 Let me know if everybody can see the screen. We're looking at the A and again if you're here You don't know how to chat Then you have to go down to two Individual user choose my name Alyssa Armo and then type that's the way that you will be able to communicate to me Everybody know how to do that Hello, hello Once typing either no one can hear me or No one knows how to do it Okay, there's one person Joe There's two people Lou can hear very good excellent. I'm gonna talk just with charts up I don't have a PowerPoint up. So if you have any questions after today, I'm just gonna put my email in the room You can email me here at Melissa at the stocks whoosh calm if you have questions after today or if in fact you are interested in learning My strategy and taking my class today. We're gonna talk about how to earn a living trading in 2024 Just a couple of days into the air and guess what markets already been very volatile in just these few days The number one thing though that I want to emphasize with today's lecture I'm probably gonna talk for about a half an hour today. Give or take questions. If you have questions type them in the room as we're going along Excuse me and as I said you can always email me questions later at Melissa at the stocks whoosh calm But again, the number one thing that I want to communicate to people today is that you must have a strategy and Something that you apply every day to make trading choices in order to earn a living trading If you're trading on this side and you say I don't really want to do this full-time Melissa I have another job or I'm retired or I just want to do it a little bit here or there The stock market is very unforgiving whether you spend Six and a half hours a day trading which is Monday through Friday Five days a week or 30 minutes a day trading or even less than that Five days a week the market's very unforgiving. It doesn't matter how many hours you spend trading a week You have to know what to do So again, you have to have a strategy that you use and implement every day in the market to be successful Even if you're only gonna trade one day a week Even if you're only gonna do one trade a month Okay Because again the market is set up as a place where people invest money. They buy they sell they short People go long but at the end of the day Not everybody makes money in the market Many many people are in the market and struggle to be profitable So the whole concept or idea of trading for a living where you could actually supplement income pulling money from the market Where you could actually do this full-time and not have a full-time job It's something a lot of people dream of but they never really get serious about doing it because they're all over the place Usually with all kinds of different strategies ideas Flipping from one thing to another I started trading in 2008 and I made a lot of money The first trade I ever did that I made a lot of money, which was over $1,000. It was in a one-minute chart It was a short it wasn't a gap and we're gonna talk about gaps today. It was a Netflix I'll never forget it. I didn't risk that much money at that time My average risk was about $150 a trade and I made over a thousand dollars in a couple of minutes and my risk was like $150 and Again, it was a short so ever since then I decided to focus on shorting So number one, you need a strategy In order to be successful trading for a living number two You also have to have some kind of edge for me my edge really is shorting why most traders prefer to go long It will always be that way. It's always been that way and I didn't know that when I started But I very quickly found out so shorting actually gives me an edge and again If you're looking for some kind of edge It might be mine. You could decide to make shorting your edge, too The third thing that you need to be successful trading for a living is you need to have a skill an actual skill that you learn That you can implement in the market every day. You say, well, I'm really good at doing this Melissa I'm really good at holding. I'm really good at seeing the target I'm really good at entering in the one minute where I'm really good at doing the options or whatever that is Okay, so you got to learn the skill Then you've got to set your sizing up. You say, okay Well, if I want to make this much money per week this much money per month this much money per year How much on average? Do I have to risk per train? And I'm usually looking to make one to one So if I'm risking a thousand I'm looking to make a thousand if you want to risk 500 you're looking to make 500 That's good results. Okay, and then number five we talked about Learning the skill you have to master that skill got to get really really good at that Whatever you're doing again from me. It's trading on the one-minute chart trading gaps shorting the fast trades Which we're gonna talk about and the number six is adding size Adding size to your trades where you can make a lot of money Because you have a lot of size in your trades again. That's how you can all of a sudden go from Hold on one second. Let me just let me just turn this sound off here because they're getting the sound of people coming in and out You're adding size to a trade and then you can wop it on and that's how you can grow and go from making a Thousand dollars a week to two thousand dollars a week to three thousand dollars a week and so on and so forth So again, you have to take it step by step if you want to be successful And for some of the people that just plopped in here again, I'm talking today about gaps I'm talking today about trading for a living if you have questions. You can write it in the room You have to go down to two individual user choose my name Alyssa Armo and then write your question in the room, okay? And again, if you have questions afterwards you can go to Melissa at the stocks wish calm So anyways as I was saying The most important thing is getting the right strategy So some of you I recognize I've seen your names before some of you are new and I don't know if you know what I do But if