 Buy it at any price and sell it high, right? Isn't that the mantra? Buy it anywhere, sell it higher. Trading is easy, right? Unfortunately, the market doesn't do that. Welcome to Access a Trader, the number one community for those who are committed to taking control of their trading in order to achieve success, profitability, and longevity. Thank you for joining us. Here's Dan Shapiro to help you find your edge, master your process, and own your future. Hey guys, good evening everybody. Welcome to another edition of the Access a Trader.com nightly update show, weekend show, hope everybody is doing okay. We got two weeks left, folks. Santa Claus is coming to town. Kids are excited, right? Spouses are excited, families excited, families healthy, very, very important time. Again, this year could have been really messed up for a lot of people and it has been. It really has been, especially small business, the pandemic, so forth and so on. But again, it's gone, man. We're still here. We're still laughing. We're still smiling. We made it through, right? Not all the way through. There is no finish line yet. Again, the vaccine is underway. It's starting to play out. Some people are taking it so far and so far. Fingers crossed, but the point is again guys, life is going to throw curveballs at you, okay? It's never gonna be lollipops and gumdrops and daisies at the beach, okay? As we all know, life is hard only for the first 100 years, right? From what I understand. So we're going to always face adversity. It's very, very important to understand that. The faster you teach your children that at an early age that life is not fair, that things are gonna go wrong, that you might work hard and still see no results, okay? This is all part of the game and unfortunately, you have two choices. You could either embrace adversity, okay? Or you could throw all victim to it. Again, that's your only choice and trading is no different. When you first start your first two, three years, you're going to face everything. You're gonna get thrown everything including the kitchen sink and I say this all the time. If you don't think about quitting trading at least 50 times a week in your first three years, you're not human, right? You're just not. Everybody goes through it. Everybody has their self-doubts. Everybody at some point in their lives in this trading game, the first three to five years, you have that whole woes me self-pity. But again, just like in life, just like in trading, again, you have two choices. You could either fight through the difficult times, the learning curve and all that stuff that comes with it or you can be a victim to the woes me self-pity. Let me go and do something else. That's it, that's all your two choices and the unfortunate reality is life is going to mirror trading and mirror trading is gonna mirror art. The more that thick skin you have, the more work you put in, the more chances that you are going to thrive and going to be here for the long term. But again, it's all up to you. Instead of sitting there and complaining and trying to give yourself 30 different excuses why things are not working out, just accept it's all part of the learning curve. It's all part of the business. Every trader before you went through it, every trader after you is going to go through it, the difference between somebody trading for 20 years and somebody trading for 20 weeks, the person for 20 years got the kitchen sink thrown at them, okay? Took the adversity, swallowed and embraced it and moved forward. So again, for all you new traders out there, again, the hardest business in the world. Don't anybody even tell you even otherwise, the hardest business in the world. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel and time cures everything. Time cures FOMO, time cures the ability to manage risk the proper way. Time cures the idea that you are going to realize that losing money is part of the cost of doing business and another 1,000 moving parts that we can literally sit here for hours and talk about. So don't put a lot of pressure on yourself, okay? Don't expect to mirror somebody that's been trading for 15, 20, 30 years. You're in your infancy stages. Again, before any child could run, right? Run and jump and climb the monkey bars, they have to hold their head up first, right? As a baby, they have to learn how to sit up first. They have to learn how to crawl. Life is all about stages, trading is all about stages. Don't put a lot of pressure on yourself. Your time will come and you will have that aha moment. As long as you're putting in the work and you've developed thick skin, you are going to be okay in time. So I hope everybody just kind of gets a little message because I know a lot of new traders, they sit there and they doubt themselves and they think it's only them. Trust me, every trader's gone through it, you'll get through it as well. Again, just keep your head up, everything will be fine. Let's talk about the tape. So market's been on a tremendous run. We got two weeks left, the Santa Claus comes. Two weeks, roughly two, two and a half weeks under the year. 2020 has been a really aggressive year for the stock market, completely the opposite of what's been going on in the real world. And the most important part, kind of going into the last two weeks and especially going into the first quarter of 2021, is just have a level head expectations. Again, when you look at, for example, the IPO, just to give you an idea how aggressive this tape is, if you look at the IPOs, they just came public in the last several days. Airbnbs and DoorDash. Airbnbs doubled, because of the market climate, Airbnbs doubled on its first day. DoorDash was only up, only 80%. That shows you how much euphoria still is in this market. And I've said this every day now for a very, very long time. It's really important that you understand what this market is and what this market has become. What this market is, is the design