Everyone remembers the iPhone. There was ONE iPhone and one iPhone alone. Now, there are something like 10 different iPhones available with so many options nobody knows what's going on. iPhone 7, 6, 6 plus, 6s, 6s plus, Se... What the hell is that? And I'm not even speaking of the 20 different colors that make no sense. And just look at the Apple Watch and try to understand what's going on: apple watch 2, apple watch Nike+, apple watch hermes, apple watch edition, apple watch 1... Seriously what the heck is that thing?

Speaking of technology, Apple has fallen so far behind it's not funny anymore. The iPhone SE still comes with 16GB!!! Sixteen GB!!!!! Is this some kind of joke? My operating system takes more than 16 GB! How many minutes of video can you record with 16GB! Compare that to Android which often come with SD cards and possibly terabytes of data and you've got a real joke on your hand. And almost every Android phone outperforms the iPhone in every mark. The iPhone isn't even the top phone anywhere anymore - it's gone, people!

All in all, we face the same problems we faced in 2012 when Apple’s stock crashed from $100 to $60: dying business lines (iPod at the time) and no innovation at all. Apple was able to save face once, and then again, not really: it underperformed the index from 2012 to today, only going up 20% in 5 years in a period where the S&P500 basically doubled. Tomorrow’s dreadful earnings will mark the end of Apple as an innovative company as we know it. It will now be priced as a commodity company and this implies a much, much lower valuation.

Google is still able to grow. Microsoft is still about to grow. Apple is about to report a sharp drop in earnings, around 15-20% and perhaps as large as 25%, if they are honest (they can still fudge the number somewhat). With much lower iPhone sales, it’s simply not possible for them to beat the very inflated earnings estimates. This sharp drop in earnings, coupled with a terrible guidance for the rest of 2017 (strong USD, world tensions due to Trump, Apple failing in China – all points I don’t have time to cover, but which are very valid) will lead to Apple getting one of the biggest hits in the history of hits.

I’ll be blunt: Apple will drop 8-10% in afterhours (maybe more), it will open down 15% the next day and end the day down more 20%. Yes, that’s how bad it is. And I’ll be there to earn a fortune from it. As I said, I want my millions back.

My #Yolo is designed in a very specific way. It’s designed so that even if I am wrong (which I am not), I will not lose money. Yep, it's that good. Before I try to explain it to you, let me explain this: I am 99.9% certain AAPL is going to plummet post-earnings, but as there always is no way for me to know for sure. There is so much market manipulation some banks might keep it from falling more than 2-3% just to be able to liquidate their calls at the opening bell, etc. For this reason, I chose longer- expiration options as Apple will most likely keep dropping in the days to follow (as more and more people realize Apple is the next Blackberry and start selling their fund. People can’t liquidate a $2-3B position overnight). Thus, I chose the monthly, February 17th expiration. Big manipulators might be able to manipulate the price somewhat, but not very long.

I also made my trade voluntarily more complex to account for all possible scenarios (more on that later). I have been screwed by big funds before and I have designed this trade so that even if I get screwed, I won’t lose money.

So, without further ado, here is my yolo:

http://i.imgur.com/F82Tspq.jpg

1) I bought $120 puts, twice the amount of $115 puts, 4 times the amount of $110 puts, 8 times the amount of $105 puts and 16 times of $100 puts. Those are unbelievably cheap ATM. TOTAL COST: $100,000 USD.

2) To cover the premium paid for those puts, I sold a massive amount of $120 calls. I used the entire premium to buy the puts (and the calls below).

3) To be allowed to make that trade (margin requirement is crazy on naked calls), I bought a ton of $128 calls. This is a vertical spread which allows me to do the trade as I want it. Of course, there is no chance AAPL is $128 after earnings, but without those calls, I would need a $2M+ cushion in margin, which I don’t have (anymore). TOTAL CREDIT: $100,000 USD.

4) All in all, this trade has cost me nothing to do :D. That’s right: $0 upfront cost! Free!

5) To get the margin required for this trade, I had to sell all my long-term stocks and ALL my other plays. Some of the margin is also taken from my Credit card but at this point, it doesn’t make a difference.

A 100K YOLO FOR 100K WSB SUBSCRIBERS! If you want to have fun, draw the payout that comes from this strategy.

