 Welcome. This is Melissa Armo with the Stock Swoosh and I'm going to talk today about the value of getting a trader education. Visit me if you have any questions. You can feel free to call me or email me at Melissa at thestockswoosh.com or 929-3200 Gap. You can also follow me on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or Skype. If you learn how to trade for yourself and invest for yourself, it's the greatest job in the world because you can work from your home and you are your own boss and you can set your own schedule. Again, the US stock market is only open from 930 to before, but it's not like you have to sit at your desk for that entire period of six and a half hours either. So it really is a very nice job. Also, you have weekends off. When you choose to learn what to do, how to trade, how to take positions in stocks, how to invest, it really is getting education just like you would go to college or any university and it's a gift to yourself. You're investing in yourself which is very, very, very important. I think a lot of people don't realize how important it is to invest in your own education before you risk any money in the market. Why? Because if you don't know what you're doing, you'll lose. You hear stories all the time about how people lose money in the market because they just take trades or calls or things they see on the internet or read an article or read a blog. A lot of people jump around to open houses. I require people to take my class before they join my live trading room. Although you can trial my open house, I suggest people just come and watch, see if you think it's something you might be interested in. It really is important to invest in yourself and really you're investing in your own success and that's a great investment. You should think of yourself as the best investment you could possibly make which is you. This is a gap that happened which was really quite a phenomenal call because the fact is the stock closed to your gap down and we shorted this. When you look at this, when you see the size of the tail, you say woo because the size of the tail was big. Some people want longness. The fact is it was a short. This is what you've learned in my course from me. How to determine whether something's a long or short because if you went long this, you lost. Here you can see here the drop-off. A short is for those people that don't know. When you're taking a position in the stock and you're betting that it's going to go down, the price is going to drop. That's what a short is. So in this case here, we got in this and it dropped. Boom. More than two bucks. Really nice move here in the big and again, you would never have known how to do this correctly unless you took my course because a lot of traders, a lot of people would look at this chart and think that this was a long. It was not a long, it was a short. How to make money in the market? You've got to get in the right direction. You're not going to make money if you don't take a stock in the right direction. If it goes in the opposite direction, you're going to lose. So that's why it's important to learn how to take a stock in the right direction. Anyways, it's a lot less stressful also when you follow someone. So I do run a live trading room. I do make the calls, entry, stop, exit, targets, the stock picks I'm looking at. Usually two or three a day we're watching. It's a lot less stressful when you're following someone and learning helps you. It helps you make money. It's just common sense. Learn from someone that knows more than you. Again, same philosophy, same concept of going to a university or a school. But ultimately the bigger picture is really to not only to get your return and investment in the education that you would pay for, but also just the long-term benefits. Long-term benefits meaning you learn a system, which in my case again, if you come to me would be the golden gap system that you can use for the rest of your life. And that's the idea. Although many people would prefer to be slowly in pain losing a little bit of money slowly, slowly, slowly day by day and week by week and month by month and year by here in the market versus invested education up front in one chunk. I don't know why. I don't know why people think like this when I'm telling you they do. Somehow people like the idea of dragging out the pain or cost to trade rather than saving themselves time by just paying for education and learning. And then beginning making money ASAP, which a lot of people do right after they take my course. Like I said, they join the room after the class, take the trades. So many people would rather go through the slow pain of losing their accounts rather than pay for education. But is the pain less? Are the losses slow? One man I spoke to about my class is a story that is unfortunately a sad story. In September, he didn't do the class who said he was going to. He didn't. He had $20,000 as a trading account. He said, well, I don't have enough money to take your class. I'm going to wait. I'm going to wait. He did have enough money. He had 20 grand. My class is $6,000 and he could have still traded. Then I followed up with him the next month and he lost half his account, lost $10,000 in a month. That's a lot of money to lose in the market in a month and it was half his account. And then he said he didn't have enough money to take my class and he really still did. He still had $10,000. He still could have paid $6,000 for the class and he still could have traded. But he didn't. I haven't talked to him in months. So the bottom line is that you will lose in the market if you don't know what to do. That is just a fact. And when you're looking at all the different things out there, all the different educational courses out there, all the different types of strategies you can trade, I'm telling you, you have to find something that's a niche. So what I do is a niche. I have a niche. My niche is gaps, but it's also, it is gaps really. That's the biggest niche is gaps, but it's also the fact that I pinpoint in the gap where institutions are buying or selling. That's my niche. The other niche that I have is I don't deviate. I don't do anything at all. I don't incorporate other systems or other strategies in what I do. Nothing. I only, only focus on this. Okay. And then the other thing that I have that's a niche is I'm extremely good at trading and reading the one minute chart in the first half hour of the day. In fact, I'm so good that I don't think anyone can do it better than me. So when we take trades and I'm looking at something I can tell right away, right in the first half of the day and sometimes the first minute, whether something's going to work or not. And so we are aggressive in our trades, but that's how we make money and in and out quick. Okay. So I have a, I have a couple niches and that's what I really think is very important when you're making a decision to learn about how to trade the market. You have to find someone that's an expert. So those are my niches. I should make a list of all the things that I'm really good at, but and also the market. I mean, I've called the market just extremely well too, but the market is something that we don't trade every day. You look at it, if it's a good gap, we'll trade it. But honestly, I've been calling a lot of options calls in