 Something can have great news, but if the market is not hot, you know, I'm trying to say it's like a small detail in a big equation. That's kind of how I think of it. And it's fun, right? It's just fun to find these hot plays, see them explode. It's kind of like we're treasure hunters looking for the next big win. What's up everybody? We're back with the After Hours podcast. Today we have Dan Irish. Dan is famously known for trading small caps and making millions well-doing it. He's a killer long trader, so I'm really excited to hear from him. So Dan, thank you for coming on today. Thanks for having me, guys. Of course, Dan, of course. It's awesome. So Dan, for those that are not familiar with you, could you just briefly walk us through how you got into trading? Sure. So around 2017, I was kind of struggling with college and just didn't really know, you know, the life path. Everybody was telling me I got to go to college and part of me always knew that it just wasn't going to work out for me. Just nothing really interested me. I tried to go into accounting and finance, things like that. And, you know, I kind of was into it, but it just didn't, it wasn't enough for me, just didn't really stimulate the brain the way I wanted. So I looked into alternative life paths and I found Tim Sykes on YouTube. You know, that rabbit hole, there's just tons and tons of videos about that. And that pretty much inspired me to give it a try. It's crazy, man. Everyone started the same way with Tim Sykes. It's just like he was that guy back then that just got everyone hooked. That's crazy. So like, I know Tim Sykes is kind of famous for the shorting, the pump and dumps and for doing all that stuff. So because you got started with Tim, what kind of got you to go to the long side of trading rather than the short side? Well, for me, it was always, I just wanted the most, what I considered the most simplistic approach. And for me, it was just always, if I can buy something and it can go up multiple times, if I short something, well, I can only make, you know what I'm trying to say, like it can only go down the max amount of the stack, but it could squeeze like multiple times. And I just figured, well, there's a lot more risk doing that. And I'm just going to focus on long trading because I just think less stress and just that's just what I wanted to do. That's awesome. Did you find success right away? Or was it like one of those things that took you like a couple of years or something like that to find that consistency? It took me a couple of years for sure. I tell people that I probably, you know, when it comes to natural ability, I just, I don't have that. I'm saying I just don't. The type of person, it takes me a long time to get things, but then when I do get them, I can get them pretty good because I'm kind of a grinder. I'll grind many hours to kind of get better at something. And then I'll try to perfect my craft. And yeah, so it was really tough. I started with real money. I lost a portion of it. I mean, I started with like 20, 28K account because I wanted to get over PDT rule. I lost, you know, half of it and then ended up paper trading for six months. And just, you know, I was just like, well, I might as well just approach it like I'm going to college or something like I'm just going to not make money doing this, but I'm going to focus all my energy on it like a full-time job and just practice. And that's what I did. And it was really important for me. That's awesome. Yeah, no, that's super cool. And your style is more so like getting in before the pump. Like I don't really know another trader that is just so good at being able to time things and just be like in a situation where you're just always, you seem to always be in the right spot. So what was it that you kind of like tracked and learned early on to be able to put yourself in those positions consistently? Well, for me, it was about finding all of the details. Like there's a lot of little details, little things that I picked up on that I was able to feel like over time, you can just feel, okay, these details are leading to this event or this type of risk-reward ratio. And so that's what it was about. It's a, this strategy has a low success rate. So I think my win rate is right now, it's 37%, which is it's really bad. I mean, when I was, when I was consistent and trading a lot better, it was around 41%, which I know that's like, Oh, that's like really 37 to 41. What's the difference? But it's, it's a kind of an overall theme. I mean, I just before I go into anything else, I should just mention that I did have a lot of success during the major bull market run, right? And then I got distracted with things because you make, you become successful and then you have money and then you can invest, like I invested in a house, for example, and fix the ruppers. So a lot of my time and energy went into that and it's like life in a way, it gets complicated when you do succeed. So then I have to balance and juggle all these new, new things, right? And so I got distracted. And so that's why, if you look at my profit, a Y, which I have linked on my Twitter bio, you can see I've been chopping around for basically the last two years. So I am coming from a place where I have struggled recently. So just keep that in mind that I'm, you know, that's just something I'm dealing with is trying to get my consistency back. Makes sense. Makes sense. They say more money, more