 held that for years but things change. Anyway, with the idea of risk and with that being what we get paid for to a point, the more risk we take, the more the reward can be. Now, when I was younger, I mean, I read that and I said, you know, I'm young, the more risk you take, the more the reward, the more you make. And that can be true but things don't always work exactly in your direction. And when they don't, it's a double-edged sword. And that has to be, you know, considered. I went through the 1987 stock market crash pretty much fully on margin. And boy, that can wake you up in a hurry when your position goes against you and your margins. The really important question, I think for all of us when it comes to risk is how much can you stomach when a trade doesn't go your way? Melissa is probably the hardest working person I know at this. I mean, if necessary, I have seen her completely determined to make days where as other people would say, you know, the day's over. Tomorrow's another day. And, you know, we'll try it again tomorrow. And it's just a different mindset, different type of personality. I mean, if you enjoy trading all day, if you have four or five trades that go against you, and you can just shake them off and know when X4 or 5 are going to be with you, then that's the way to trade. But if your personality is more, I'd like to just find, you know, one good trade and be really careful with it, then that might be a better way to go. Because trading itself is, it's very, very simple. I mean, it's really just a process of trying to sell something for more than what we pay for. It doesn't matter if you're shorting or we're going long. I mean, shorting is just selling at first. And the techniques to do that are, I mean, really, they're pretty simple. I mean, it's as simple as, you know, that old adage, buy low sell high. Yet what gets in the way of doing this very simple task is our human emotions. They add an awful lot of complexity to it. One reason I think that that happens is a bad trade is over pretty quickly. I mean, you get in it and you think it's great. And then a few minutes later, it doesn't, you know, it stops. Whereas a good trade often, not always, but often can take, you know, hours or the whole day to develop. Now, I think that's why, and I don't mind the whole day part. In fact, if I have faith in the trade, I'll hold it overnight. In fact, a great example of this is I think most of us played this Campbell suit at CPV yesterday. This has been falling all morning, having it up there on a screen. I didn't play it, but I did the staples with you guys. But this Campbell suit that this should have fallen yesterday. And it did. And it is following through today. It had a really very negative report. And institutions often will continue to sell these for days. Oh, Gene, 87. Well, first, I was on margin. And I knew I would have to get out of some of my positions. And that's a really interesting question, because I thought a lot of the stuff I had was good. And I thought it was very cheap at that point. So I had to sell some of it. Another funny thing back then is people, I mean, if anyone has ever seen a market like this, people were so terrified that the market makers left their desk. I put orders in, you know, during that time, you had to, there were no computers, you had to call a broker and place the order. And I would call up and I would say, all right, sell this, this, and this at the market. And sell this at the market. And no one was there to take the order. It would never get filled. So anyway, to answer your question, I sold enough to, you know, to meet the margin call that would have inevitably happened. And I just kept, I kept the rest. I mean, in fact, one of my great regrets from back then, I had a company that you guys may know, MDT, that still trades today. I kept it. And I kept it for a year after that. And I got tired of it, which is a stupid reason to get rid of something. But I sold it for about break even a year later. And but I like the concept because they made heart valves. And I thought heart valves would just become increasingly more in use as a population that all of the things up like 20,000 percent since then. So I kept what I could. I mean, I thought there were a lot of bargains that, you know, at the time stocks were very, very cheap. It seemed it was a terribly frightening time. Because the funny thing is, it seemed like we were going into a depression from the way the market was reacting. But if you looked at the data, there was nothing wrong with the economy. What had simply happened for sake of a better word was a market event that computer trading had just come into being. And these cell programs just fed on each other and people got scared and just cost the market to crash. And all that happened is there were a lot of great companies really on sale at that time that went considerably higher over the next 10 years. But anyway, back to where was a human emotions. So the stops come quickly and the better trades they take some time to develop. And one of the golden rules to trading, and I'm sure you guys have all heard this, is to let your winners run and cut your losses short. And for a lot of people, this is hard to do. I mean, there's a tendency for some people to, you know, because you do experience losses, is to take small profits at any sign of a profit. And then even worse, to take larger losses. And this is a formula for just losing money. It is absolutely critical that your winners be more than your losers, unless you have the type of trading system where your trades are right 80, 85% of the time. And, you know, you can make quick one or profits that that is a way that would work. There is another notion in most of our heads. I know it's in line and I wish I could get rid of it. It's not that I think I don't mind taking losses. I mean, taking losses is it's really important because taking a small loss is what protects your account from a bigger loss and from even eventually wiping out the account. But what's in most of our heads is that feeling that you're wrong. You took a trade and it, you know, it just didn't work out. And it affects with us our psychology. And I don't know why I think it shouldn't, but I know that it what it does. So the question I think we all need to answer is, what kind of personality do each of us have to blend in with our trade? And let's see if Melissa still has this chart of how she's got the next chronic curve. Yeah, Melissa on the CPV. The interesting thing about CPV is say you took this trade yesterday and I think most of us had it with a stop over 50 cents over 3950. But if we did this over the high of the day, it never took out the high of the day. And you could still be in it. You would have had to have had a wider stop loss. And again, it just depends. It really depends on your personality. I mean, if you use a wider stop loss and you find that that's worse for you, the way to make more profits, if that's what you want to do is to just increase your your R amount. I mean, I have run into people that use $800 or $1,000 Rs. And you can do that and just decrease the frequency of your trading. I know that that if you use smaller stops, you will make more money, but you will take more stops. And you have to have that type of personality where if you lose three or four times in a row, it doesn't bother you because you know, you're going to find, you know, three or four that you know, that are going to work out for you. It just really all depends on your personality. Myself, I would just, I mean, from time to time, I do it. I do take a bunch of trades during the day. I'd rather not. I'd rather just, and I'd actually, again, Melissa had mentioned that we're opposite. She loves trading the opening minutes. And honestly, I'd rather not. My favorite time to find a trade is at lunch. Because I know on