you don't know what I do my strategy is based on stocks gapping now I will also trade the market. In fact, let's go to the market. Look at the market here So I'm gonna go back. This is the cues We started out the calendar year 2024 with a gap down, okay So I get up in the morning and I'm looking for the gap Then I rate the gap using a system that I created if you want to learn that system You would sign up from my class and you would learn it from me. It's a class. I teach once a month Again, my process is that I apply this strategy every day. What's the reason that I do that? Instead of going willy-nilly looking at everything one of the reasons again, I talked about this on TV yesterday Why you can't just trade the news and say, oh the economic data was good Let's go long or the economic data was bad Let's short or vice versa is because the market necessarily doesn't really care about that or doesn't even always go in the way that you think So reading the price action is extremely important and when I say price action, I mean Looking at the bulls and the bears Okay, now I break it down because I'm trying to read what's happening in the gap I'm never ever going long a bearish gap and I'm never shorting a bullish gap It doesn't mean that I short every bearish gap. It doesn't mean I go long every bullish gap But again, I'm never doing the opposite. Okay So my strategy is somebody that I apply every day so that I can stay focused on finding the right pick We'll go back and look at BA in a minute because the play of the day today was BA. We shorted it It worked, but here we're looking at the market and how the market started out for 2024 It started out in a gap down. So let's go back take it back What is the gap a gap is a difference between the close and the open so the market the stock market We're looking at the cues on 1229 was the last trading day of the year in 2023 closed at 409 52 Okay, opened down to start the calendar year at 405 84 And actually we fell and we fell fell fell fell in fact. We fell all the way down Friday's low We broke 400 was 395 34 And that was the first full week of 2023 now today is Tuesday We gapped on today and rally yesterday. We gapped up and rally we had two green days here this week so far But anyways just to go back and explain what a gap is a gap is a difference between the close and the open and We had a gap here 1229 212 Everybody see that and again any questions plop it in the room Okay So when you're looking to trade anything anything at all if you're willing nearly back and forth Like 5050 crapshoot trying to decide what to trade you're gonna have a really really hard time Having consistency in your trades. I'm sure anybody that's ever traded if you're here If you're active if you're trading the market has made money in the market in trades, but it doesn't mean you're consistent When someone makes money in a train, they really get sucked in very easily. Oh my god. This is so easy I didn't even have to do anything blue and they make money But then people very often lose lose lose give back the profits they made and then so much more Because it really didn't have a consistent strategy to implement and apply every single day in the market So again getting back to what I was saying is the number one take away from today is that in order to earn a living trading? You have to have the strategy. It has to work Obviously You have to know how to use it Obviously has to set up almost every single solitary day Okay, because you need the opportunities on a consistent basis weekly to be able to profit and Then again, you have to have more winners than losers using that strategy But it's just one of these things that I've known this now for teaching people for so long where they're very often not set not Structured not focused enough on one set strategy and that's just so so important here because again if you're not I'm gonna go over here to be a You're gonna have a hard time finding the consistency with what you're doing Any questions before I talk about the next chart here from anybody again, I see some New faces here. I see some faces. I've seen before If you when I ask a question you have to go down to two Then you have to choose individual user. Then you choose my name Alyssa Armo and then you type Vivian is asking how much does it have to gap down? That I it doesn't matter Vivian That's the whole thing. It's not just looking at percentages If my system was so simple to apply by looking at a percentage I could program it into a black box or computer and I could close my eyes and make money without having to do anything So it's not about a certain percentage In fact, I don't use percentages at all in my decision-making There are times that I will short a gap down. That's a baby There are times I'll short a gap down. That's what you might consider enormous So it's not a bit and they both work actually so it's not about percentages again That's it's an interesting question Vivian because many many many many many many people want to be very black and white with their trading Meaning let's just look at one thing Percentage or let's just look at this. Let's just look at that now So again, if you come and decide you want to take my class It's a paid class that I do once a month the class for January isn't until the end of this month Again, if you're interested in that you can email me at Melissa the stocks wish calm But I look at 26 points on a chart to determine what to do and a percentage isn't any of those points I don't look at it because you could have a gap down. That's a baby and You could have a gap down. That's huge and they both could work and they both could work equally. Well, so again Traders went like they just said well, just tell me just tell me if I just put this one moving average on here Oh, it's not like that. It's just not because there's so many different variables And that's why I prep so early in the morning like I get up in the morning at 6 a.m First thing I do is look at the market. That's my process now Whether I rate anything at 6 a.m It depends if I'm