problems. So I think that's the perfect example. Can you walk us through what your daily routine is like now and kind of your trading process now? Sure. So in the morning, well, see, recently I've noticed that a lot of things are moving in after hours in pre-market and they're moving in nice ways to where I think it's worth getting up early at the moment. So I'll be, I'm up at like, I got my alarm set to 6.50 a.m. I'll try to wash up, get as ready as I can get and then be at the computer at seven, you know, for, because on E-Trade the pre-market opens at 7 a.m. And then I'll either sell a position that I swung. If it gapped up, I'll sell it usually. Or I'll just, I'll just start looking around for, for news and I always go through the news scanner. I'll type in some keywords like I like to watch for upcoming splits, reverse splits. So I'm always kind of looking and then, of course, if something's on the percent gain scan, I'll click every single ticker because I want to open it up and I want to see what's up. And it's a lot of just being aware of every single possibility. If that, you know what I mean? It's just kind of planning and just being aware of what's going on that day and getting prepped. That's awesome. I mean, I just wanted to kind of touch back on, I know you mentioned that you were having like some struggles over the past like two years or so or just kind of chopping around. How do you deal with that mentally and still have like kind of the willpower to like wake up every morning and like get to the desk and say, you know, I'm going to continue this process? Yeah, I think now it's almost like I've backtracked. I feel mentally, I feel more similar to when I first started trading now than I have ever before in my career as far as the lack of confidence in yourself because, you know, it is tough. It is tough to chop around like that. It's tough to have these massive upswings and then massive downswings. It's like, I question myself, what am I doing? Like I got to get it together. And a lot of it, it's, it is on me. I know that there are things that I'm doing and ways I'm acting and habits that I've formed. I know aren't good. And it comes back to I'm comfortable, right? As far as monetary, like I have a home, I've got money, enough money in the bank to be comfortable. That's not always a good thing though, because I'm just too, I'm too just everything's all good, right? Well, that doesn't really lead to hunger for, for success for, you know what I mean? I've lost some of that hunger, some of that discipline. And I think that's what it really comes down to. Yeah, no, that makes sense. And, you know, I followed you for a long time on Twitter and social media and all that. And I've always noticed that you've been someone to use size, you know, you use some pretty good like share size when like longing these things or swinging these things. Is that something that that confidence took a hit also? Like, or is it something that you just, is it hard for you to kind of downsize a little bit now and like to gain that momentum again? Or is it something that you're just going to keep going at it like you are? I should, I should definitely size down. I think that I am using too big of size. It just comes down to lack of discipline. Like it's, again, I know I should size down, but I'm not because the truth is I like that rush of using big share size. And it's, especially with kind of my style, it is hard to, to scale up with our size because you do have to guess a lot. You do have to anticipate these things. And using big size, it just opens you up to a lot of variance. I've also noticed that when I use big size, for whatever reason, it's like I become more attached to the position. It's like, as it's going up, I've got this big chunk and it feels so good, right? And I just don't want to let it go. I don't want to lock in profits. So there's been a lot of that. It's like, Oh man, I just love this big position. I just won't let it go. And that's a problem for me as well. So using smaller size, it is a big reason why I was so consistent. And I might have to just go back to kind of, and I say small, but it's really wasn't even small. I mean, I was still making great money. Like I just, you know, it's just, I'm at this point where I'm just maybe chasing the dopamine a little bit too, a little bit too much. Yeah. I mean, Alex talks about that all the time. It's hard once you're familiar with like large size tech, you see those massive profits and it's like, you almost feel like it's a slap in the face to go back down, but like really sometimes the best thing for you. Yeah. I'd like to kind of go over, can you guys see my screen for this one? Yeah. I'd like to kind of go over this trade because this was like a really what I would consider like a very like well executed trade that you did. Could you maybe kind of like walk us through your thought process on this one? Okay. Just load it up. This is a OPGN, right? Yeah. Yeah, sure. So let's see. It would be easier for me if I could share my, my screen. Okay. So we got share screen. We need like an IT department here for these. I don't know what I'm doing. Let's see. This one, this one. All right. Did it work? Man, I haven't seen stocks to trade for so long. It's so clean. Yeah. You know, stocks to trade. I've stuck with this platform since the very beginning, but I am bummed that they got rid of their Twitter, their Twitter scanner, I think was called. Yeah. Dude, that