good gas, there's certain things that happen at lunch, which are pretty reliable. What happens at lunch is the good down gaps tend to rally at lunch and the good up gaps tend to pull back. And it makes a lot of times a great, a great play, a great chance to get into a good play. Again, yesterday I missed BRCD, the gap up, because it had cleared the pivot the night of the gap. But the next morning, it didn't. And that's always troubling to me. But as soon as it opened, it cleared it instantly. And I just, I missed it because that doesn't happen that often. But it set up again at 2.30 yesterday. And I took it with the five cents stop. And it went a quick 15 cents, which is three yards. And those are kind of my my favorite type of play. There's something here that people often talk about called the Holy Grail. And I'm not sure if there's there's such a thing. What really, what the Holy Grail is for each one of us is that part of our trading plan, which tells us how many shares to short or buy on anyone trade, because that is what, that is what often makes us the money. Because if we take too much, too many shares, some of us, it can make a service. The trade ends up working out. Only we're not in it when it does. In fact, some of my best trades I've ever had were positions that I didn't have that many shares. I remember in 1994, I had this company called Microtouch, which eventually got bought out. And I just really wished I'd had more shares. And I was just never able to, but I was able to stay in it long enough where the darn thing tripled. And then another, and I don't know what this is, but human nature. I mean, I see this can't miss. This is going to be the greatest thing ever. I'm going to load up on this. I'm going to just get a whole bunch of shares. And it doesn't work out. And that has happened more times than I care to remember. So yeah, she's got, she's got Brocade up. Yeah, this was yesterday. Yeah, yeah, this right here. I don't know if you guys can see my pointer. It's on her charts. Right there. This was a really nice 15 minute buy with the five cent stop. And then I got out right, right here after the 15 cent gain. A couple of ones from today that have already worked pretty nicely. Melissa, do you want to pull up JC Penney on the five minute? You know, I did, I did just get a, this is Staples. Yeah, I got a little buy. I have a little, I have a bunch of different platforms. One of them is Trace Station because I can use it to give me alerts. Oh, I can't see your chart. Let me tell, no, Melissa, I don't have a chart. I haven't put any charts up. I don't have any charts on this. I'm on a laptop actually, and I don't have any charts available on it. All right. Yeah, JC Penney. Okay. I mean, the interesting thing about JC Penney, I mean, you could have taken it here out of the gates, but this was a 20 cent stop. And you'd kind of need to have a pretty big move to say your risk was $100 with the 20 cent stop. That's only 500 shares. And really, you've got to get it to move 60 cents to move anywhere. But this little bar right here is a really nice five minute. It makes a double bottom. And you get a really nice five minute bicep here. It's above the rising 20. You get a five cent stop. And I do all mine at three hours. So my target's 15 cents. And it hit it 20 minutes later. In fact, it might be doing it again. I'm not sure I haven't had a chance to look. And the one we all did today just gave me a five minute cell on staples. Let me stay with JC Penney's again. So depending on your personality, I mean, with the JC Penney, if you do the five cent stop, you get to a nice quick three hour target. If the five cent stop makes you nervous. And to be honest with you, it probably would have made me a little uncomfortable unless I was really confident in the play. I mean, JC Penney I just would have had a hard time taking that play just because the sock being what it is. But nonetheless, the play worked. But if you just give it a 10 cent stop, which doesn't sound that much more, you're only making half the amount of money. You're giving it a wider room. So the odds are you're going to be in the play longer. And the only way to go around that if you're taking fewer plays, and you can prove to yourself that by taking fewer plays with later stops, you stay in more play, you have to increase your art. I mean, make it three, four, five hundred dollars, whatever it is. Knowing that what you're trying to do is fewer well thought out plays with wider stops. And there's no right or wrong answer to this. It all depends on each of our personalities and how we deal with risk, how we deal with you know, when something doesn't work out. I think you guys have heard this before too, because a lot of us, including myself, focus very hard on being right. And really, that's not really the objective when we're doing this. The objective isn't to try to be wrong, of course. But the objective is that when we are right, it's to make a lot of profits. And how you do that, or how that's done, is I think it's entirely dependent on your personality, how you feel about risk, how you're going to manage risk. I mean, because they're, just today, I mean, I'm looking at looking at gaps here today, price line could have been done if you don't mind a $5 stop. I mean, it ran $15, but it could have been done. J.C. Kennedy could have been done. Melissa gave us a bunch of nice numbers on loads. That could have been done for very nice profit stable, for again, and this HGM worked pretty well after the 10 o'clock high. So each and every day, the market brings plenty of opportunity for us to do. It's just a matter of do we want to be in pride place, or do we just want to be in one play. But I think the opportunities are endless in the market each and every day. It comes down to each one of us and how we manage ourselves, which is often reflected in in how we manage the trades. But I think this, the price line up. Yeah, price line had a really nice, well, first, it was a really nice gap. And it ran 15 bucks right out of the gate. And if you had a nice five minutes buy setup, but I mean, you're not going to be buying a thousand shares of this one unless you've got a million dollar account. So anyway, yeah, yeah, she's got it up. So that's kind of my little talk on on risk, just, you know, that risk is, I mean, the kind of summarize risk is what we get paid for. The more risk you can stomach without being reckless, the more you will make. And it depends on, you know, on your personality. I mean, probably if you're younger and you're 20s and aggressive and know what you're doing, you could probably, you know, really get a lot of the market out of the market each day. You know, as I've gotten older, I, you know, I don't want to necessarily be here all day. I just want to, you know, find a few good plays. And actually, there's two things I'm looking for. The day trading income is one, but I also was each day for stuff that I'd like to, you know, have core. So, you know, I do that as well. So that's kind of all I have to say. If anyone has any questions at all for me today, be happy to answer it. Thanks to, and what's the story, and inviting me to cross to you guys. And thanks for listening. I hope to do it again sometime soon. Melissa, I, with the high-end jobs, what I was, I was trying to do a comparison that really the only way to make, to make money and anything is to do something. The way to make money is to do something that people either can't or won't do. I mean, if something is unpleasant, you're going to have to pay somebody a lot of money to do it. And trading can pay high because it really falls into the category of something people can't do, at least not most people. They find it very hard to fight the human tendency. It's very, very difficult. I mean, I've read once that the people or the one profession that is the worst