From a tutor to techie to earning millions from stock market trading

About eleven years ago, Kavita decided to learn and understand the Indian stock market. At that time, she was drawing a salary of ₹30,000 in a job with a private company. Today, Kavita's portfolio is worth more than ₹2 crore.

The stock exchanges can be one of the toughest and riskiest places in the world to make money, especially via futures and options trading. However, there are a few who crack it and also continue with their full-time job. Burdwan, West Bengal-based Kavita, who is currently working full time as an IT professional in Australia, has thrived in options trading.

At a very young age, Kavita learned the value of earning money and the art of saving it. Being a bright student since childhood, she started running tuition sessions at age 14, wherein she earned up to ₹250 monthly fees from each student of hers.

"When I was young, my grandparents and relatives used to give me money as a token of love when I use to visit their place. I used to save that money with my mother as she used to give some interest amount depending on the duration, she kept that money with her," Kavita recounts.

How one can save money

Kavita believes that it is the support of parents in the formative years of your life that is indispensable and the deciding factor of your success. She says her parents taught her that one can save money by keeping a lid on their spending habits.

Kavita continued part-time teaching during her college days. Despite being a topper since childhood, Kavita chose a college close to her hometown as her father could not afford hostel fees. So she commuted for three hours every day on buses. After arriving at her home in the evening, Kavita used to start giving tuition to higher classes until 9 pm. By then Kavita increased her tuition fee to around ₹400 and taught maths and science to school students. The idea of gaining extra income gave her the joy of being "independent".

Her teaching journey ended after she landed her first job at an IT company in Pune. During her training period, Kavita saw her cubicle mate dabbling in shares. And that was the first time, Kavita heard about the stock market. Since Kavita was always in a habit of making extra income for herself so she decided to learn more about stock trading. Kavita says that her colleague introduced her to stock trading. Besides, she also gained knowledge through business dailies and magazines.

Soon, Kavita began intraday trading and booked a profit of ₹200- ₹400 per day in the initial phase. But for her trading was an on-and-off affair. Kavita took a big leap in stock market investing when she took a personal loan of ₹3 lakh to create a portfolio. She said she took the loan after she saw her colleague apply for Career Point IPO and bag a big return on listing. That decision proved to be a turning point as it not just kindled her interest in the stock market but instilled in her a trader's zeal to overcome all odds.

But the loan papers reached her home address and her parents bristled with anger. "My parents like most families believed that the stock market was nothing more than gambling and no one makes money out of it," she said.

What made their hearts swell with pride was when she showed them her portfolio size had increased to ₹20 lakh.

However, Kavita says she got a formal understanding of other aspects of trading during a training session conducted by a brokerage on Futures and Options in 2016. Kavita then started trading in futures but lost a good amount of money doing so. Simultaneously, she also started reading about what mutual funds and what big investors did to recover the losses. It was then she discovered the covered call options strategy.

"Options trading solved one long-standing problem of mine - making money in a sideways market," she said.

She quickly mastered the ropes in options strategies and was able to generate decent return on her capital. Calling herself a positional trader Kavita trades on weekly and monthly options.

Despite her success in trading, she believes that one's source of income should not be just trading.

She ardently said that one must have an additional source of income instead of relying completely on the stock market. To newbies in stock market her advice: Keep working and keep the stock market as your side hustle, till you have gathered enough fund, knowledge and confidence in the stock market.

Kavita too had her fair share of losses too. Her biggest-ever loss in the stock market was ₹8 lakh.

However, through her learning and experience, she now generates decent returns through options trading annually. Kavita's biggest gain in options trading has been ₹14 lakh in a single day to date.

Being a 'guru' now in the stock market, she suggests, people gain in-depth knowledge about stock and then invest, but "always start with a small amount".

"Suppose if someone has ₹10 lakh capital then one can invest ₹50,000 to ₹1 lakh initially. One should never put all their money in the market," she explains.

Kavita says her success mantras are 'hard work,', 'consistency', and 'discipline', and her ultimate goal is to give back to society. Not revealing much about her goals, she just said, "There are several social issues in the country, but will focus more on women-related problems and will try to resolve them".

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