gonna work out that morning or not if I work out I do the ratings when I get back from working out if I'm not I'll probably rate stuff Well, I'm having a cup of coffee, but I spend time now You don't have to spend as much time as I do, but I don't like to rush it One of the reasons people join my trading room and sign up for my options newsletter Is they don't want to spend the time prepping in the morning I do because I know that the more time I spread and prepping in the morning doing the rating Trying to figure everything out looking at all the 26 points the higher chance of success And the more money I'm gonna make on the live day and usually then I'm only in the trade for a couple of minutes so I mean again, it's not just like Plugging it in and saying it's 52% No, because I mean there's many times well things will work all over the place of percentages It's not just one thing And again, I don't use a lot of people use scanners and they stick it in a scanner I I don't you know I had a scanner years ago when I first started and I felt like that was overlap where you could plug in different things And it could come up with a list of gaps It was an overlap. So I don't even use a scanner a paid scanner I was a hundred bucks a month and that was like 15 years ago So I don't even know what scanners cost now But I don't even use them because they're it's irrelevant to me because it's not gonna help me because even if something's down x y z percent I may not like it. So that's the other thing. It may not work at all You can find gaps anywhere Anywhere there's tons of gaps all the time Usually during earnings season though is the best time where you're gonna get most gaps now It's kind of strange because Martin Luther King day Holiday is Monday, so the stock market's closed just so you know January 15th So it's kind of weird because earnings season starts Friday. It's just the way the month, you know fared out earning season starts January 12th, which is Friday the banks report and Then we have the weekend and then we have a three-day weekend and then we come back Tuesday The 16th and then we have a short week next week, but earning season then is in full swing So most stocks gap on earning season now again if you watch TV and you like to get different emails from different places We shorted BA in the last two days and it worked But I was actually in BA before the gap down that happened on Monday But BA had some bad news if you didn't hear about it They had they're luckily no one died. I don't even think anyone got hurt They have some issues and they had to ground some planes and it was you know could have been catastrophic And that came out and happened over the weekend. So from Friday. So this was a news gap Okay, not an earnings gap But from Friday the 5th the stock closed at 2 49 and Then a gap down here in the morning and open at 2 28 We were already short this stop fact. I see Trond. I see you in here Trond Have gotten the trade Randy I don't did Randy. Did you do the train? You should have done the trade Randy. I see you in here, too Some people in here are doing the options with me if you want to if you want to say it I know Trond made out on it and anybody that did it made out on it, but anyways long story short On The third So this was to know this was Wednesday. This was Tuesday. This was Wednesday I called the 245 BA putts. This is before that crazy crazy crazy news came out So that was Tuesday First day of the year then we had Wednesday then we had Thursday Then we had Friday and Then this so this was a trade that people that were on the options newsletter got where the stock dropped You know 20 some points through the strike overnight One of the benefits of doing options is you can capture huge moves overnight where you're already in the train You might be in a call You might be in a put did I know that they were gonna have some kind of mechanical issue? No, I had no idea whatsoever at all when I called that trade on January 3rd I called the train because BA was a good short and it was a good gap and That's why I called it but again You see how you don't even have to know the details of the information Because you the price is already telling you the information. Does that make sense? So if you follow what you're supposed to follow with the system You'll be a okay, and then sometimes things will go in your favor where where you will get a piggy target Which I consider this a piggy Actually, the biggest target I had in the trade and the letter for the BA was 230 And it was underneath that on the day of the gap down on Monday Randy you did it Randy I didn't hear from you Good job, Randy if you did it a couple of my phones float the plane door they found one it still worked Well, that's still scary Anyways, it was it was like a there was a Twilight Zone episode I love Twilight Zones them the Twilight Zone marathon was on at New Year's New Year's Eve weekend There's that one episode. Does anybody like the Twilight Zones? There's that one episode worth with William Shatner It was like when William Shatner was like starting out his career Remember he was on the plane and he saw like monster on the wing of the plane And he tries to shoot it and then it and then and then the whole plane everybody and he starts to get sucked out That's a good one Anyways, it was scary, but luckily nobody got hurt Oh Randy you didn't do it last week. Oh shoot Darn it. Well, anyways getting back to my whole premise here if you follow what's happening with the price action and Go with that and go with the rating and stick to the strategy. You're gonna be fine and And one of the things that people get frustrated about I think when they're trading is again Everybody wants everything right now yesterday. We live in a very impatient society. Me me me. I want it all now I want to make millions of dollars if you could go back in time And you could just you know go back in a time machine again Like there's a Twilight Zone of the time machine go back in a time machine in your life You know Five years ago think of all the things that you