trader in the world is a doctor. I hope there's no doctors in the room, but what I've found is that doctors, this is how they're trained, absolutely cannot admit that they've made a mistake. So they get in a trade and there's just no way this trade is not going to work. I mean, they're in it. And what ends up happening is they end up taking huge losses when they are wrong. And the profession that does the best are airline pilots. And that's, if you think about how a pilot works, he's got a checklist of a flight plan before he takes off and check and he won't fly until everything's met on the flight plan. And trading should be the same way not to get into a trade, unless it means everything on your pre flight checklist. So now I've done a lot of work on that and I find that 3R is about as far as they got. Every once in a while, one goes for 10, 20 hours. And I don't know how to find out which one that is. Now, sometimes I will get many more Rs out of it if I keep it, but I really don't count that as part of the day trade because I'm willing to give it a little bit more room to pull back. So I find that if you can get, in a way, I've mentioned the word holy grail on this. If you think about it, this is another beautiful thing about trading. The math is on your side. I mean, if you can get 3Rs on a couple trades I mean, that's 6Rs and you're wrong on trade. You're only at 40% success rate, yet you had a huge day because you've lost 2, made 6, you've made 4Rs. And it's an extraordinarily profitable trade. And that's kind of the wonderful thing to it, is that you can make so much more than you can lose. But what a lot of newer traders tend to do is they tend to lose more than they make, and that's what makes it so hard. Oh, I see what you're saying, David. Yeah, the margin. That's sort of a different question. The risk on any one trade should be predetermined on what part of the account that is. It's relevant, but it's not relevant. And yeah, yeah, yeah, return and risk. You know, one thing that's really changed my way of thinking is the word R. And I didn't learn, the first time I ever heard of the word R was in 2001 when I went to a Van Thaub seminar. And I actually wish I would have learned it earlier because what really changed my trading around where it went from just being mediocre to being really, really good was when I learned the chance limb from the IBD. And when you think about it, they advocate using a seven or eight percent stop on any one trade that you take and to maybe take some off at 30 percent. Well, that's only three hours in a swing trade. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, I mean, when you say, wait a minute, so you're saying, David, you're saying you're $5,000 is the cost of the tuition and $2,000 stop. You kind of, I think I see what you're saying. I mean, it does have me a little, I mean, the one thing that I know is that any one trade should have a fixed, either a fixed dollar or a fixed percent, probably a fixed dollar amount. I mean, if, yeah, yeah, that's what I think you're looking at the cost. Yeah, you know, actually, David, I sort of had issues with that in the beginning, too, that, you know, that I'm putting 50 grand into something to try to think 100 bucks. Yeah. Yeah, I sort of gotten over that because I now somehow I've trained myself to look at the whole process rather than, you know, that I'm investing $50,000. You know how I look at it now? I actually kind of think I'm like a, you know, like a marketplace owner back, let's say in the Middle East in the year zero, and we're just selling goods and services to the people. And like I said, we're trying to get things cheaper and selling more. But I mean, the cost of that stand is going to be, you know, a lot compared to what we make each day. And that's the same thing with trading. It's just the cost of, you know, of setting up our stand and getting the inventory and paying the bills and what have you. You can't think of this as investing because it's not that it's trading. And it's a completely, a completely different mindset that, you know, we're taking these huge positions to try to get a little bit out of it. I mean, like the JCPenney that I went over earlier, and say you had $100 risk with the Nickel stock, that's 2,000 shares. So you're buying $18,000 worth of stock, which I mean, the $18,000 is a large figure, but we're only trying to get a 15 cent move and you're making 300 bucks and you and you get out. And yeah, I know what you're saying that, you know, you put an awful lot into this, but it's, all I can say is it's not investing, it's trading, it's going to be something that you're out of later in the day. David, I, you know, what I think, if you're newer or things haven't been, in fact, anybody, anybody that's been struggling, I think the risk for trades should only be like $10 or $20, because that way you're never going to get hurt. And that is, that is, I can't emphasize how important that is to anyone newer or struggling, do not allow yourself to get hurt. And most of us that have been doing this have been hurt. I mean, I sure was in the beginning. And it is, you have to do all steps possible to protect your capital, because once your capital is gone, then that's it, the game over. And I mean, if you're only using 10 or $20 risks, once you start to begin a track record, then you can begin to increase it to jump into the thinking that on how much I can make and then just start using the money over and over again, that's the down a road to disaster. And if you use the small risk, you're never going to reach a disaster. And then once you start, once you start showing that you can be profitable, you can increase it. But this is, there's a lot of things to overcome. I mean, knowing what to do and managing yourself can be very difficult. The $500 risk is a lot. This is another thing that took me a while to get used to with day trading, is that these small consistent gains they add up. And back in the day, I used to get monthly statements. And that's what you're based everything on and not the day-to-day generations. I mean, if anyone can just make $200 a day consistently, that's as much or more than most people in the United States are making at a job they likely don't like. And there's a lot about this that can be pretty enjoyable. $200 a day would be, say you're trying to get $2 a day. And that's really very good trading. That would be risking $100 for trade. And you don't have to risk it all initially on the trade as it's set up. I mean, I don't know if Melissa ever got full on the staples, but you heard her say it was half size at first. And so that way, if it doesn't work out, the loss is even smaller. But that is very key to doing all this is to the management. The management is which is part of the share sizing. That's what makes you the money. And if I risk $20 on a trade, David, you're never really risking the 40%. I mean, I'm not sure the exact numbers on staples today, but it had like a 15-cent stop. So if you're risking $20, if you're risking $20, it would be about 150 shares. And I put those against you, you lose your $20. And that's the end of the trade, but it did work out. That's why I take them off at 3R. That is so common. I don't know why, but they move 3Rs in your favor and stop. And then you make $60 and you're on to the next one. So when you're saying 40%, I'm picturing like a $50 stop move $20. Maybe what can happen is it can go through, but instead of say you're risking $100, and instead of 100, you lose 140. Now, that can happen. I mean, but it's still only 1.4R of the overall risk. It's very, very difficult to really have more than a 2R loss. I mean, it can happen if you're on a something that can be, I mean, say you try to play price line with a 15-cent stop. I mean, the spread's $2. So I mean, it could happen, something like that, or one of the