was, that was great. I miss it. I wish. Yeah, especially for long. That has to be it. Yeah. Because a lot of times, I mean, news can sometimes take a little bit to pop up and see it, right? And it's like with the Twitter scanner, it just was like immediate. But anyways, let's go over this OPGN trade. So the main, the very beginning, right, is this day here, October 29th. You see, I had this gap up. Okay. So that was, whenever I said beginning, it's like, this is the start of watching the stock because something significant happens. No, stocks to trade. Don't fail me like this. Oh, shit. Tim Sykes is going to ask us that. Bro, what the, come on, stocks to trade, please. Okay. Yeah. So it was this day here, right? Now, it looks insane, right? It looks huge and insane. Now, of course, once you back up, it's like, oh, that's a small little pop, right? It's like, this movie was just an absurd. Yeah. So I have this little pop here. And whenever a stock does, you know, has news and it pops up like this, I mean, that's just, I'm going to be watching it for basically as long as it can hold those gains, I'll be watching it. And I mean, as you can see, it held those gains pretty well. And it consolidated at this kind of, I would say, around a 40 cent average over, over the period of this, like two week period here. And so what I'm looking for is, I'm a big like symmetric triangle person. So as you can see, it's making this triangle pattern. And what I've noticed recently is these really kind of low price stocks, they are popping and then days later or even weeks later, they're having these secondary moves where they'll test the highs and potentially break out over this original move. But the reason why I'm watching it again is because just the fact that it had this initial pop here, that is why I am aware of it and watching it. And then on this day, on this day here, funny thing about this day, I actually, let me see here. So now I got to change my view a bit, but I actually bought like 75,000 shares at, oh yeah. So I had a ton of shares, either on this day or the day before, I was trying to time it is what I'm trying to say, I was trying to time it, but it just never, and that's that in a day, I felt like more things would pop during the market hours where I could get in and then during the live trading hours, it would give me the initial kind of start. And now I'm kind of seeing a trend where it's either happening after hours or pre-market, which makes it much more frustrating. It just everything's harder to time as pretty much. But anyways, so I wasn't in it in after hours, but then I saw it, so I'll pop it up. Now the key, there is another key before this and the key is SEO. So I noticed that this stock on that exact same day, it had this had a little perk before closed and then it just started flying. And this had already happened. And so I was aware that these penny stocks, these kind of low price stocks are doing insane things right now. So I can be a bit more aggressive. And then I thought of, I just started thinking, okay, what other low price stocks are kind of holding gains that might have a secondary move and OPGN just came to my mind. So I pulled the stock up. And as I pulled it up, I started to see volume pushing up into this 40 level. And I was, I didn't even think, I didn't even, it was just like a reaction. I just quickly 20,000 shares, boom, 45 limit. And I got filled at 42 for 20,000 shares. I was probably risking 38. And it just started taking off. And at that point, I, you know, SCCO just went so crazy. I was like, I am gonna just have some patience on this and try to get like 250 or something like that. Now, I probably should, I mean, I probably should have just sold it in the twos, right? I mean, realistically, I don't even like that I held it as long as I held it. And I got extremely fortunate that it gapped up the next morning. Because when you see something go from 240 down to a one, you're like, did I just lose like, I mean, I just lose like $30,000 in profits. I was kind of freaking out. But I got lucky and it gapped up. And I didn't, you know, it's like, it's at three, it hit my profit target. I didn't wait around, I just sold it as soon as I got up. Then is liquidity ever an issue for you, like in these after hours times, like, is it ever tough for you to actually get to your full position size or like, determine your risk, like getting out if it doesn't work? Yeah, well, the thing is about these after hours plays is I don't do them very often. It's kind of, it's kind of rare that I do them. But if I do do them, it's because it's really hot. There's a lot of liquidity coming in. Like, as you can see, this was so liquid, like my 20,000 shares compared to how liquid this was, was like nothing. So it just, it depends on the play. If this was more illiquid, I would have just taken like, you know, 5,000 shares maybe. And actually, so this play here is very slow this morning. So LMFA. So if you look at this, it kind of fits my criteria of it is a big former runner, and it is down a ton. And it's one of those stocks that is in that was in that 40 cent range. And for whatever reason, just all these low price stocks are just having bounces. What I saw was this, again, I just, if I can find some consolidation where it's starting to, I think this is actually more of a channel really, it's not really symmetric, it's more like a descending channel, but it's horizontal, it's found