B The Trader

Holiday trading is different as there's a lot more volatility in the holiday market. Short selling is challenging in the last week of December. I saw on Twitter that a lot of people were trading and taking big hits. This is my theory: everyone is off at home on their computers, there are many new traders on the market who are more familiar with the long selling, and a lot of squeezing is happening, so you have to be careful when selling short. I didn't have very successful trades on Monday and Tuesday, but Friday was profitable as I followed my trading plan and waited until I hit my target before cutting it. So if you're trading short, be extra careful during the holidays and all the way up to the New Year. Wait for a clear signal and don't waste your time on mirages that take your time and attention away from the real A stocks. Be careful trading pre-market and watch out for squeezers. Watch the video till the end to learn how I adapted my trading and daily routine now that I have a full-time day job. I also share the news about new exciting guest interviews!

We met with Matt over 9 months ago, and, funny enough, I didn't know who he was at first despite listening to his show. Matt found out about trading when he was in high school. He started trading in the summer of 2017 after the freshman year of college (he studies software engineering); his parents helped him to join the Tim Sykes challenge. 2 years later, November 2019 was his best month yet. Matt switched to big caps despite starting with the small caps as he didn't like the volatility and the fact that one loss could easily wipe out multiple wins. We talked about the benefits of trading big caps such as easy and reliable automation, low chance of sliding, and generally slower pace that allows traders to make rational decisions instead of acting impulsively. Matt shared his plans for May 2020 when he graduates. We talked about the benefits of trading part-time, and how spending less time in front of the screen makes you a more disciplined trader. We chatted about the biggest challenge Matt faces when trading and his plan to work on it. We also talked about his accomplishments - this student trader has already managed to get over the PDT by trading and working hard during his internship while going through the senior year of college. Watch the full interview to see what ticker we both successfully traded the week before. Check out his podcast Beyond The PDT on your favorite podcast platform! as I will be appearing there shortly.

As you guys know, I got a job about 2 weeks ago and I've been officially trading part-time ever since then. I wasn't planning on trading much during the first week. The trades that I did take were very safe, I only risked a quarter of what I normally do. I did it with range order - it's when you set up the profit target and the stop loss, and once one of them is hit, the other one cancels out automatically. It worked out well for me, and I'll keep using automation to manage my trades while I'm away at work. I don't really know how much I've made on that trade. The whole month of December I didn't look at my PnL as a part of the challenge that I've created for myself at the beginning of the month. The question is, how do I know if I'm doing well? Well, at the end of the day, you always know if you're up or down. And the benefit of not knowing exactly how much money I've made is that trading stopped being all about the money. I'm not tempted to trade less than ideal setups just to get the profit. The trade that I'm still in - CBIO - is the trade that I've executed differently thanks to this challenge. I got in at the $7.70s after a big squeeze and not seeing much interest from other buyers. I covered most at the $7.30s and $7.10s, and I'm still waiting for the $7 to crack. It might not crack, but it's fine since I only have ⅕ size still in the trade. Before the challenge, I would have gotten in earlier. Most probably, I would have been one of the sellers who got squeezed. I would have chased one of the minor spikes out of FOMO. The December challenge helped me with the fear of missing out. I'm not trying to instantly make up for the losses incurred, and I'm trading just to trade well while focusing on the risk/reward ratio. I'm really excited to see how this month turns out! Do you have any questions regarding the PnL challenge or any other topic? I'd be happy to answer them - hit me up on Twitter or in Youtube comments!

Trading Coach and Mentor Akil Stokes is here today! He is part owner of Tier One Trading and has his own podcast called Trading Coach Podcast which I listen to regularly. You will learn a ton from this Forex Coach/Trader and you will realize it doesn't matter if you trade Forex or Stocks, Same mentality.

This was a very special episode for me! I had 3 experienced and consistently profitable traders on the show - Kyle Williams, Harry Hoss, and Jack Kellogg. We had a great time answering Twitter questions and discussing the trades from the week before. We chatted about sticking with the chosen trading strategy and remaining consistent despite feeling tempted with the exciting yet not proven setups. We discussed the interesting tickers of the past week and the trades that the guys made or missed out on. We also talked about the FOMO - fear of missing out - and if it should affect your trading habits. We talked in-depth about the optimal win percentage in correlation with the risk/reward ratio. Guys shared their recent win percentages while talking about how random the sequence of losses and wins can sometimes be and how, if you're not careful, 1% of losses can take out 99% of wins. We chatted about the scariest moments of their trading careers as guys shared their stories. Kyle revealed that he was once ready to pick up a side gig just to recover the losses from a trade gone bad, but managed to turn it around. Harry finished this fun episode with a rant about short sellers and the strategy that burns them time after time, yet people remain falling for it. What did you like the most about this episode? What did you learn?