would do differently if you knew that you could and I'm sure if You've been trading there's trades that you could say oh my god I wouldn't do that trade or I would do that trade or I or I would do this Or I wouldn't do that with in reference to the market But we don't we don't get that chance. We don't get that chance to go back in time machines But I will say that it is very very What's the word? special or exciting or Exhilarating I guess to get trades like BA not just because of the money aspect of it, which obviously this was a nice trade But the fact that it Falls into your lap Okay, because many times people try to push the envelope with their trading they take too much size They over train they do things that they shouldn't do pushing the envelope to get a big profit When in normal You know normal daily activity you should have big profits every now and again if you're just following a normal system pushing the envelope Doubling down and things like that and taking trades that you shouldn't be taking is not gonna really get you where you want To be there's no shortcuts. There's no shortcuts to it. It's like it's like if you want to lose weight It's like it. I like what let's talk about that the the isempic everybody is on this isempic now this diabetes drug But people are on and they don't have diabetes to lose weight. It's they want a shortcut. Yes, it's working Are some people having side effects? Absolutely is everybody know But what are going to be the long-term side effects for some of these people? Nobody knows Nobody knows and they could have long-term side effects. Do you understand? So it's like there's there's no shortcuts There's no shortcuts to losing weight and there's no shortcuts in training to get to that level of success That many people are looking for it's it's I hate to say it But it's like it's like a grind you got to get up every day And you got to do it and you got to be there and you got to rate the gap and take the trade and do it And you could do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it do it and if you happen to do it Poof, you get the BA and all of a sudden you make 400 500% in one trade and then you're singing and dancing and you're like wow I this definitely works and I can see that this works and I can't wait for the next BA But you don't control the when the next BA is I don't either Nobody does but I know that if I get up and rate the gap And if I know that I follow the strategy and if I know that I continue to hone my skill and master my skill at Basically shorting, you know, it's what I'm doing reading the gap and reading the price and shorting that I will continue to get these types Of winners over the course of the month and the year No, I did not I didn't I I said to stop gap down to 230. That was the target Joe That's what I said. I did call some other trades in BA But I was talking about this trade here on the third the target Was 230 that was the dream target. That wasn't the trade I called here I called it at the strike at the money So that's what I'm telling you in the newsletter I have targets, okay 230 was the maximum target I got I had in this letter I said this is like a double I double triple starts targets in the letter This was one of them and it was a 225 224 in the pre-market in the morning And then when it opened on the day it actually opened under 230 Dropped in the low of the day was 225 79 But again, what I don't know what the price of the 230s was here That would have been a very very far away again. I did the 12th expiration. So technically actually you could still be in the trade I don't I don't see any reason to still be in that trade when you get a move like this You got to take the profits trond. Are you here? I said that to you yesterday But anyways, I have no idea what the 230s cost here, but they I mean They were probably under a dollar but that to to see on January 3rd That the stock would go to 230 Before honor before January 12th, you know, you really almost would have had to be a psychic I knew it was lower and I had the target in the letter, but I double triple started So again, some of you were trading options me some of you are not and you're thinking about it If you sign up for the newsletter, I put a double I put a dream target in every letter That doesn't mean you should hold a trade to the dream target But it means there's a possibility that this trade could go to a piggy target and in this case here went past it So Tron my point to you yesterday Tron did the trade Tron made a lot of money My point was if I have a piggy target in a newsletter Tron and the trade is through the piggy What do you why are you asking me where to get out get out like do you know what I mean? You don't think about it. You don't question it You press the button on the open and You're out. That's my point. You have to book that type of money because again, that was a dream target You got out of you got out of the last one today at 1965. Okay. Good job Joe if you did puts You did puts in what? BA Any other questions here? So again, you know getting back to what I was saying I'm looking for a specific specific specific specific Set up every time I take a trade Sometimes I'm doing day trains. We did a day trade in BA today. Sometimes I'm doing Options sometimes I'm doing both. Let's look up the BA day trade So we did this today. We actually had Almost a load of the day exit really nice entry here. We shorted BA today Stop close to your gap down rallying. We got in it got the drop got out So this was a day trade. What do I mean by a day trade? This was a trade on margin You need a margin account in order to do this options are not on margin If you buy a put you pay the cost of the trade The cost three dollars one would be three bucks or you buy Five or ten or whatever you decide you can afford if you want to short something like this on margin you need a margin account a retail broker or four to one margin or You will open up a prop account where you could get ten to one margin Which should be a lot more advantageous in a stock like BA where