support. And my thought process was it could break out of that and become another big gapper, another big runner. So this is an example of a play where I anticipated it. I thought 25,000 shares at 46. I did get some movement up, and my plan was to just risk 40. And I'm still in it now. So it had some nice volume come in. Debateably, I could have locked it up. I mean, in the 70s for like $8,000, but I'm just, I'm gambling, right? So I'm holding it. I'm holding it over the weekend. Maybe I'll get a gap up. Maybe I won't. But it's just an example of how I was able to anticipate an entry and just stuck to the plan and got a nice pop. Makes sense. I think I think the big thing to understand here, Dan, is that you first noticed that SECO low price stock, 40-cent stock, start to go crazy. Then immediately what came to your mind was, all right, because this theme, this theme of penny stocks of 40 cents are running like crazy, I'm going to look around to find the same type of theme that the chart pattern is setting up properly. So I think that's something that's really key is that you wait for that sector or that theme to come into play. And then once that theme confirms, that's when you started looking for all these other plays, correct? Yeah, for sure. And actually, the reason why SECO ran like that is probably because of TPST. So this was really the big runner that started everything as far as a lot more momentum. Once people saw this, they got hungry for some more plays like that. And this was a great one. That's insane. You mentioned a little bit before, as far as looking for clues, do you ever dig through the filings or a 10Q or something like that? Yeah, so if I see a filing, I'll always take a look because I like to see what's up as far as maybe an owner acquired some shares. Maybe it shows that they own a large percentage of the company. I mean, I'll look. I'm not really knowledgeable as far as I don't know what a lot of the filings mean. But I think it's good to be aware of what's up. As far as catching news, going back to OPGM, I just want to make it clear that I didn't even know it came out with whatever this is. I didn't know that something came out on it because StocksToTrade, honestly, it doesn't even show this stuff in real time. It could be an hour or two later, it'll just pop up. So it's really slow as far as the news goes. But the thing that I've noticed is the charts will set up or these details, right? And it's almost like the details can help you anticipate that a PR is going to drop. It's kind of weird. Maybe it's a bit speculative, but I kind of feel like these setups are in sight into maybe some news is going to drop. And I just think that in real time, if I was to look around for news, try to find it, look through it. By the time I do all that, the price would already be gone. So it's not really a big factor for me. I'm more about the details of how the chart looks, how it forms, how hot the market is, things like that. Yeah. And how many positions are you usually in at one time? Is it just like one shot, like one play at a time or are you kind of like swinging a couple others too? And then like maybe you take like a basket of plays and then like one goes and you're like, okay, well, I made like 75 grand on this. So this is going to pay for any like minor paper cuts I have on like the other ones, or is it more like OPGN is the one I'm after. I'm going to take this play. I'm not worried about anything else or kind of stuff like that. Like how many positions are you usually in at once? Usually, well, these days probably like five positions at once. It used to be I tried to just focus on one, play it, complete it, and then just focus on other ones. But it's harder to do that now because everything moves slower. Everything takes more time than it used to. Because the market isn't as hot and explosive, I feel like as before. So I think a lot of these setups that are happening on multi day or multi week scales, they used to just happen in like two, three days. I mean, they used to just happen fast. It just everything was just faster. And you could just play things, get in and out and move on to the next. But nowadays, yeah, I find myself in five trades or looking at 10 stocks because they're all kind of slow, all kind of grinding. And I mean, it's a lot tougher to manage your attention these days, I feel like. So yeah, about five, but you know, as far as swinging goes, I try to maybe swing like one stock. I don't like swing trading. I really don't like it. I try not to, but it's hard not to when you're seeing the types of gaps that are happening now. You kind of have to adjust and do it anyways. So you obviously, like being a long biased trader, I feel like news plays such like a big portion of your trading, right? Like there's so many different types of news that come out, especially in the small cap world. Is that something that you track and like, is it something that a particular type of news is where you're going to lean more into your edge? Or is it not really like that? Is it more based off technicals for you? I would say technicals is my number one. But the news is important, of course, but it's, it's not like it's, it's more, it's not immediate is what I'm trying to say. Like a filing or a PR can come out and if it can make that stock gap up and have volume, have liquidity and have eyes on it. Well, that's an important factor, right? And then days later, for example, with the OPGN