wilder, wittier stocks. And that's something that I think, I mean, I did a personal example today. I'm in this and have been since 10 o'clock in this SJM short, but I had to give it a dollar stop because of things that I think are just here and there. Yeah, with the lower risk and share size, yeah, it's your expenses are going to be higher because of commissions. I'm not sure what the commissions are. I mean, they can be competitive if you look around, which I'm sure you guys have done. Melissa knows some people that are pretty good in regards to the best commission rates. But even with, let me just put it this way. Actually, I have not known. I have heard of people that have blown up not one, but several accounts because the only reason I can think of is unwarranted confidence. I mean, I'm not sure what it exactly it takes to continue to go in and do something over and over and over again and keep blowing up accounts and expecting different results. If you're blowing up accounts, you're doing something that's not right. And even with the higher commissions and the smaller risk, I mean, I can't emphasize it enough that job one is to protect your account. And once you can show to yourself that you can do this consistently and profitably, then you can increase the risk. I mean, I was once part of a program that I thought was a really interesting idea. And this might be useful for some of you guys is that show that you can be profitable for two consecutive weeks. And it doesn't matter how much. It doesn't matter if it's five bucks. You can show you've made money over two weeks. Then raise your risk amount by a little bit. And if you do it for another two weeks, raise it again. And keep going down that path. That keeps, it's a guideline to keep people from doing anything that would be detrimental to the account. Because that is, unfortunately, just an all too common occurrence where people just are too confident in in their trading and in the play. Because it is a simple business, but it's a hard business. And the reason it's a hard business is I once had it written this way. And I thought it was pretty good. You're trying to take money from people who at the same time are trying to take it from you. And in a lot of ways, it's like a street fight. So you have to have every as much as possible on on your side. And again, the nice thing about it is if you're only 50%, half your trades work, you can be very, very profitable. But it comes down to trade management, knowing yourself and how these things tend to work. And that's why I do the you know, the three are all or none. It's, it's, it's very rare that it's always amazing. I mean, a company comes out and basically so says they're a fraud. And the thing doesn't go to zero. I mean, and the next day it sort of, you know, goes up a little because of, you know, short covering the American Airlines, which went bankrupt earlier this year, was still trading on the pink sheets after they declared bankruptcy. Yeah, David, I mean, it's, I mean, stocks will wiggle up and down. And hang on a second, roads just getting really dry. And stocks will wiggle up and down. And when they go up more than, you know, than what we allocated the size for, you know, we are forced to kill the trade. There's, there's, there are more management styles than I think any one person could talk about in even a day or two. Some people manage on, on five minute visits. Some people use two are all. I knew one guy that would take, take half his trade off at just a one hour profit, and then raise a stop to break even. It was an extremely nervous individual. And I mean, his style was more, which I mentioned earlier, he was right about 80% of the time, but he had very small gain. And it, it depends. It really depends on your personality and what, what you're most comfortable doing. What I mentioned earlier, the two extremes are, you know, with very small stops and very large gains, but like you're going to be wrong a lot or much wider stops, where you're going to be right more often in the trade longer. It's a much slower pace, easier way to go. And it depends entirely on your personality. And there's no, like I said earlier, right or wrong answer. That's just something everyone has to figure out, you know, on, on their own. What style of trading will I most be comfortable where I can sit and do this and not mean, not be nervous and still make money, or, you know, I also don't want to be bored. I mean, a lot of trading is boring, you just sitting in front of the screen and nothing's happening. So it's, you know, kind of a balance between not being nervous, but not being bored and figuring that out for yourself. Yeah, yeah, I mean, there's so many, there's so many. One that I used to do, I used to take a third off at 2R. And actually, this is pretty good. I just got tired of doing it. I used to take a third off at 2R, a third off at 4R, and then I would trail the rest on 15 minutes to this and every once in a while you go a really, a really big play. So it all depends on your objective. And that's actually a good place to start. I mean, I think it's important for everyone at some point to sit down and ask themselves, why am I doing this? And what is my objective? Is it to get rich? I mean, you certainly could. Is it just to provide an extra income? Is it, you know, just to have some fun, you know, with a few plays and stick to that objective and then write down a plan around that objective, how that can be meet, how that can be met. Because sometimes I have found that people, they just want to have fun and they're trying to make a lot of money and then those two things collide and end up being a disaster. It's important to know your objective, why you're doing this. And a lot of people have never considered it, you know, that what it is, but you're trying to accomplish here. And trading, it can accomplish almost anything if you allow it. I mean, it's, I think Jimmy Rogers once said that when he was younger and starting out, you guys know Jimmy Rogers still on TV every now and then, he said, I wanted to make a lot of money and Wall Street seemed to have plenty of it. And that's, that's just true now today as it ever was. But, you know, but there's other people trading too and they also want to make money. And every time, you know, this is pretty much a shorting only trading room. Every time you're shorting something convinced it's going to go down, somebody's buying it from you convinced that it's not. And, you know, it's like I said, it can often be a street fight. Yeah, yeah, Diane, I, I don't know. I mean, I think I have pretty decent commission rates. I mean, really better than it better than ever. So, and I tend not to trade a lot. So, that's, that's never really been, you know, too much of a concern. Okay, it's now 1205. Getting ready to, to end for the day. I'm going to turn it back over to Melissa. Yeah, thanks. Thanks everyone for the participation and questions and you know, and, you know, I enjoyed being here and I hope Melissa asked me back again. Hey, Tom, that was great. Thank you so much. I have a couple little questions here. I think you missed Jerry's question. Maybe you can just write it in the room, Tom. He's saying, did you say that the R concept or the can slim concept took you from being an average trader to being a superior trader? Maybe you could just type in the room there and answer Jerry's question here. Let me flop it so you can see it here. Copy and paste it there. And, you know, I think it's really great. Hard to go ahead. Yeah. Yeah, I'll answer Jerry's question. No, by the time I learned can slim, I hadn't yet heard of the R method. I mean, my first stock I ever bought was in 1981, which was Delta Airlines. And I remember the next day after I bought it, I couldn't believe I bought $50 on a position because I'd never actually owned anything that lost