Emily Wiser, 51
United States
Years trading: Six

Emily Wiser earned a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Chicago and also learned the jewelry technician trade. Yet this stay-at-home-wife and mother eventually discovered options trading was her true career — at least for the time being.

“Right now, I trade for a living,” Wiser says.

She became a housewife at 25 and left her Ph.D. in literature program after her baby was born. Her part-time Etsy jewelry and wedding ring business went under in 2020 when COVID shut down art shows and made suppliers less reliable. Luckily, she had started trading in 2019 and soon went all-in, using 95% of her capital. Her main goal is to outpace the S&P 500.

“So, I am beating it fine so far this year,” Wiser says. “I think I’m at like 12%, and the S&P is at like two.”

How did you start trading?

In the summer of 2019, I was making silver ingots in an artisan studio. I was rolling out the silver ingot in a rolling mill by hand, when I found that my wrist bone was popping out and I hadn’t noticed. It turned out, I dislocated my wrist and had to stop working for a semester. I had never sat around without work to do before, and my dad suggested I learn to trade options. (He was an options trader on tastytrade). I studied the tastytrade videos and read some books, and then I started trading. I realized I made a lot more money trading options than being an artisan goldsmith.

Favorite trading strategy?  

Bull put spread.

Which financial instruments do you most frequently trade?

Stocks and options on stocks. Typically large, liquid S&P 500 stocks in uptrends.

Tell us about the success you’ve had trading.

It’s been a learning curve. All of my trades since the very first one I’ve ever made has been on tastytrade. Profit for 2023 was about 122%. Profit for 2024 was about 47%. In 2024, my husband retired.


What was your worst trading moment? 

My worst trading moment lasted basically the entire year of 2023 when I had a loss of about 60% for the year. This was partially because of doubling down on put spreads when rolling and partially from the length of time the market took to swing back up.

Check out all the previous rising stars here.

Yesenia Duran — not an alien, not a zombie; just an editor.