trade, whatever the initial filing or news was that happened initially to make it go from 30 to 60 cents and kind of then hold those gains and form an additional setup and additional huge move. That was important, but I'm not even thinking about it on the day I'm trading it, right? I'm, I am aware it had news, news is important. So you know, I'm trying to say it's like a small detail in the big equation. That's kind of how I think of it. Everything's a piece of a puzzle. But as far as something being more important than the next, I don't really, I don't really think of it like that. It's more just how does the market react to any piece of news? And if the market reacts better or there's more, more momentum or the market's hotter, like something can have great news, but if the market is not hot, it's not going to move much. That's kind of what I've, what I figured out. So yeah, was it tough for you to get traction during the, like these last like, you know, year, just like finding that momentum? Cause I feel like even in small caps, we're just like, you know, there's been days where like, obviously there's runners, but like it just hasn't been as like exciting as like the COVID times. Was it hard for you to adjust from that? Like that feeling of like, yeah, there's a lot more and like just being able to sit on the sidelines a little bit. Yeah. I mean, I'm still adjusting and really that hot period kind of broke my brain a bit because my brain is looking for these hot plays because I mean, it's fun, right? It's just fun to find these hot plays, see them explode. It's kind of like we're treasure hunters looking for the next big win. And I think more, more days now you have to really be realistic and tell yourself, Hey, today's slow. It's, you know, I'm getting in things around, I'm taking an entry and it immediately goes against me every time. You know, the algorithms just not set to bullish today. It's set to chop, for example, like you got it. And that's a whole nother story and a whole speculative thing. But I think that a lot of, a lot of moves and a lot of success is just based on kind of this overall market field, this algorithm, this, this entity, there's something there that I can't really put into words, but you have to, if you feel it's not on today, you just gotta be realistic and walk away or just control yourself and not, not trade. And that is what I've struggled with the most is just adjusting to those slow days and just stepping away so I don't give away my profits from the hot days. Yeah, dude. I mean, it's so freaking important. Like Alex talks about it all the time and in the chat room is like, or an MIC is like, you know, there's days where like the stocks are just squeezing the living shit out of short sellers. And we're like, this is not the data pushes the data like size weighed down. It's just like not, it's not in our favor today, right? And it's pretty cool that you got to have like a feel for that and like a pace in the market for that. Yeah. And actually, I think yesterday, which was Friday, I actually think it was one of the good days where it seemed like things were holding trends and they were bullish. And let me just gonna share real quick. Yeah, no problem. Okay. So MTC was a really great stock the last few days. So this stock was very bullish. I played it on Thursday and Friday. So made a morning move here and then it formed this afternoon. Kind of now this is what I would consider like a completed. It's just completely washed out. It's formed its symmetric triangle, like it's ready to break up or down. And this is I love seeing this set up and I've seen it I've seen it less lately in the last year. I mean, I've I see this exact setup happened like intraday like this, like in the middle of the day, I see a lot less often than during the hot period. I mean, you'd get like two or three of these per day. But anyways, I was able to take 179. And then I sold it sold it at 224. And that was a really nice win. That was like 15,000 shares. So like that was a great play. And then the next day, it had this had this dip in the morning. And then it came back up. Now I wasn't really too comfortable. It was kind of you can see these candles are pretty volatile. I didn't really know how to manage this. So I stayed away from it. Right. In the morning, wasn't it? Was MTC Chinese? I don't know what this is actually. I don't know if it's. I think it is a Chinese company. It's Hong Kong. Yeah. Yeah. So but in this area here and now this is where it became playable for me. Because it created this low volatility. You can see the different like, do you see the difference between these wicks here and these wicks or this lack of wick? It's like a tighter, it's easier to control your risk during these low volatile periods. But it's like the calm, the calm before the storm, so to speak. So I ended up taking anticipating I took some here and then I took some here. And I bought 10,000 shares at 250 and just got this rip. Now I actually, I don't like how I play this. It went, I had a sitting limit at 339. It got to 337. And then I kind of freaked out. I was like, just kind of got in my head and I ended up just dumping it at 307. So unfortunately, I mean, I say unfortunately, I made I made $5,700, right? Like, that's a great trade, but pretty good. Yeah, I do wish I either, you know, at least got 330, right? Like, I just feel guilty about that. But you know, what a great move to 480. And I love