value. And, and then like I said, I went through a long, you know, we had just a huge full market in 1982. That is not even as I was, I felt like caught it. I just didn't play it right. And that was, I just noticed the market tend to the bottom every four years. And so I spent much of the 80s just, you know, making money, losing money, making money, losing money, and just never really seemed to get anywhere. And the IBD was started in 1984. And I always thought they had a rather unique approach. And I finally took a trial subscription in 1988, and they sent me their free book. And when I read what he was suggesting, I I actually put the book down. I thought it was impossible to do because what he was, what Bill O'Neill was advocating was to sell anything once it goes 8% below your entry price. And the reason I felt I couldn't do it was virtually every stock I'd ever owned fell 8% as I bought it. I thought I would just, you know, do nothing but losers. But what ended up happening, I didn't understand the concept. And in 1991, we had the great biotech healthcare stock boom. And it wasn't as, you know, as crazy as the internet bubble, but it was close. I mean, anything with biotech soared back in those days, they were going to save us all. And I began to realize because I began to see what O'Neill was was talking about, because one of the ones that met the can swim criteria back then, and he would talk about it, he said about TV program. And they talk about it every time. And it was not broadcast that much. And it wouldn't affect the stock was Amgen. Amgen had just come out with their first two new drugs. And really it was the first commercially available biotech drugs. And the stock went up like 3-400%. And US Surgical was another huge winner that eventually got bought out. And I began to see that his concept of buying a stock just as it was about to begin its exponential move made a whole lot of sense. Because what had happened in the past is I was taught just to buy things when they're down. And I had found over and over again, I'm buying these things when they're down. I just kept going lower. And you can do that, but you just, you know, you just can't jump in and buy something because it's down. And you need to have some sort of knowledge or education. And like there were no charts, although in the late 80s, we started getting them. And by 1992, I was a, I had become a full-fledged believer in the canceling method. Because I mean, there were a lot of huge, and I, you know, like the gap stores had just an enormous move in the 80s and a lot of retail stocks. And I missed them all. And the reason you missed, most people will miss the, you know, the big moving stocks because they're always thinking it's too high. And the thing is, though, they keep, they often keep going higher. Even Amgen, after its 400% move in the early 90s, it went sideways for five, six years and then took off again. And some of these companies can really be quite amazing. So that's what, to answer Jerry's question, what changed things for me is to understand what it meant to be part of a company that has new products that just everybody wants and or needs. And these things can really, you know, keep going for a long, long ways. And that changed everything. So hope that answers it. Okay, back to Melissa. Great, Tom. Thanks. So that was very interesting. I thought it was really important when Tom talked at the beginning about careers that people make a lot of money in when he was giving an example, why do people make a lot of money in these things? In reference to doctors and lawyers, it's because people don't want to go to school for that length of time. It takes to get to the point to get the job to make the money in the career or in reference to trading. People don't want to do the work to learn the necessary information or be disciplined enough to do the right things to get to the point to make the money. They're just not committed. And we've talked about that before. That was a great, great example to talk about, Tom. Really, really good. Same thing with the crab fisherman or whatever people don't want to do. But you know, Travis is saying he thinks one of the obstacles can be for people that they have to discover themselves in the trading. And yeah, I guess you do. If you don't know yourself really well, trading will certainly bring to light things that you're good at and things that you're not. And this is another reason why people struggle with trading as well. And some people end up excelling and becoming not only good traders, but more amazing people because they are willing to discover themselves. They are willing to make the necessary changes to improve their trading and then their own life or their personality or their habits or whatever it may be and grow through the process. It's just like anything else. You know, two people are married. They're married for 10, 15 years. Then they start to grow apart. Can the marriage come back together and be healed? Yeah, maybe. If the people are willing to make the commitment to do the work and work through it and grow through the process of change. But as individuals, when you're married, for example, there's a commitment there, people grow. They grow in different directions. Sometimes people are not willing to continue growing with the person, make the commitment to evolve into something bigger and better and stronger and then people get divorced. So, you know, this is how it is. You do have to understand yourself well, I think, to be a trader. And if you don't understand yourself well, it certainly will bring to light a lot of the things about your personality or positive things about you or things about you that need improvement. And we talked about this before. We've talked about this in the wealth class. We've talked about this in other classes. Most people don't want to examine themselves. They don't want to look in the mirror and examine themselves. It's a lot easier to say, oh, that market, I hate that market. Oh, that stock didn't work. Oh, I knew that thing wasn't going to go down. Oh, that person over there, this, that, the other thing. It's much easier to point the finger, you know, at something else outside of ourselves rather than look within and say, wait a minute, maybe I need to make some changes here. Maybe I need to figure something out. Maybe it's something that I'm doing and that if I change and make improvements, then I will get better. I think it's hard for people to do self-examination. I do it all the time. I do it all the time. Tom knows this. So, you know, it's one of these things that you do have to do as a trader. A lot of people aren't willing to do that. So then they never make it over the next step to the next level, to the next hump. You're welcome, Jerry. So thank you for having Tom as the guest speaker. Tom likes to talk on a lot of different topics and always has very interesting opinions. And so it's great to have someone talk about things and Tom's so experienced about things in reference to trading and investing. And to talk about what David's point is making, and I think, you know, Tom was trying to answer some of David's questions. David is trying to look at trading, day trading in investment purposes as far as percentage, percentage of cost of the stock versus the stop loss amount, and then actually the profit. The unfortunate thing is, I think this is something for David to think about, day trading cannot be thought of at all like that, because if you do, it doesn't make sense. Fact. Day trading makes sense for taking the trade and making the money per ours and getting out based on the stop loss. If you were looking at the cost, for example, of staples, the cost of staples if you would have taken 15,000 shares would have been $15,340. Here, I don't know why this keeps putting this up here. And if you would have taken a