In December I challenged myself to not post any of the trades and not look at the daily or weekly P&L. I did it because I wanted to focus on trading well by following my trading strategy. The truth is, it's harder to stick to the 3R target than it seems. It's challenging to kick an old habit of taking profits in the support area of 1.8R. If I make most of my profits at 1.8 and take the rest at 3, the average will be somewhat close to 2R. But in the long-term, that won't leave enough room to cover for the mistakes, and I know that I will make mistakes no matter how successful and consistent I am. I've talked with experienced traders such as Kyle Williams, Brian Lee, Jack Kellogg - do check their interviews if you haven't yet - and all of them say that mistakes happen. You just have to make sure that they don't happen too often and not let them spiral out of control. At the same time, you have to learn how to not take your profits too soon. If one mistake wipes out 3 or 4 profits, that could crush your mindset. If one mistake erases 1 profit, it doesn't feel like that big of a deal. So this week I did a better job waiting to hit 2.8-3R, and I'll continue with this strategy. I will also be focusing on Big Cap markets. Looking forward to that and the added challenge of managing my time as I start a new job - watch the video to learn more about that!

Jack was 18 when his friend introduced him to day trading. His trading journey wasn't a linear path to success: he took big losses at first and struggled against brokerage fees while barely breaking even. Nevertheless, he became a successful and profitable day trader, making $1-2k a week consistently even when the market is slow. We talked about emulating mentors and following strategies of other people. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes you can't seem to get the setup right no matter how hard you try. Additionally, the market is changing, and strategies that used to bring consistent 4-figure income are not as successful anymore or don't come across as often. We discussed the difference between trading NASDAQ and OTC stocks, and how a successful strategy used on penny stocks will paper cut you all the way down on NASDAQ - and vice versa. Jack shared the brokerages that he currently uses, how busy he is with the current state of the OTC market, and how much money he generates on a good week. We chatted about the misconceptions that he used to have about day trading and how different the reality is. He also described the challenges that he faces when day trading and what he does to overcome them. What is your takeaway from Jack's interview?

Kyle Williams discovered stock market trading in June 2016 and dove straight into it. It took him 12 months to become profitable. 3.5 years later he's up $115,000, so now he's teaching other people how to do it. Still a college student, Kyle gets up at 5.30 am to trade (he lives on West Coast), then goes to school and has a normal college student life. He shared how he structures his day to be able to trade and monitor the market while maintaining a full schedule. We chatted about Kyle's journey as a beginner trader struggling to become profitable. We discussed trading strategies that he used back in 2016, and how he managed to learn the market and become consistently profitable within just one year. We talked a lot about the mental, monetary, and planning aspects of increasing risk over time. He shared how much harder it is to risk 1% once your trading account grows and how he's pushing himself to accept that the same 1% represents that much more money. Kyle compared his current strategies with the setups he used to seek out at the very beginning. We talked about feeling confident about the benefits of starting with 1 or 2 setups instead of chasing tempting experiments and spreading yourself too thin looking for multiple trades and untested strategies. What did you learn from my interview with Kyle and what do you think about his trading path?

In our recent conversation, Brian Lee shared an equity curve simulator tool, and that was a complete game-changer for me. In the simulator, you enter your win percentage, your risk/reward ratio and a time period, and you really get to see your projected results over time. When you are trading, when you are "in the moment", you only see each individual trade, each loss, and each win. In one day you may lose 6 trades and you may only win 2 trades, leaving you with a pretty bad win/loss ratio. But as long as you stick to the 3:1 rule, all you lose is 6R. At the same time, by winning twice you get the same 6R, so you are actually OK at the end. However, you only get to see it this way if you're looking at the big picture, as you do in the equity curve simulator. In the moment, 6 losses in a row might seriously hurt your confidence and destroy your mindset. The lesson here is to pay less attention to the win percentage and each loss individually. Instead, focus more on following your profit plan long-term. I'm planning to give my 3:1 Reward to Risk trading strategy at least 3 months to let my wins and losses accumulate before drawing any conclusions. Subscribe to my newsletter to see my trading tips and follow me on social media to see the latest updates.

On Monday, December 2, I was in San Antonio for a wedding. On the way out I made a stop at a restaurant for breakfast and decided to check out the stock market and see if I could trade on the go on my laptop since I had Das Trader installed. Guess what, I haven't opened it on my laptop in months. My watchlist was outdated, so I didn't know what to look for. The Friday list of active stocks was saved in Das at home on my PC, and I didn't have any of this information with me. I did my own research on the spot and I got some leads from my buddy Carl. But I ended up not trading since I didn't see any great setups. I drove home, opened Das Trader, and saw that HEPA had a first red day after moving up for several days in a row. If I was home, I would've definitely seen this setup, traded it (I typically sell short), and made a nice return. I described this situation to my buddy Brian Lee (check out his interview if you haven't yet), and he laughed at me. He said that I should've used the Thinkorswim app. I actually use it, but I just didn't think of uploading my watchlist into the app before leaving for the trip. So now I'll be using Thinkorswim for charts and Das for execution even though I prefer sticking to just one platform. I also made a trade later in the day on Roku. It was a good setup, paired with some negative news for the company it was a great short sell. I made a 2.5-3R return on it and was quite happy to see how it turned out. Watch the video to see the full trade recap!