to see this because this is the type of momentum that I was, you know, that we all like to see as long traders like momentum like this ranges like this risk reward like this. This is what trading is all about. Like, these are the trades that make a career, right? Like, this is what I like to see. My question is, Dan, at what point do you cut off the trade for not working properly? Is it just based on a support break? Is it based on maybe seeing some sort of death candle? Or what is that signal that you need to see to be like, wait a second, this one has a pattern, pushes up a little bit and rejects. Do you say, all right, like, let me give it a second? Or are you more like, you know what, like if it's not working instantaneously? That's it. It depends on the type of stack. There are certain, there are certain stocks like MTC, for example, where I would expect that to work fast. I wouldn't want it, I wouldn't want it to start chopping around and getting slow. That I would want it to work kind of right away because it's a continuation. It was a continuation of like a move ahead in the morning, whereas something like LMFA, which I kind of bought speculatively, I gave it kind of a bigger range. I let it get a liquid. I let it get slow because I was risking like a multi, it was like a multi-day setup. So my mindset was, well, it might take a day or two to get going. So it kind of depends on the play. It depends on if it's already up a lot. I'm not going to really have patience for it because it can come down a lot, right? So it's about where it's at, the momentum. And I always like to keep my risk tight. I've always, that's just how I've always traded. It's harder with the bigger size now, of course, it is harder. And especially, I mean, I'm starting to realize that I need to stop with the illiquid, like illiquid, it's just not good in this environment. You can get away with it in a really bull market, but in this choppy environment, you get to a liquid, you just, you think you have support and then it just disappears off the bid and a lot of games are played with the illiquid stocks right now. So I'm trying to get back into more of the liquidity, things with liquidity. One thing for me, at least when I'm trading is I really like to pay attention to kind of like the tape and like the numbers kind of going through at certain levels. Do you ever pay attention to the tape? Or is it strictly for you like just like the triangles and the chart patterns kind of like that? I think it's a small detail, but it's an important one. I think it's less important for me now because, and I say that because I just see a lot more games being played as far as, you know, I'll see some big size pop up and then it'll just like disappear. I don't know what's either, either like my software like E-Tray is just different than it used to be or things. I just feel like there's so many more games, just tricks and algorithms, bots, whatever. There's just more, more funny business. And so I think just the chart setup, the chart pattern, just knowing kind of what you want to risk and sticking to that risk. That's kind of been my strategy more than just buying and selling based purely off the tape. But it is, it can give you a small edge though. So it's worth looking at. Yeah, they manipulate that shit like crazy. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Like, could it be a signal like you're paying attention to like your pattern and stuff like that. And then all of a sudden randomly these big bitters come in to try and push the stock higher. Like would that be kind of like a signal for you? Or are you just like paying attention to like the volume coming in and like the flow of the pattern? Because I feel like you're always in kind of like the right spot. Like, so is it more so you're paying attention to like volume going through or you've just like, like just been doing it for so long that you just are like right there? Or are you like, okay, I see a big bitter come in. They're going to try and push the stock higher. I know that I'm going to buy. Or is it just you're just always in the right spot? Well, I can say I'm certainly not always in the right spot. I'm wrong a lot. But I would say that a lot of the best plays for me in the past have been when the pattern kind of correlates with a big bitter like there's certain times where everything will just set up perfectly. And then I'll also get like this giant, giant bitter size will come in support comes in. And that influences me to try to make that then that setup or that pattern start to work. So I'll start buying into the ask and it'll it'll just start flying, right? And so those are that's an example of how they come together to, you know, it worked out great. And now there's times where, you know, maybe the setup is choppier and not that good. And I'll see a big, you know, a big bitter come in. And the play will end up being some complete fake where okay, I'll take some shares into the ask and then the big bitter disappears and it gets slow choppy and then those randomly just starts, you know, just moves down on like no volume. And then I know, okay, that was just an algorithm that was just, you know, fake, essentially. So it's, I don't know, it's just, it's just one of those things where it's hard to really pinpoint exactly what's what. Yeah. Another question that I had was kind of like community. Are there any like other traders that you talked to along the way that