thousand shares, here, let's look at this. You would have made, depending on where your exit is, approximately $440. So if you look at percentages and say, I made $440, but if you're thinking, David, percentages that you risked for 15,340, then you're never going to feel that it's worth it, because it never will be worth it in regards to that. Instead, the stop on staples, where the stop was supposed to be, meant your risk was 150. So cash per cash per hour, it makes sense. It's a good solid trade, like Tom was saying, it's 3 hours plus. But if you look at, and you say, I just risked $15,340 and made $440, you're never going to think that that's actually a good profit. There's no trade that you would ever, unless you get something that falls out of the sky and costs only five bucks. So I know you're trying to look at both those things, David, but the numbers are never going to add up for you for day trading. The only thing that it's a concerning for the position, sizing for the cost of the stock is when you have to hold it overnight. I don't do overnight. If you do, and actually Tom does. But the funny thing is, I don't think Tom ever thinks exactly about this with percentages, because Tom is still thinking about ours and about where he got it in the target. But in reference to overnight, you must be conscious of what David is saying, because you really are becoming an investor when you take an overnight position, because you're on margin. You're on margin. It's 2 to 1 margin overnight, but anything can happen. What can happen? A stocking gap against you. And then everything David's talking about, about the cost comes up. And now, like that, it could have even worse if you're in something and it gaps against you if you're not in the correct trend or the wrong direction. So it could be multiplied to the opposite effect even more. So I don't do overnight, but day trading is not investing. You can't look at it as a cost of the stock, because you will never have to actually come up with that full amount of the money if you are flat by the end of the day. Regardless of whatever margin you're on, whether you're on a 4 to 1 margin for retail account, or a prop margin when you're on a margin of 10 to 1 or more, which some people are, if your stop is in, it should take you out. And if your stop doesn't take you out, you can press the button to take yourself out. So you're not risking $15,340 when you take the stock. And if you look at the amount of money you're making to divide it by the cost of the stock, it's never going to add up to, it's never going to add up. It doesn't add up. That's not what day trading is. You can look at that for you if you want for overnights. But the thing with overnights is that not only do you have to have the cash value of the actual cost, you have to have more. You have to have more, because stocks can gap against you. That's what Tom was talking about. That's what Tom was talking about when he was talking about what happened to him back 20 years ago or whatever. He woke up one morning and these things were against him. He had to put money up into the broker account. He had a margin call. He had to deposit funds. So now only do you need the cost of it. You need more than that if you want to take overnights. So it's a whole different ballgame. But the percentage thing comes into play when you're looking at overnight. It's not with day trading. You can't look at the amount of money you make and the amount of money at the cost of the stock to pre-borrow to short or buy it. It will never fit your requirements because it doesn't. That's not the very essence of day trading. It's an income-generating thing just like Tom was talking about about a move. Whether you want to make a small move or a big move is up to you. And if it makes you feel comfortable taking a move and trailing the stock and lowering the stock and trailing it bar by bar or taking it out after you are up at least one hour or a half an hour or putting the stop at break even like Diane was saying so that you can't lose, then that should be in your trading plan and you can do it. You can do that. But the numbers won't add up for percentages with day trading in reference to the cash cost value of the stock and it doesn't matter what kind of margin you're on. And that's just the way that day trading works. Yeah, that is insane. Does that make sense? What was the common denominator in all those situations or should one ask? Are you talking about a question from Tom here, Jane? I'm talking about a question from Tom. And let me know if that answers all your questions, David, because I know you had a lot of questions there for Tom and I'm not sure if you got to all your questions either. But I wanted to address your question because it's never going to make sense for percentages with day trading. It's just never going to unless the stock falls off a cliff or has a Gymungus red bar or big green bar and then the price of the stock still has to be peanuts or it doesn't make sense. Say again, Jane, you were just saying something about what was the common denominator in all those situations. I didn't know if you were talking to me or Tom. I didn't know what you meant there. Does anyone else have any other questions for Tom? David, did Tom answer all your questions? And I hope that answered your question when I was trying to say in reference to the margin. Yes, and I talked about that, David, with this CPB trade. The exit was a double bottom. So it was there. You can protect profits by trailing bar by bar if you want or if you feel better about it, put the stop at break even and let the trade ride on down so that you don't lose in it after you're up in it, but you give it a chance to work. I mean, Tom doesn't change his stops, though. Tom really keeps his stop at the place just like I do. Tom knows that the stop has to be where it has to be if you want to give it a chance to work. So know that if you lower the stop, you may get taken out of the trade and may go on to work because if it retests the area, it may go on to work. As long as you're consistent, as long as you do something and you're consistent and it fits your personality and you go with it. See, this is why I brought Tom on to talk about these things. Because personality has a lot to do with how you money manage things. I'm lots of times looking for the big play. I was looking for the big play in CPB. I didn't get it yesterday. I didn't get it. I didn't get out on a double bottom and lo and behold, it booped against me fast. Staples today, I was looking for the big play in Staples because I saw the target in hand. I got it. I got the move and stayed in it. I stayed in it all the way down. I got it. So you have to ask yourself with your own personality, what do you want to do? You can chunk it out like Tom was saying, $200 a day, $200 a day, $100 a day, $200 a day, $200 a day is $1,000 a week. $1,000 a week is $4,000 a month. That's 50 grand a year basically. Like he was saying, some people make 50 grand a year and hate themselves and hate their life and hate their job and work 70 hours a week. You can make 50 grand a year and work an hour a day from home. So it's a nice start to a living because if you're making 50 grand one year, you should be making 100 in the next year and so on and so forth. About people growing. What's the common denominator in all the situations of people growing? What makes people grow? Why do they grow? They're forced into situations or the create situations for themselves where they actually put themselves in a situation for growth. I know I've said this before and I don't remember where or when because I forget when I say things, but the best thing that can happen to you sometimes is when this shit hits a fan. It's giving you a chance to look at your own life and examine yourself. Tom knows. Tom was my friend when I was in this