for long-term investing. It really is. Day trading and short-term interval trading is man-made. It's something that we either developed or adopted as part of a core routine. So the market itself, it's not structured for a day-to-day trader. So the idea that the market has to give you something every single day is nonsense. The market's been here 200 years before, maybe even longer than that. And the point is, I'm joking, and the point is it'll be here 200, 300, 400 years unless a missile comes and a UFO is coming to kill us all, which could possibly happen in 2021. So you have to level your expectations going through this new year. You have to temper your enthusiasm a little bit. Usually IPOs that double on their first day are a byproduct of what we see in the stock market and what we've been seeing in the stock market. When you look at SPAC plays, and I didn't know what a SPAC was, right? I had no idea what a SPAC was. And somebody tried to explain to me, well, they know there's shell companies that acquire other companies. And the first thing I thought about was shell companies acquiring. First thing I thought about was Ozark. I go, you mean like what Marty Bird does? You mean like money laundering? Allegedly, right? So when you look at what SPACs are doing and you look what all these EV companies are doing, okay? It's phenomenal. It's absolutely marvelous to watch, but this is not normal. Everybody understands it's not normal. So to have the idea that this is going to continue for 2021, you know, might be a little aggressive. And the reason why I bring this up specifically now is kind of what we saw in the last three days. And this is kind of what I wanna start the update. So if everybody has been watching this broadcast, you know what the market is doing, right? The Q's broke out of this 294 level, went up 10 days in a row, had that big rug pull on Wednesday. And for the last couple of days, they've done really, really well holding this bottom range here. But in the mean process, in the meantime, the last three days, you saw a common denominator. And that common denominator was stocks were not aggressive enough to go back up, but there wasn't any fear to go down. And what that means is bulls are not ready to go up yet, but bears don't have enough ammunition to take it down. And what that's commonly known as one of the ugliest words in the trader's vocabulary. And for all you new traders, you should really hear it, okay? It's called distribution, okay? Imagine again, the bulls and bears sitting in a phone booth with pillows trying to hit each other, right? Nobody's doing any damage. The problem is this is also called the chop factor. And the chop factor will show you that bulls and bears are going to have a little bit of light in the same day, okay? You're gonna see a lot of strength in the market. You're going to see a lot of weakness in the market. And that's what we started seeing from Wednesday all the way up to yesterday. And if you notice what bait has been doing, right? The Teslas, the Amazons, the Netflixes of the world, the Apples of the world, the Facebooks of the world slowly, but surely they have their really big days. And you say to yourself, okay, this is it. They're finally gonna go on a big run. And then for the next three, four days, they sit in tight channels. And that's the biggest problem. That's the biggest problem that I've been seeing. We saw a really aggressive week this week, but the aggressive day came on Monday when Tesla finally broke out over that 600, 608 level. And then two days later, when Square really, really exploded and Roku really, really exploded. And then we had nothing, right? We had two days, like on Friday, yesterday's session for me was nothing. I lost some money on FSLI. And then my next three trades, I made some money, but very, very small scouts because everything else was bunched up in ranges. And this is a very, very, very scary area for a lot of traders that have been trading in a very aggressive market the whole year. They don't even realize what's going on, but this is the most easiest way to chop yourself up. And not the way you chop yourself up, just little scouts, little paper cuts. So you can chop yourself up to the point of you can give back a month's worth of trading, literally in a couple of days, because you're still pushing. You still have that memory of the market from a week ago, two weeks ago, how hot it is, buy it at any price and sell it high, right? Isn't that the mantra? Buy it anywhere, sell it higher, trading is easy, right? Unfortunately, the market doesn't do that. And when you go into a distribution cycle, somebody is trying to seize control of the moment. Somebody is trying to seize control of the interval. The problem is that usually lasts for about a week, right? We're about three days in. So distribution can show you come Monday morning a really hot open and then fade away for the rest of the day or a really big gap down and start grinding back the rest of the day. Again, strength and weakness in the same day. So if you look at a channel, and again, we speak about technicals. We don't speak about what happens if. We speak about technicals where the market is. And if you look at the NASDAQ composite via the QQQs, you'll notice we have three days in a row of lower highs, right? And again, like I said, on Wednesday's update, don't lose your minds, okay? The reason why we had that really, really big pull in the Qs, because the Qs were up 10 days in a row. So this wasn't an area for us to turn around and say, that's it, this is the top of the market, it's time to go short. It's not, we're not even close to that. Matter of fact, we're still way above this channel here that broke out above the 294. So until we actually close above the 294, that should raise some eyebrows. And again, look at this long-term distribution that's going on on the 50-day moving average. So until that happens, again, the bulls will always get