 For whatever reason, it's like I become more attached to the position. It's like as it's going up, I've got this big chunk and it feels so good, right? And I just don't want to let it go. I don't want to lock in profits. So there's been a lot of that. It's like, oh man, I just love this big position. I just won't let it go. And that's a problem for me as well. What's up everybody? We're back with the after hours podcast. Today we have Dan Irish. Dan is famously known for trading small caps and making millions while doing it. He's a killer long trader, so I'm really excited to hear from him. So Dan, thank you for coming on today. Thanks for having me guys. Of course, Dan, of course. It is awesome. So Dan, for those that are not familiar with you, could you just briefly walk us through how you got into trading? Sure. So around 2017, I was kind of struggling with college and just didn't really know, you know, the life path. Everybody was telling me I got to go to college and part of me always knew that it just wasn't going to work out for me. Just nothing really interested me. I tried to go into accounting and finance things like that. And, you know, I kind of was into it, but it just didn't, it wasn't enough for me. It just didn't really stimulate the brain the way I wanted. So I looked into alternative life paths and I found Tim Sykes on YouTube, you know, that rabbit hole. There's just tons and tons of videos about that. And that pretty much inspired me to give it a try. It's crazy, man. Everyone started the same way with Tim Sykes. It's just like he was that guy back then that just got everyone hooked. That's crazy. So like by, I know Tim Sykes is kind of famous for the shorting, the pump and dumps and for doing all that stuff. So because you got started with Tim, what kind of got you to go to the long side of trading rather than the short side? Well, for me, it was always, I just wanted the most, what I considered the most simplistic approach. And for me, it was just always, if I can buy something and it can go up multiple times, if I short something, well, I can only make, you know, what I'm trying to say, like it can only go down the max amount of the stack, but it could squeeze like multiple times. And I just figured, well, there's a lot more risk doing that. And I'm just going to focus on long trading because I just think less stress and just that's just what I wanted to do. That's awesome. Did you find success right away? Or is it like one of those things that took you like a couple of years or something like that to find that consistency? It took me a couple of years for sure. I tell people that I probably, you know, when it comes to natural ability, I just, I don't have that. I'm saying I just don't. I'm the type of person that takes me a long time to get things. But then when I do get them, I can get them pretty good because I'm kind of a grinder. I'll grind many hours to kind of get better at something. And then I'll try to perfect my craft. And yeah, so it was really tough. I started with real money. I lost a portion of it. I mean, I started with like 20, 28K account because I wanted to get over PDT rule. I lost, you know, half of it and then ended up paper trading for six months and just, you know, I was just like, well, I might as well just approach it like I'm going to college or something. Like I'm just going to not make money doing this, but I'm going to focus all my energy on it like a full-time job and just practice. And that's what I did. And it was really important for me. That's awesome. Yeah, no, that's super cool. And your style is more so like getting in before the pump. Like I don't really know another trader that is just so good at being able to time things and just be like in a situation where you're just always, you seem to always be in the right spot. So what was it that you kind of like tracked and learned early on to be able to put yourself in those positions consistently? Well, for me, it was about finding all of the details. There's a lot of little details, little things that I picked up on that I was able to feel like over time, you can just feel, okay, these details are leading to this event or this type of risk reward ratio. And so that's what it was about. It's a, this strategy has a low success rate. So I think my win rate is right now, it's 37%, which is not, it's really bad. I mean, when I was consistent and trading a lot better, it was around 41%, which I know that's like, oh, that's like really 37 to 41, what's the difference? But it's kind of an overall theme. I mean, I just, before I go into anything else, I should just mention that I did have a lot of success during the major bull market run, right? And then I got distracted with things because you make, you become successful and then you have money and then you can invest, like I invested in a house, for example, and fix a rupper. So a lot of my time and energy went into that and it's like life in a way, it gets complicated when you do succeed. So then I have to balance and juggle all