process of learning and I remember Tom telling me that he said he doesn't think people can change. He didn't think that people could change and that I wouldn't get out of the bad habits that I had with my trading. At the beginning, once I started doing it, I was giving money back because I was chasing the losses. I would make money and then keep going and trade all day and I would trade every day to four o'clock constantly, constantly, constantly and Tom said, I don't think people can change and I said, really? I think people can change and lo and behold, I have changed. I don't do that anymore. I don't trade to four o'clock and so on and so forth. So you have to believe that you can change number one and you have to want to do it. Tom and I have had this discussion and he's since changed his mind and said, yeah, you're right. If people want to change, they can, but the problem is a lot of people don't. Well, he's right about that. A lot of people don't. If you want to change, you can. If you don't want to change, you won't. If you see that you need to and want to, it's amazing what can happen to you, what growth can come, better and bigger things can happen all the time. Remember the butterfly. Remember the caterpillar and the butterfly from the class. So in all honesty, you can change. Do you want to? You might not want to. If you don't want to, you won't. Do most people want to change? No. Instead, like I said, they want to blame other things, other people, the market, the gaps. And you know, this is what most people do and I'll say this and I do have to get everybody going, that the thing is people, it's easier to just do something else. So let's just say people, they have conviction in the market. They have conviction in the market. They know the market's a source of wealth. They get up in the morning, they decide they're going to learn forex. They do forex for six months. They don't even do it for six months. They do forex for three months, two months, four. They're not doing it. They're not making it successfully. It might have nothing to do with forex or the strategy they learned or anything at all. It might have to do with them, but they blame forex. They blame whatever. Then they say, forget it. I'm going to go do something else. I'm going to take another class. I'm going to learn how to trade. I'm going to learn how to do something else. I'm going to do options and then they do options. They do options for a year, a whole year they do options and they're not making money. They say, you know what? This isn't working. I hate this thing. I knew it wasn't going to work. Then they go and then they take my class and learn how to trade gaps. Do you see how it cycles around? People all have conviction in the market. They keep trying to learn different things. If they just stuck to one thing and were committed, now the thing has to work. The information has to be good. The strategy has to be solid. I have that. I've taught it to you, but you have to have a good foundation. Do you see if you go through the process how people go and they end up finding thing after thing after thing, they never get there. They never make it. They never make any money then from any market because they are unwilling to examine themselves in the situations that they're in or whatever comes up when they're doing this. Trailing stop, you can do, David. Some platforms actually have a trailing stop. You should look into that for your platform because that sounds like a good thing for you. Some have the trailing stop. I think you said you had trade station. Check. They probably have a trailing stop. This lesson has given you a better perspective. Thank you. Thank Tom. Thank you so much, Tom, for talking. It's helped brawl you a lot. He's going to defeat the fear. Fear has been a problem too and his motion is getting in the way. Gene is asking Tom about the $10 to $20 risk. Could you put it in terms of capital? How much money would Gene have to put up to risk $10 to $20? That's what Gene means. Well, the common denominator in the situations are, the common denominator is always that people are asked to change or make self-improvement and people generally don't want to do it. The change goes on you, you yourself, when you have to change and people don't want to do it. And I'm not going to sit here and lie to you and tell you in changing habits that we have or things that we need to change about ourselves is easy. It's no one says it is ever easy. But the harder you make it, the harder it'll be. The longer it takes to change, the longer you're going to stay stuck in the situation, the problem. And that's what I was saying. When the shit hits the fan, when life gets really bad, when you're doing a job you hate, you're in a relationship that sucks, you're losing a lot of money in the market. When anything, when the shit really hits the fan is when life is asking you to ante up, step up to the plate, climb to the top of the mountain and make it, do it, do what you need to do. You have two choices, succeed or fail. It's either one of those. We all have those choices. I could have quit. I could have quit. I don't know how many times I talked to the phone to Tom. I call and cry. Should I quit? Should I quit? Should I quit? Should I quit? I don't know how Tom kept talking to me. He almost would want to hung up the phone because he knew I wasn't going to quit. He knew that many times is every time I whined I wasn't going to quit. But you have to have it in you to want to do it. And if you don't want it bad enough, you will quit. If you want it bad enough, you'll do it. Just like if you want to lose weight, if you want to do anything, anything that takes work that you have to do, you have to put effort in, you have to do it. You have to do whatever it takes to get there. And this might mean you have to make some changes within yourself, within your, not your personality. You're not changing your personality. This isn't about changing the essence of who you are. This is about changing something that you're doing that isn't fitting with what you're doing with the market so that you meet the required goals. And it's about blending your personality right with a strategy that makes sense, that works in the market that has a basis of foundation that is something that's there that can pay you, which gaps are because they set up in the market on a regular basis. They have volatility in them with small stops. And whether they take small stops or big stops in the end, it doesn't matter. They can pay you if you know how to take the entry right. Where you get out is up to you. How you protect the profits is up to you. If you're, if you're chinsing and protecting profits, you're never going to get the big moose. If you want to be tight with them, you're probably going to make money more days than you lose. But some days you will be out and the trade will go on to run $2 and you won't get it. So this is where your personality comes up. Can you stand like Tom was saying, taking three losses and having one big winner? If you can't stand it, then make money three, three trades and take one small loss. But in the end, if you add it up, the person that, that, that trades correctly and gets the big move will probably end up the winner. And Tom's looked at that. He's looked at my records. He figured that out like a year ago. That, that really getting these bigger moves and things is, is the ticket. You know, but if your personality can't stand it, if he just can't stand it, then you, then you just chunk it out, chunk it out, chunk it out, chunk it out, keep the losses small, chunk it out, make money as many days as you can. And for me, it's just the conviction, the conviction of the gap. If I feel like holding something because I have so much conviction, I will. If I feel like, I feel like if the market's too bullish or it's not going to go