the market, but reading the market is important, I think just overall to make you a better trader. And if you have retirement accounts, you know, you're looking at your 401k, things like that. Anyway, it's getting back to what I was saying here. While it's true that not all trading education out there is good, it is also true that not all trading education is bad. It's not. I have a great class. It's a fabulous class. It's worth the money. It's worth more. Okay. So I understand that not every trading educational class out there is good. I understand that, but it doesn't mean consequently that all education is bad. The problem is that people never are sure if they will learn enough to cover the cost of the education. They feel like they're losing by paying for education. Meanwhile, they lose in the market year after year and usually way more than the education costs that they paid for. Even if they add up every class they ever took, most people lose more money in the market. So what should people do? And how should people think about making educational choices? Should people trade without any education or not? No, they should not. Is it better to slowly lose money in the market rather than paying for education? No. A slow death is not good of your account or your finances. In fact, it's harder. Is it better for people to slowly lose money? No. People that don't make money, will they ever figure out how to train on their own? It's rare. I can't say the fact that I was lucky, but I guess in some sense that I was, but I was more very determined. I'm extremely determined. I persevered. I was very determined and I did it and I figured something else on my own with my own live money. I didn't train on a demo figuring out the system I did with live cash. That was very difficult, but that's the right way to do it. Most people can't do it. Most people can't afford to do it. They can't afford the time. They can't afford the money to do what are figured out. Most people can't. So while you could attempt to determine and calculate your own strategy, you probably won't be able to because it's a rare thing that someone can do it. And really, because the market can beat you up when you don't know what you're doing and you're trying to figure something else on your own. And you won't figure it out right unless you do it with real money. Training on a demo is not the same as real cash. And that's what makes it hard when you're figuring out your own system. So I find a lot of people take a little bit of this, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and they say, well, I figured it out, but they take a little bit of this, a little bit of that, a little bit of this from something else. And it's not really anything new. It's a combination. Combinations don't work. And I've realized actually just recently this year that combining what I know and you would come and learn from me doesn't work with anything else. You really have to focus strictly on what I teach you if you want to benefit, if you want to do well, if you want to profit. Mixing it up with other things is problematic. Most of the information out there that people teach about trading isn't correct or not enough, not enough information for you to make money. One of the reasons I created my own system was because I was learning a little bit of this, a little bit of that, I said, and nothing worked consistently. Nothing, it was not enough. It was information, but it didn't make me money. So I said, screw this, I'm going to figure out something of my own. And I knew there was something to gaps. I just, I just knew it. Okay. So 2019, it's definitely going to be a very volatile year. It's people may not think that now, but it's only February. So trust me, what I say, it's going to be one of those years that you're going to want to trade and make money. Okay. And if you don't know how to do it again, what's going to happen to you're going to lose. So there's like this 90, 90 role, 90% of the people lose 90% of their money in the first 90 days when they start to trade. And you don't want to be part of that statistic. You do not want to be part of that statistic. So you have to learn how to do it from someone that knows what they're talking about. Don't lose your hard earned money in the market. You're going to regret it. Okay. You're never going to learn how to trade, but watching a million free videos. Not even mine, because I don't give the information that's worthwhile for free. You have to pay me for it. It's worth something. My time is worth something. Okay. Well, you may pick up this thing here or there. As far as the stocks that I'm watching, you're never going to learn my system until you take the class. And you won't get the calls on the live day to make the money unless you do the class to join the room. So that's, that's where it's at. And a lot of people just throw money at trades. Oh my gosh, Bitcoin is the worst. I mean, I can tell you so many stories of people I talked to that risk money in Bitcoin two years ago and then lost it all. Everyone was jumping and thinking that was the best next thing. No, you know, stocks are very reliable. I find trading the US market is reliable. I find there's a, there's a reliability to it. There's a consistency to it. It is something that you can learn how to do. Okay. And it's always going to be around. So I teach my classes called the golden gap course. You learn the 26 points. How do I determine what I'm going to trade each morning and look at? And so learning from a teacher is value. The teacher is me. I'm a very good teacher. You know, I do the class, like I said, in a regular basis. And it reminds me every time I do it, how great my system is. And then it reinforces it and confirms it and gives me the own conviction to continue to do well myself. So how much money do you need to trade the golden gap? Well, you need the $6,000 for the class that you need, which you pay upfront and then do the class in two days. Then you also need what you need to have a trading account to be able to actively take trades. Now you can set up the account after the class. You can trade in a demo if you want for the first few weeks or even the first month till you get used to it and then open an account. You would open an account at a broker. You can open a prop account or retail account. Some places require only $2,500. Some places at retail require $25,000. $2,500 would be a prop account. And Google it online is called proprietary day trading. There's lots of places out there for both to use. You can use anyone you want. Okay. So the class, my system is called the golden gap course. You will learn everything in my two day course on how to do the gaps. The class is February 23rd and 24th, nine to five Eastern time. Class of the class is $59.99 classes online. It could be anywhere in the world and take it. Just email me if you want to sign up. Deadline for this week's class is February 22nd. Trends course is February 25th. I don't do this class all the time. You get the combo deal. If you sign up for both, save $500. The trends course is for long-term trades, swing trades and will help you with your day trading. If you want to learn this month and start trading, it's still very early in 2019. You can do it. Email me at melissa at thestockswish.com to register. Have a great day, everyone.