the cost is, you know, 200 some dollars a share I do both but when I started out, I started out actually day trading I only got into options later and really it was my broker that encouraged me to do options because of the fact that Stocks were happening these kind of moves overnight that I was day trading. So again technically you could have day trade a BA today You could have day traded BA yesterday. Actually, we did Okay, you could have day traded it here. I think we did this. I think we did a spy this day And you could have done in here, too So there's a lot of days in here that you could have had some nice shorts in BA Again, where we go tomorrow We have to wait and see but for today we did short BA So again part of what I look at doing is the very very quick and fast trades So I'm even doing options fast. I'm not doing options out for weeks and weeks and weeks I'm doing the weekly options So again, if it's a holiday week, I might do something out a week and a half But mostly I'm doing trades that expire Friday of that week In my mind if the trade doesn't go fairly quickly almost immediately in that week Then what's the momentum that I'm playing? I'm not trend trading when I'm trading In fact, we'll go to the market. The market's in an uptrend But I shorted the market last week and made money But the market's in an uptrend Hold on one second. This is loading So I'm not trend trading So I don't want to be in something for two weeks or three weeks or a month or longer You pay up to be in something a long long time. I want to get the move. I'm trading momentum We're in we're out. We take a get the move get out We take a get the move get out that is across the board whether it's a day trader whether it's an option We're looking to trade momentum This is taking forever or my internet is slow any questions why I'm trying to pull up this spy So when I was getting back to what I was saying about the BA Gosh, this is taking forever. Did I lose internet? Oh, there it is Getting back to what I was saying about the BA. Whoa. Look at these tails Lots of tails here today Um BA was a gap down so we shorted it. Okay So I was talking about the third Actually shorted the market here and we made money and we did it and it worked We got in got out boom. So again, this was January 2nd Market closed at 472 65 Gap down here open for 70 43 We shorted it. We got in got out. It actually continued down in here the next day on The following day, but we did it on the third and again That was a day trade the markets become very expensive to do on margin again You can buy a put there are daily option Explorations now, but you could day trade options of the daily Explorations I'm not doing that again. I'm doing the Friday weekly Explorations, but there are in the queues and the spies since the beginning of 2023 daily Explorations being offered That's something that if I call the trade in the live room and you want to day trade it You'll pay a much cheaper price and doing the weekly options For for something like this instead if you don't want to do the the trade on margin. Okay Anyways consistency is extremely important in order to make a living trading And I'm very consistent with what I do why I only do one strategy The 26 points I use every day to rate the gas to decide what to do 99.99999% of the time I consistently short More than I ever go long while I sometimes go long. I'm mainly shorting. Okay, so again It's the consistency That's going to help you achieve the results you want Of course, you have to have a strategy that works one of the things that I find interesting again since I started the stock So it's business since I started teaching people my method Which is 12 years now 12 years. I've had the business is that so many people trade and they don't they don't even have a strategy I might say what's your strategy and they can't give me an answer or if I say what's your strategy? They say well, I go long on the 8-period move an average That's not a strategy or they say well, I buy dips. That's not a strategy either you buy dips And what where when how do you know they're gonna work? you know So it's it's the it's a it's the idea of being so Specific that sure that you have so many things in your favor so many that It's rare that you'll lose Where you're putting the odds in your favor that you're gonna have way more winners than losers And then occasionally you will have some big winners like the BA I was just gonna say something here about the market. Oh, we were talking about trend And again any questions let me know so here's a market. Let's just take a look at it So last time the market made a brand new all-time high in the spy Let me go back Any questions from anybody? 479 98 Let's go see where we were and the last year Got really close for 77 55 We didn't make brand new all-time highs yet in the spy But we could this week if the bank earnings on Friday are good If the financials go with the spy I've said it before and I've said it again I'll say it again You won't have the market at new highs without the financials one of the reasons market had a difficult Point in time in the spring of last year was when banks were going under regional banks It affected all banks, but anyways the market recovered since then in 2023, but if the bank earnings do not report Positively in the chart. I'm not talking about what the earnings say I'm talking about a fake app down in fall or they gap down at all the market won't make new highs Friday So it's a it's a it's a wait and see period here into Friday for the market How do I determine when to get out of my options trades that I quality of a profit target 50% 75% etc That's a good question DJ first of all if you're new and you never did the class before and you decide to sign up again The class is at the end of January. He say I want to sign up today Melissa And you sign up and you want to get in and start trading I would tell you that you didn't do the class yet You have no idea of anything that we're looking at yet. I would tell you to get out of trades at 50% Okay, now I do have