these new things, right? And so I got distracted. And so that's why if you look at my ProfitLy, which I have linked on my Twitter bio, you can see I've been chopping around for basically the last two years. So I am coming from a place where I have struggled recently. So just keep that in mind that I'm, you know, that's just something I'm dealing with is trying to get my consistency back. Makes sense. Makes sense. They say more money, more problems. I think that's a perfect example. Can you walk us through what your daily routine is like now and kind of your trading process now? Sure. So in the morning, well, see recently, I've noticed that a lot of things are moving in after hours and pre-market and they're moving in nice ways to where I think it's worth getting up early at the moment. So I'll be, I'm up at like, I got my alarm set to 6.58. I'll try to wash up, get as ready as I can get and then be at the computer at 7, you know, for, because on E-Trade the pre-market opens at 7am and then I'll either sell a position that I swung. If it gapped up, I'll sell it usually. Or I'll just, I'll just start looking around for, for news and I always go through the news scanner. I'll type in some key words like I like to watch for upcoming splits, reverse splits. So I'm always kind of looking and then of course, if something's on the percent gain scan, I'll click every single ticker because I want to open it up and I want to see what's up and it's a lot of just being aware of every single possibility. If that, you know what I mean, it's just kind of planning and just being aware of what's going on that day and getting prepped. That's awesome. I mean, I just wanted to kind of touch back on, I know you mentioned that you were having like some struggles over the past like two years or so or just kind of chopping around. How do you deal with that mentally and still have like kind of the willpower to like wake up every morning and like get to the desk and say, you know, I'm going to continue this process? Yeah, I think now I'm, it's almost like I've backtracked. Like I feel mentally, I feel more similar to when I first started trading now than I have ever before in my career, as far as the lack of confidence in yourself because, you know, it is tough. It is tough to chop around like that. It's tough to have these massive upswings and then massive downswings. It's like, I question myself, what am I doing? Like I got to get it together. And a lot of it, it's, it is on me. I know that there are things that I'm doing and ways I'm acting and habits that I've formed. I know aren't good. And it comes back to I'm comfortable, right? As far as monetary, like I have a home, I've got money, enough money in the bank to be comfortable. That's not always a good thing though, because I'm just too, I'm too just everything's all good, right? Well, that doesn't really lead to hunger for success for, you know what I mean? I've lost some of that hunger, some of that discipline. And I think that's what it really comes down to. Yeah, no, that makes sense. And, you know, I followed you for a long time on Twitter and social media and all that. And I've always noticed that you've been someone to use size, you know, you use some pretty good like share size when like longing these things or swinging these things. Is that something that that confidence took a hit also? Like, or is it something that you just, is it hard for you to kind of downsize a little bit now and like to gain that momentum again? Or is it something that you're just going to keep going at it like you are? I should, I should definitely size down. I think that I am using too big of size. It just comes down to lack of discipline. Like it's, again, I know I should size down, but I'm not because the truth is I like that rush of using big share size. And it's especially with kind of my style, it is hard to to scale up with our size, because you do have to guess a lot. You do have to anticipate these things. And using big size, it just opens you up to a lot of variance. I've also noticed that when I use big size, for whatever reason, it's like I become more attached to the position. It's like, as it's going up, I've got this big chunk and it feels so good, right? And I just don't want to let it go. I don't want to lock in profits. So there's been a lot of that. It's like, Oh, man, I just love this big position. I just won't let it go. And that's a problem for me as well. So using smaller size, it is a big reason why I was so consistent. And I might have to just go back to kind of, and I say small, but it really wasn't even small. I mean, I was still making great money. Like, I just, you know, it's just, I'm at this point where I'm just maybe chasing the dopamine a little bit too, a little bit too much. Yeah. I mean, Alex talks about that all the time. It's hard once you're familiar with like large size tech, you see those massive profits, and then it's like, you almost feel like it's a slap in the face to go back down. But like really, sometimes the best thing for you