like helped you become successful, other than like sites and stuff like that? Like, I know that I think that I've been in a discord with you before, but I'm not really sure. But were there any like traders that kind of like helped you along the way? Yeah, I mean, there's any trader that I've talked to has helped me. It's hard to pinpoint exact names. I mean, it's just everybody knows who they are, right? We all know who we all, if you've talked to other traders, I think it's just everybody knows that we all help each other in little ways. And just being a part of something helps you feel, you know, it helps to feel more meaningful and motivated me for sure. Just anybody in the Tim Sykes community, I would post my paper trades on Twitter and Tim would, you know, he would retweet me and then the community would reach out and it was, everybody was helping each other and that motivated me a lot to keep going. And yeah, I mean, there's Bryce, there's John Papa, all those, all those guys, man, man, I mean, they all know who they are and I'm leaving out names for sure. But everybody's, yeah, and I just, the little things too, just when I was coming up paper trade, like just people, you know, reaching out on Twitter, telling me keep going or whatever, just everybody, it's nice to be part of the community for sure. That's awesome, man. I kind of had a question, I think is a good transition to it is that, do you have, how do you manage your stress outside of the trading world? Because like you have like, we're talking about people who have influenced you in like some support system, you know, how do you handle stress outside of the trading world? I mean, I have to just know, like what I'm good at and I'm not good at managing that. So after a day of trading, you won't see me interacting with, with most people, with people basically, like, I just stick to myself. I know when I can do things and when I can't and I mean, I'll hang out with family on weekends or whatever. But I mean, during the week, I'm pretty closed off because there is a lot of stress and, you know, I could do a better job managing it for sure. But it's tough, man. It is tough. Yeah, we all deal with it, right? It's not easy, like the flow of your P&L every single day, winning, losing. It's like, it's tough, bro, it's tough. And I feel like you, you seem like someone who's a very smart and intelligent in this field. And it's like, it's probably hard to talk to people about this shit. Like how the hell do you talk to like your girlfriend or your mom about how you lost 10 grand on fucking this random penny stock, right? Yeah, it's tough, because if you like, if you say something, I'm like, let's say you set up a dinner on a weeknight or something, and you're going to go out with friends to a bar on a weeknight. If you have a red day and then you try to do that, dude, you're just, you're going to be zapped. Like mentally, you're just not going to be there. And so that's why I try to plan things on weekends, because it's just tough during the week. But, you know, after the week, I try to just, you got to remove it, you got to just take it out and just, just, you know, you got to let it go, essentially, you just got to let it go. And so I'm not, I don't let it hold, hold me down on weekends or whatever. And even during the week, ideally, you wouldn't want to let it hold you down. But that's a bit tougher. But yeah, I mean, it's just one of those things where it gets a little easier over time. But during periods of choppiness, it's tough. But when I was just like uptrending or just like constant uptrend, it's like I was on a high constantly. So yeah, so there's a lot of highs and lows in this game, for sure. And you just got to try your best to stay stable. I try to stay as kind of level head as I can. Yeah, it's tough. It's tough, for sure. Speaking of that, I mean, what I just kind of twofold is what was your biggest single day win and how'd that make you feel? And what was your single biggest day loss? And what'd you do to kind of make sure that doesn't happen again? So the biggest green day was 99. So 99K. I tried to get that six finger day. I couldn't quite get there. And that was like, it was such a hot day. There were so many plays. I must have made like 50 trades that day. I was just, everything was working out. I think I had a massive, so I had a swing trade the night before. I got a huge gap up. I think I bought in at $5, ended up selling at $13. And that was like a $70,000 trade. And then I was able to make 28K just on the day, just sculping stuff. That was great. It felt really good. I mean, of course, it felt very good. It felt, I was on cloud nine, I'm like, dang, this is crazy. If I'm making 100K nearly in a day, I mean, was to stop me from making 200 or 300K or maybe even 500K. You start having these grandiosity, kind of like this crazy ego boost. It's dangerous, but it's something that happens, of course, when you make that much money today. Now on the flip side of it, my biggest red day was $44,000. And it felt a lot, everybody says this, it feels a lot worse than your biggest green day feels good. And it's true. That's just how it works. And then I just, you just have to size down after something like that. So then your size down for a while, you get your consistency back. And then you eventually kind of scale back up. That's, yeah. And even recently, I got over the 2 million mark, and it felt great. I was at like 2 million and 