chart targets in the newsletter. You could follow them as well. All right After you do the class, you're gonna learn targets from me You're also gonna learn exits. You're gonna learn how I exit trades in the class And so I would say if you actually can I don't know if you were full-time if you're retired Or what you're doing during the day between 9 30 and 4 But yes, if you can watch trades after the class after you do it Then I would watch for targets and exit signs that you'll learn in the class If you're somebody that's busy, even if you do the class and you can't watch anything I would buy something and this is just you know, I'm just giving you a tip Say you pay three dollars for something and you get in it. I Put a sell order at four dollars and fifty cents or maybe put it at five Because you can't watch it or you're in meetings or you're running around town with the kids and it's a day order It's a cancel order. It's a limit order It'll cancel out after four and if it hits your trade you'll get out because if you really can't watch what's going on I have the targets in the letter like I have a BA then you don't want to miss something being up where you missed your exit You could get out you can't be that Concerned about trying to get a hundred percent or whatever if you can't watch what's going on DJ Now as far as the BA you didn't have to watch anything I send an email in the morning of Monday BA is a huge train if you're in it Look at it If you got up in the morning Monday and you were in the train which many people were some people weren't some people weren't Somebody did the wrong expiration last week. They did the fifth which I didn't call they were upset at themselves They made money in the trade that got out, but they didn't get the move on Monday Randy said he didn't do it So I mean again the only way to make money is if you do the trades But if you get up in the morning and you're in the trade you don't have to think that trade was up way more than a hundred percent So you don't have to worry about targets. You don't have to worry about where to get out and that was my point to you Tron What are you worried about? Get out. It's through every target that I gave you Don't overthink it. I'm Vivian's asked me about the gap ups in the market. I'm guessing you're talking with the spy here Again, I will go long. We've done some longs and I will go along again Have I been going along the market recently? The answer is no will I Change my mind on Friday or next Thursday or whatever? Maybe but as of right now, no So that's my two cents So while I'm not shorting the market every single week. I'm not going long in either I did not participate in the rally that we had in November December in my mind. It was a false rally But it absolutely worked and if you went long then you made money. We did go long Stock specific stocks in those months That one of the things we went long was crowd but looked at this. Let's look at it I haven't looked at this at all in 2024 Oh crap. We should have done this today. Look wow We went long this I could have done this today But we did we did ba Whoo, look at that I mean, I can't I can't I can't get everything But look there you could have done it And look at the look at the beautiful move that had actually you could have this is something we went long You can see it. We went long this last year at the end of the year But you could have done it today and you could have done it yesterday This I would have gone long this year. I forgot about it Again, if I don't see it short, then I'm looking for a long I don't look at every single stock that's gaping every single day and do 20,000 things a day But you could have done this and we did go long this December and it worked And this worked here look at that It's too late to do it now though That is that But no, I didn't go long the market You can't go long every gap up and you can't go long you can't short every gap down now Some of these gaps rank good I'd have to go back and rate them My expectation was we were going to get a failure in here at some point and we weren't going to make new highs I was right about that We didn't make new highs in the spy in 2023. We did get close We did get close And again, we're so close now and I said this at the end of 2023 That if we don't make new highs in the next 30 days and I'm not even going to say 30 days now because I said that couple of weeks ago We have to do it like now because if we don't then we won't In fact, I'm going to tell you that we got to do it in the next week Because if we don't then we won't At least not right now. So there you have it. That's my market call So if it happens on friday, it happens because of the banks and if it doesn't happen friday low odds It happens anytime soon and that's going to be a problem It's going to be a problem for a lot of people that think the market's going to keep, you know going higher One of the things I think it's tricky going back to vivian's question is Again, I don't trade the same stocks every day Like again, yeah, we did ba today and yeah, we did ba yesterday But i'm not going to do ba, you know Every day for the next two weeks like I get up and I'm looking for what's gapping. We just so happens that we had ba the last two days remember earnings season doesn't start till friday We haven't had a lot of gaps this week where I'm happy we have the ba Because I you know people were on vacation last week or just getting back the market volume also has been crazy low I mean, I know that we rally today and I know that we rallied yesterday but this is just Crap volume for the market people today and yesterday. This is we're rallying here on bupkis to be honest with you Fact to prove my point See if I can find NVIDIA had more volume than the market than the overall market today That's really not normal NVIDIA is another one you could have gone long yesterday So we've had a rally the last two days, but it's really low volume So NVIDIA one stock one specific stock had more volume today than the overall market. That's not good for the market And