"I Experienced A Catastrophic Financial Loss": How Options Trader 'Captain Condor' Led His Followers To A $50 Million Wipeout
MW 'I experienced a catastrophic financial loss': How options trader 'Captain Condor' led his followers to a $50 million wipeout. Captain Condor's rise coincided with a boom in retail investors trading risky '0DTE' options. Some members of a group led by trader David Chau, pictured here during a podcast appearance, lost most of their life savings over Christmas.The options trader known as "Captain Condor" and his acolytes experienced a wipeout last week that incinerated tens of millions of dollars and cost some investors their life savings.The U.S. options industry is on track for a sixth straight year of record activity in 2026, according to data from the Options Clearing Corporation, or OCC. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, retail investors have increasingly become involved in trading derivatives such as options. Derivatives are sophisticated financial products initially developed to help p