the benefit of the doubt. Can you get a rug pull here and there? Of course, and you should always be conscious of that. But the idea that you turn around and say, well, this is the market reversal, I think you're getting a little head of yourself and this is exactly what happened on Thursday's session when people thought we were gonna have day two. And all I kept on saying is until we actually confirm that day two, again, go calmly. Don't overthink, let them price action talk to you. And they held in the last two days, putting green candles, which basically means they're higher closes than opens. So we have a definitive line that we have to see going into this week, right? The bulls need to reclaim this 304 level on the queues and the bears need to reclaim this 298. This is our channel and here's going to be the problem. When you have a channel that is that narrow, it's gonna need some time to get out. Now I think we're day three, maybe day three going into Monday's session. Usually what happens in distribution is they're gonna go sideways instead of go up and down, up and down, up and down. And especially for all you new traders, you're gonna go through several things. Number one, you're gonna give back a day very, very quickly if you don't realize what's going on here. You're gonna give back a day, then you're gonna give back two days. And then it's not even to realize what's happening and you're gonna start pushing and pushing. I'm here to tell you we're in distribution right now. So your level of activity needs to be, especially if you're an intraday trader, your level of activity needs to be a little bit pulled back. You can't put on 20 trades in a distribution cycle. Matter of fact, if you look at Friday's action, every trade that literally I was in was going up 30, 40 cents and coming right back in. And I made a joke about it, I go, can anything stay up more than two minutes? That's what she said, right? So this is the market that we're in. And especially for all you guys who are trading on the option side and you've been buying premium for weeks and weeks and months and months. Well, what do you think is gonna happen in the distribution cycle when Amazon's trading at an $8 range? Netflix is trading at a $2 range. Facebook isn't trading at a $2 range. Your premium goes to hell in a hand basket just like that, okay? So you have to understand the dynamics of this market. There's a difference between when you hear social media people turn around and say, well, you gotta sit on your hands, cash is a position, right? That's a crutch of saying when the market goes down, they don't really know what to do. And there's a lot of people, unfortunately, use that crutch as cash is a position when the market heads down. And unfortunately, they don't have the process to capitalize, but that's a whole different conversation. When you're in a distribution cycle, there's a difference between cash sitting on your hands because of lack of process or waiting patiently for the distribution cycle to kind of end. But again, like I said, it usually does end within a week, okay? Usually there's a side, they finally seize control in the natural course of the action continues in that matter. But again, it's not a sign of weakness that you're waiting for this to play out. It's a sign of maturity, okay? And you have two choices you could either completely say, forget about what this idiot's saying, which is what my wife says, right? Or really just think about what I mean. I mean, I'm going on my 21st year, I've kind of seen this movie before. It's like watching Scarface 30 times, right? Believe me, Tony dies at the end, spoiler alert, right? Tony doesn't retire on a beach in Costa Rica. He dies, right? So as many times as you watch the movie, the same scenario plays out over and over again. We're in distribution. Take this advice, leave this advice, that's up to you. But until the cues reclaim, okay, 304 or the bears reclaim 298, you're going to be stuck in the cycle. So what do you do, right? Logically, what do you do? Number one, like I said a few minutes ago, take down your level of aggression, tier size, right? If you're not supposed to be trading full size in a distribution model, because number one, again, there is no aggression, there is no fear. Number two, scalp, right? It's a dirty word. I know a lot of people look down on it, right? Especially the longer term investors. I know you guys are so cool holding something for 30 years. I get it, I get it. But the rest of us deviants, right? The rest of us degenerates and heathens that actually trade the intraday market, it's actually pretty cool, right? It's not the worst thing in the world. So for all of us idiots, the rest of our idiots that love to kind of trade intraday channels, just understand the range on a Netflix won't be $12 for the day, won't be $18 for the day. It might be three. So if you get 50 cents to a dollar, take some off. It goes up another dollar, two dollars, take some off. And if you are lucky, the distribution channel ends maybe it does go up $10. But again, we can't anticipate that. So you have to be in cash flow mode this week. Long, short, whatever the case may be. Again, if you're trading these crazy $3 stocks go up $9 in a day, this isn't for you. My advice, this isn't for you. I'm talking about for the people who are trading beta who do trade technology names, the Microsofts, the Apples. Again, the $2 stocks are gonna do and if that's your thing, that's your thing. This really has nothing to do with you. But anybody who trades any type of technology, your semiconductors, your internet names, the Tesla's of the world, right? We have to curb our enthusiasm until these channels really start to reclaim. And if you're trading on the option side, don't even think about buying premium. I'm not telling you to sell premium either. But the idea that you're buying something $20 out of the money during a distribution cycle, you might as well just give your money to charity. There's a 10% chance that your premium, unless there's some crazy PR that comes out overnight, that's gonna make your trade hold. So it's an ugly situation, but it happens all the time, right? Distribution does happen, what, three, four times a year. It feels like once a quarter. It only lasts about a week, okay? And again, you have two choices. Either really understand that this is happening and say to yourself, well, you know what? Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday might be a little bit less aggressive. I could either trade or trade responsibly or forget about what this guy just said and just keep on pushing and pushing and pushing, okay? And again, you might not feel it monetarily, okay? Maybe you'll have a couple of paper cuts, but sitting around and waiting for distribution to end is mentally exhausted. By the time two o'clock, 2.30 came around on Friday, I was burnt out, man. I didn't even wanna look at the market. I didn't care about the market by 2.30. I was so tired of waiting. Because again, it takes so much effort to scalp for such a short period of intervals what we saw on Friday, 20 cents, 30 cents. It's so difficult that it's mentally exhausting. It's almost like getting hit with a monster drawdown. That's the same thing. So it took me literally 15 hours to kinda get back to normal, to kinda get my battery reduced. So it's very, very important to kinda understand going into this week. If you look at the indexes this week, they're not gonna paint the picture. Everything is down 1%, a little less than 1%. I do like the fact that the NASDAQ 100 held the cues, right? Held this bottom range here. But again, like I said, they either need to reclaim 304 on a close or the bears need to reclaim 298. And the moral of the story is again, patience is a virtue and you will get rewarded if you let this distribution channel kind of play out. Other than that, again, very aggressive week on Monday, very aggressive day on Wednesday. And then you had, Tuesday was okay. And then you had several days that were just really, really mentally challenging. Like Friday for me, yesterday for me, it was just so damn slow. But again, there's nothing you can do about it. There really isn't. And part of this whole trading journey is that you have to understand the times to really, really get aggressive and put your foot down on the pedal and time to kind of scale it back. And this is one of those times. This is one of those times until we get those levels confirmed one way or another. So going into this week, again, Disney looks amazing, right? I believe they're coming out with some sort of new Star Wars stuff. So any dip on Disney needs to be bought. If you look at Disney had a monster on. And oh, by the way, okay, here's a point when people talk about somebody always knows something, somebody always knows. Two and a half weekly calls. The problem with that is that was $9 out of the money. So somebody always knows something. So I like Disney on any dips, especially if you can get into the 169, 170 area. I think it's a pretty good area to come back here. Tesla, again, what a fantastic job. And it really does show you the demand for Tesla shares. They absorb this offering within three days. Again, Tesla needs for Tesla to wake up. And again, I see these incredibly aggressive out of the money bets, millions of dollars. And I get it, but until that happens, it really needs to clear out this channel. Okay, you need to go back. And again, you still all throughout the week, the 650s, the 700 weeklies, and they all expired, obviously worthless. So there's a lot of money being bet. But again, guys, remember before you can run, you need to be able to sit yourself up, be able to crawl and then slowly to walk. And again, needs to take out this channel here. So going into this week, you know, I'm dealt the neutral. I really am. Again, we have two weeks left in the year. I'm not in any hurry to recreate the wheel. The action this year has been phenomenal. And again, I hated to admit this for the first half of the year, but yeah, it's pretty comparable.com. And for all you guys who traded during 99 and 2000, I think everybody has to admit it by now. This is, if it's not.com action, it's pretty damn close and just really, really aggressive action. So going into this week, again, when you look at the other ETFs, IWM is holding up very, very well. Again, the small cap names, the rotation has been absolutely phenomenal. If all you guys who do trade these small and mid cap names, I mean, you see it. I mean, the market's been really, really blessing this year. Hopefully again, just keep on taking advantage of it. The Dow continues to be, you know, kind of stuck in this channel. But again, when you're stuck in the channel at all time highs, it's not really the worst thing in the world. The biotechs, again, with all this Pfizer news, right? Pfizer news and AstraZeneca, I think came out buying out Alexion. You know, the bios look really, really good. Again, now from the Main Street part of America or actually Main Street part of the world, now we need these vaccines to be rolled out. We need these vaccines to be good, right? And with very limited, you know, very limited side effects. And, you know, if the 2021, my biggest request is, number one, to stay healthy and happy, right? But number two is just to kind of go back to life, you know, take the little things that we took for granted for years and years and years, just going to a ball game, right? Just doing anything, the little things that we took for granted, but now we desperately want back. So again, guys, we have two weeks left in the year. Stay very, very patient, stay very, very calm. Again, screen time, just time in general will make you a better husband, better wife, better parent, and especially a better trader. Guys, God bless you all. Love you, everybody. And with God's help, I'll see you on Monday. Take care.