people are back this week people are trading this week any other questions here Anyways getting back to what I was saying 12 years of teaching people and seeing what people do so many people You know, I want to say people don't size themselves right because they tend to oversize themselves thinking a trade's going to go and work and then it and then it then it Doesn't work and then they kill it and then the trade goes on to work anyways And they lost her to trade that it goes on to work anyways, but they had too much size so they killed it Wow, this went up again today. Look at that. This almost went to 550. That's pretty crazy It's pretty nuts But anyways, you could have gone long this Yesterday and today, but anyways you so many people You know are all over the place where they're sizing, but it's really just because they want to get some big trade You know the big trades aren't going to come by oversizing yourself And again, you're more likely than to kill a trade that may be a very good trade because you're scared because your sizing is too big and not hold it Or end up losing far too much in a trade where you have to do five trades just to come back to break even from your sizing So people have a have an issue with sizing. They're all over the place with sizing Mostly because they just want a big trade not because they really believe in the trade So most people when they screw up their sizing it's not because oh my god, they love this trade. They love it Love it. Love it. It's like because they just want a big trade You can't force a big trade to happen if it's going to happen again 99 of the time It's not planned that something goes to a biggie target If you're taking the right actions every single day Just like if you're on a diet and you're following it and you're exercising every single day You're going to lose weight. It's just going to naturally happen over time And again, naturally you will get the big one to the piggy like the ba But you got to be in the trade to get it But I just think people in general don't have any set strategy that they follow on a continuous basis And nowhere near as long as I've been doing what I've been doing because again I started training in 2008 and that's when I started doing gaps So I mean I've done nothing but gaps and made a career out of only doing gaps and mostly shorting again Sometimes I'll go along but I'm mostly short but because I can see shorts so well. I can see the longs I just pointed out too. I mean crowd. I could have watched that. I could have done it I mean you could be in crowding your retirement account. Crowd looks great Crowd's higher, but I'm not doing that as a momentum trade because the move already happened now I didn't get it for this last two days NVIDIA has been up significantly for the past week. What would you look for to short it? No idea why you'd be one of short NVIDIA right now, Joe NVIDIA is not a short You shouldn't be looking at shorting NVIDIA I'm confused why you would ask that. What's again? What's your strategy? NVIDIA just had a monster move the last 48 hours Why on the planet earth would you want to short it? And if you want to short something you would not be looking to short this What's the strategy? As it keeps hitting all-time highs Why would you want to short a stock that's hitting all-time highs? Why would you think you were going to make money doing that? That is asked backwards I mean we should have gone long this I didn't do it and again I talked about it in the room yesterday I said oh, I think this is too late at the time. I said that it was at 5 10 5 12 And then today went up almost to 5 45 You're crazy if you short this No, I thought it was going to drop last week. It didn't The market fell last week this dropped a little The market flipped the last two days and I think that's actually one of the reasons why That uh, the market actually rallied was NVIDIA because this is considered a market stop But if your strategy is to short stocks at brand new all-time highs, Joe That is a losing strategy. I got to be honest with you There's something else I was going to say Oh, we were talking about the focus Oh, you know what else I wanted to look at Nike See how this closed today and do much of anything there Anyways, if you want to make money in the market, you have to have a strategy that works I mean when I say works, I mean it has more winners than losers You got to get your sizing right too Okay You can't be all over the place for their sizing You can't risk a thousand dollars in one trade five thousand another You also can't kill trades for no reason You want to kill it? You know why either then you shouldn't have taken it maybe So again, you put in the stop So again, BA we had to stop I got out of it. I was up money today before it stopped out But anyways You got to put a stop in Because if you don't put a stop in you have an limited risk I'm talking about day trades if you're doing options. My risk is my stop So Because I can't lose more than I risk So again BA worked in our favor. What if it didn't If you had risked $2,500 in the BA puts on january 3rd And if it had gapped up on monday morning to 300 It would never make it back in time For the 245 puts to be positive by the 12th if it had done that on monday, which it didn't But the most you would have lost is $2,500 So again Options to me the risk is the stop and you're better off letting things play out You let things play out to their natural conclusion Basically win or lose and that's how I look at options But again, you have to set your risk accordingly So going back to what I was saying a lot of traders when they trade They're all over the place With the choices that they're making Or they don't have a applicable strategy that they use on a daily basis Or they say that something is a strategy when it really isn't at all And they're also all over the place with their risk When it's I wish I could say trading is so easy That you can just go along everything in an uptrend and short everything in a downtrend or vice versa But it's just not that way And you're