or the target isn't that far away or something to that effect or don't have the full on conviction, then I will get that early. So for me, because at this level in that maturity, it's more about the conviction for me. But I do look at the gap rating. The gap, one gap rates 21 gaps, rates 23. Well, obviously I had more conviction. The gap there rates 23. I use my system like the checklist, like Tom was talking about with the pilot to help gauge me. Why didn't I do low today? It rated 17. Could low work? Sure. Did low work for move? Yes. Did I want to do it? No, I just didn't have the conviction. I could have made 50 cents in it with a 25, 30 cents stop. Instead I had staples. It was a better trade to set up at the same time. I wouldn't have gotten staples if I had done lows. As it turns out, I had a more profitable day in staples than I would have been low. So I let the rating tell me what to do. Yeah. I mean, I'm not saying pursue big moves all the time Diane. Yeah. I'm just saying if you really see the gap and it's setting up good and you want to do it, you know, this is where it comes to be where you have to have some level of experience with looking at gaps and rating gaps. Like I would have never had conviction to hold lows to any target at all, you know, today. Staples, I thought was going to the target, but it really was a reasonable target. Staples target there was a not a dream target by any means, but I saw it in sight and I thought that that was a reasonable thing to do. So Tom is answering Jean's question here. I think Jean wants to know how much money does he have to put up in a in a prop account in a retail account to be able to have that type of risk. I think that's maybe what Jean's asking Tom. I don't know if you can answer that forum for the amount of money as to put up an amount of risks. But you know, David brings up a good point. If you're looking at this as percentage of actual buying power when you take the trade, it sucks up your buying power. It's taking the money from your buying power of the cash you have on margin. It's taking that money. It's grabbing it so that it's using it. And if you're looking at how much you're making per the risk of the actual money it's grabbing, the percentages don't make sense for day trading. Day trading is about income generation, which is why it's about the amount of risk of the cash amount that you're taking and placing the trade, which is I'm using as an R unit and the amount of Rs I'm trying to make to make that a profitable trade. I want to make at least three on the lower end. So I'm thinking if I'm risking this much, I want to make three times that much, dollar for dollar look, but that's not the cost of the stock. You know what I'm saying? So I think that using Rs is a way to day train investing. You can look at the total cost cash of it. Yeah, let's look at, let's look at, well, well, you see it, the 34 to 90, you can figure it out is 44 cents. 44 cents. If you took 1000 shares of staples today, you risked 150. 150 times three is $450. Does that make sense, Diane? So staples is a three-hour trade. And if you did the ad, it actually would have been more. Why? Just like we're talking about with the BBRY, your cost average price would have been above it. Your cost average price would have been the 40. So it would have been a more than a three-hour trade with an ad, which I don't want to get off on a tangent here now, but that's basically the gist of it. Great, great talk today, Tom. I'm so happy you said this thing about people that do jobs that people don't want to do. Sometimes it's about education. People don't want to spend the money for education to do high-end careers or they don't want to put in the time to go to school. Trading is no different. That was a great, great example, Tom, because it is so, so true. That's why a small percentage of people that are very good traders make all the money and the rest lose. And it's always going to be that way from the end of time from now until the end of time. That's the only way that will be. So is it available for you to do successfully? Yes. Are you going to be one of the ones that makes it? I guess you have to decide. You have to decide where you fit into the bunch and what you're happy with. If you're happy chunking it out for income, for extra income every month, for a part-time job, if you're happy doing it for a career and how much money you need for that for a career, or if like Tom said, you really want to be wealthy, is it possible? Yes. Are you going to be able to do the things you need to do personally to get to that next level? I don't know. But you got to ask yourself that because you will need to do it. The one thing that I can say is when we ask more of ourselves, and this is the last thing I want to say, and then I'll let everyone go to it because we're way over time here, when you are willing to ask more of yourself, it's amazing how much better your life gets. You know, it's the same way when you fall in love with people. Sometimes you could be in a relationship, you're in love with someone or your family. They are asking so much of you. They need you. They're at a tough time in their life. They're leaning on you. They're leaning on you. They need you. They need you for emotional support. They need you for financial support. You have this person that's leaning on you. They're asking so much from you. You feel like you're so frustrated with this person in your life. You love them so much. You feel like your heart is going to burst. You never thought you could love someone that much, that you could let them lean on you that much during whatever period it's in their life. And yet you expand. Your heart expands and it grows three times the size. Your relationship with a person is better than ever. They lift themselves up through that period of the life. Sometimes this happens when people have disease. Sometimes this happens. You have a loved one. They have a disease. They need you. They need you to take care of them. They need you to pay for stuff for them. They're asking everything of you and more. They're all you got. You give it. You realize that you have more love than you ever thought you had. It's the same way with yourself. You're asking yourself to love yourself when you want and that's what it's about. You're asking yourself how much do I love myself? Do I love myself enough to give it all I got to be all I can be and more? How much do I love myself? Do I love myself enough that I will actually allow myself to be successful and do the work I need to do to get there? Do I love myself enough to attract new people into my life that are going to help me get there? Do I love myself enough to allow people to help me? Do I love myself enough to get over the self-criticism, the criticism of other people, the total, the judgment, the constant judgment that goes on that we do to ourselves and others do to us? It's about loving yourself. You're asking yourself how much do you love yourself and are you really going to love yourself enough to allow yourself to be the best person you could be, the most successful person you could be in this lifetime and as happy as you possibly can be because there's a reason you're in the situation you're in right now. If you're in one, you're not happy. So let yourself keep being unhappy or ask more of yourself and see what happens. You know? Jean says bravo. But that's my lecture for today. Great lecture though, Tom. Thank you so much. Thank you, Tom. You will definitely have Tom back. Tom can think of any topic he wants and come back and talk about it. I loved you, Tom. Tom, you're a hit. Maybe Tom will be on YouTube tonight. All right, great. If anybody has any questions, email me. Otherwise, I will see everybody back in the room tomorrow morning, bright and early at 8 a.m. Okay? Have a good night, everybody. Have a good one.