So, what will happen on earnings? Well, simply said: IT IS SIMPLY NOT POSSIBLE FOR APPLE TO SPIKE UP POST-EARNINGS. It didn’t happen to Google, it didn’t happen to Western Digital, Qualcomm or even Intel or Microsoft (2%! Yay!), despite excellent earnings (which Apple won’t have). Based on that, here are all the possible scenarios that could happen, ranked from worst to best, along with what would happen to me:

1) The Google Gambit: Big funds play the “oh they had one below average quarter but they are still growing and they have huge product lines coming (yeah, right)” – stock miraculously only drops 1-2% (like GOOG) is - I don’t make any money, but I don’t lose any either. I’m pissed off. Likelihood:< 1%

2) The Qualcomm Quack: Apple somehow miraculously saves face by playing with inventories/supplies/doing Valeant stuff. Then, the stock would drop only 3-4%. I would make a little bit of money. Likelihood: 4%

3) The “we barely got away with that one” scenario: Apple cheats and starts buying its own iPhones to prevent the number from crumbling too bad. It’s a bad quarter, but not too bad. Apple crashes to $118 in AH and then drifts down to $115. I essentially double my money, a $100,000 gain. Likelihood: 20%

4) The “last minute wildcard” scenario: Apple somehow managed to earn more than I thought on some miracle play (hedging). Earnings are down by quite a bit. Apple crashes to $115 and barely stays above $110 in the next few trading sessions. I essentially quadruple my money, a $300,000 gain. Likelihood: 25%

5) The “Back in the Basement” Scenario: Apple is honest about its terrible quarter and results, but downplays it and people somehow buy it. Apple crashes to $112 in AH and drifts down to $105 by Feb 17. I essentially sixtuple my money. A $500,000 gain. Likelihood:15%

6) The Meltdown Scenario Apple: is honest about its terrible quarter and investors aren’t dumb. They mass sell the stock. It crumbles to $105 in AH and some idiots buy it thinking it’s a “bargain.” I make over a million overnight and another $250,000 in the days that follow. It crashes to $95 by Feb 17. *Likelihood: 25% *

7) The “Hillary Clinton Scenario”: It’s worse than I thought. Tim Cook apologizes and steps down, citing personal problems. Apple plummets below $100 in AH. People panic, everyone wants to sell, it’s on the top of every newspapers. It opens at $101 the next day, immediately gaps below $97 and then spiral down to $90 where it belongs (maybe even lower, but let’s keep it at that). I more than fiftytuple my money, making $5,000,000. *Likelihood: 10% *

So, what is the expected expectancy of that trade? it’s 1% * $0 + 4% * $15,000 + 20% * $100,000 + 25% * $300,000 +15% * $500,000 + 25% * $1,150,000 + 10% *$5,000,000= $958,100.

Here’s a graph with possible payouts. The top column shows the price of apple, the leftmost row the gain for each put (remember, $0 initial cost – costs are covered):

http://i.imgur.com/X6z7W1T.jpg

Understand this: Apple WILL drop post-earnings. There is absolutely no way whatsoever it can go up. It can’t happen. I mean, Google is down by quite a bit after its earnings, the entire tech sector is down, but AAPL somehow stays at $122. Okay. I am hoping for a massive, massive, MASSIVE drop obviously. I wouldn’t be satisfied with Apple dropping to $115, for example.

I expect to make close to a million from that trade, although there is a lot of possible variance. Obviously, I wouldn’t be happy with the $100,000 scenario as this is my chance, and probably my last chance, to get my money back. Note that even if apple doesn’t go below $100, my $100 strike puts will gain in value if Apple drops to $109 post-earnings, so I might make a bit more there.

I want to thank everyone on /r/wsb for the continued and unending support. You have truly helped me get to where I am and I just want to say that no matter what happens, I’ll have no regret. You have entertained me during dark times in my life and quite possibly saved me. You guys never failed to make me laugh with your puns, memes and other and for this, I especially thank you – especially those who were generous enough to become my patrons or get me reddit gold.

One final thing. I don’t know if God exists. I won’t pretend that I suddenly believe in Him (or Her), like so many do in their time of need, but if you do exist God: please, please, please, please, please help me. I have never been lucky in this life and you have thrown many obstacles in my way, but if you help me here, everything is forgiven. It’s not that hard to break that $100 floor and once that happens, it’s game over – I’m rich. I know the earnings are going to suck. Don’t let big banks screw me once again.

If I do win, here is my promise:

1) I WILL repay all my debts, in full, immediately.

2) I WILL place half the money in a long-term fund that pays 4-5% per year. Banks, Telecoms, Pipelines, etc.

3) I WILL use a quarter of the money to buy a house and plenty of nice things.

4) I WILL use the last quarter of the money to travel the world, enjoying life.

5) I SWEAR ON EVERYTHING THAT I AM AND EVERYTHING THAT I HAVE THAT I WILL NEVER, EVER, EVER TRADE AGAIN.

In therapy, I was told that the most important thing was being honest with yourself. I’ll be honest with yourself and also myself: I’m not a good trader. I’m so tired of losing. I wasted two years of my life on this bullshit. No matter what happens, this is my last trade. After that, I am moving on and never, ever even thinking about finance or stock ever again. Two years of perpetually losing money are enough for me. But recently, I have been on a hot streak (100% success recently) and I just need the streak to last one. last. time.

Verdict: Massively short AAPL through earnings.

AS LONG AS APPLE DOESN’T GO UP, I DO NOT LOSE MONEY. GLTA.