20K. And then whenever I make a lot, whatever reason, it just makes me go off the rails. And the thing is, you could do that. Like in the hot market, you could just keep pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing, because nine out of 10 days were hot, bullish days. Nowadays, it's just not like that. It's maybe like two out of 10 days or three out of 10 days. When you guys know how it is, it varies, but you got to put the breaks on when necessary. And so I went on like $110,000 down swing recently. And then I made back like 50K. So I'm sitting at like 1,960, so 1,960 overall. So I'm still like, you know, I'm still like 50, 60K off highs. So the point in all of that is just that the market's a lot choppier. And I'm still just pushing, I am just pushing too hard. Yeah. Yeah, 100%. I noticed in your profile picture, you do have a girlfriend. And has she been supportive kind of along the way with your journey? Because I know that we've talked about that a lot, like on the podcast here, that like, you really need someone in your life that's there to support you consistently, you know? And could you maybe talk about like, I don't know, maybe she hasn't supported you, but I have feel that she has. So yeah, maybe you could kind of talk about that. Yeah, no, she's always been there for me. And it's definitely an important part of my life, as far as there's a level of stability in a relationship that kind of keeps you more stable. You know, as far as my job is so unstable and so crazy, it's nice to have some stability in the personal side of things to keep you kind of leveled out. And that's it very important for me personally, now everybody's going to have a different personality type in this and that. So, you know, I can't speak for everybody. But for me, it has been very important. And she's always definitely had my back. And she just encourages me and she's, we've been together before I even started trading. So she's always been there for me. It's been great. Now, we all, I'm sure you guys know, we all have people that are like, stop dreaming and get back to reality. It's time, you know, enough of these games, as far as like when you're starting, you know, they just don't, they're scared by it, right? It makes them uncomfortable. Not everybody is going to want to gamble, right? Or manage these things. And so you got to know who to talk to and who to not is when it comes to that, this topic. I mean, a part of me used to kind of resent certain people that didn't support me. But as, you know, as time passed, I kind of realized that, you know, it's a lot of stress to put onto them too. And I've just, I accept their view on it. And I just don't, I just don't bring it up with them. And I can still, you know, have a relationship with them. So it's, but those people change their tune once it, once, you know, once the money came in, they're like, oh, I'm so supportive. Well, no, you weren't, you weren't, but it's okay. That's mature of you, man. That's very mature. Speaking of that, Dan, my question is now that you've made some money, how do you diversify your income? Like outside of trading? Like, how do you take that money out of the market and manage it in a way that kind of allows you to not solely depend on trading? Oh, well, I don't, I don't really have any crazy investments. Well, well, of course, I did purchase a home, right? So that's, I kind of thought of it like I was just diversifying as a hedge against inflation, because, you know, if inflation goes crazy, then home prices are probably going to go crazy too with inflation. So I was like, well, this is kind of an investment. It's a lot of money though, to keep a house going and to pay taxes on it and this and that. So I mean, it's kind of, I don't even know if it's going to be a profitable investment, but I plan on owning the home for like 20 plus years. So I assume it would go up over time. And so that's kind of my hedge. And I've got a very, very small what's it called? It's like a Roth IRA or just like a retirement. I've got like a small like $15,000 account that just I just bought like some index funds like the spy or the QQQ, something like that. So I mean, I've dabbled a little bit in that, but I'm not really the best person to talk to about diversification because I just, I just don't do much of it. I just focus on the trading. I try to make money trading. I haven't been that successful at it recently, but if I can get back to being consistent, you know, as a consistent trader, when you are consistent, when that money is coming in, you really don't got to worry about diversification or other investments because just so much money is coming in, you're good, you know, you're set. So something I just wanted to say to that is that, you know, I think something for you to remember and just like I've heard Alex tell me this stuff all the time is like, dude, if you've gotten there before, like you can do it again. And like you, like we, this interview has been like, honestly, one of my favorites because just talking to you, you seem very, like I said, you're smart and you, you explain things in a way that like, I know nothing about long trading. Like that's where I'm so stupid, but you make it sound so good and very awesome. So of course, man, we really appreciate having you on. And hopefully in the future we can have you on again sometime. Yeah, man. I loved it. That was awesome. Thanks for coming man. Hey, that was great. Thanks guys.