going to see that with the market I mean mark my words So again, let's just lay out the scenario that the mark that the banks report and gap up and fly high on Friday and the market makes new highs and everything looks great. It's not going to last Might last for a little bit, but it's not going to last Then people want to buy every dip and buy every pullback and that's not going to work either What if we crash friday? What if all the banks are down? blah blah blah blah blah And then we fall Again People could buy a gap down in the market on friday They could buy the dip they could buy the support they could say this isn't going to last boo And they say we're in an uptrend. We're going to go long And then we fall fall off a planet And then those people lose so again The market isn't an uptrend. There's no denying that But we're not going to have a power trend This year and we actually didn't last year november was bullish and december was bullish vivian was right about that I didn't participate, but we did short the market in the fall of 2023 And we had a lot of nice shorts and they worked and they continued and they followed through Then I laid off, but I didn't go long My expectation was we would have a sell-off. It didn't come, but I didn't I didn't lose I just never got the setup. We did other things and that was that Brash, as you said your risk is your stop loss So let's say you risk a thousand dollars per tray and don't have a stop loss No, you have a stop your stop is the thousand dollars your risk You're you can't lose more than that dj But you take your profit at 50% Is that a good risk strategy? I think you're saying If you risk a thousand a thousand a thousand And you get out of every trade at 50% And then you're going to have some losers. You're saying are you going to make money? I'm trying to read your mind here, but I think that's what you're asking me DJ I'm talking to you and anybody else with those questions if you want to write it DJ I think that that's fine for you as I was saying earlier if you're new Yes, I think that's fine for you if you're new Do I think that you should get out of every trade at 50% from now until the end of time if you join? No, no, I think you like I said I gave six things at the when I started talking today What the fifth thing was to master your skill at some point I'm not saying you have to be like right a ways and again trond is new So he's asking me a lot of questions because he's new at some point you have to develop the skill set Where you say I love this. I absolutely love this. I know this is going to go I'm holding this 200% And you will hold them and you got to learn that and you're gonna it's you have to learn it So I think at the beginning. Yes, that's fine. I think after do the class You're going to learn a lot more and then you'll be fine holding some things past 50% But I think you've got to master the skill set and if you just want to join the options newsletter And you don't want to do the class and you don't want to learn it It's going to take you longer because you're going to have to watch what we're doing I still at the beginning would get out at 50% and you still should be okay because every once in a while You're going to get a trade like ba and you're just going to get it and you didn't even have to think about it And then you're going to make a lot of money in it But I think that's fine at the beginning, but you have to learn the skill And not only do you have to learn the skills that I have you have to master them too And how long that's going to take you? I have no idea because I don't know you and everybody's different and everyone is different and that's a fact So I mean at the end of the day You know, I could say Blah blah blah blah blah, but I don't know what you know and a lot of people have bad habits In fact, some people's habits are so bad that they really shouldn't even be trading Because their habits are so bad that they're just digging themselves a deeper hole And it's a hole that they will have a hard time getting themselves out of And and again, I've been teaching for so long now that I had people following me for so long That That they've done so many other classes because I didn't want to pay the money for my class because my class is 74 99 They they they've done They probably spent 10 times the amount of money in classes and losses or more than that over the 12 years They've been following me because they didn't want to pay the money for my class And they've done themselves such a hole In training losses that they have a hard time Then deciding to finally plop down the money from my class, which they should have done five years ago it's you know It's it's one shoot. It's like, uh, it's like a credit card. You know, you get like this is again, you know, I'm Giving away my age here, but like back when I started out. I started out as a teller in banking I started out as a teller and then it was a customer service rep And then I was an assistant manager and then I was a manager and then I did loans and that I did mortgages You know, I used to lend money to people, you know, and we we had credit cards at the bank and then I was basically acting like a Underwriter and looking at people's credit reports and looking at people's balances and then back in the day I mean, I'm talking 25 30 years ago credit was so So easy to get and you know, depending on your age, you know that I'm right I mean people were getting unsecured lines of credit We were we were we were giving them we were giving them at the bank. I was giving small business loans We were we were giving unsecured lines of credits to the tune of 50 000 100 000 credit cards too That's unheard of now. It's absolutely unheard of so again It's just like with anything else Sometimes what happens is people dig themselves such a hole That the only way to get out of it Is to to is to just dig yourself up out of it There's no there's no other way out of it And and and it's not an easy decision for people, but unfortunately, that's what it is So you're not going to dig yourself out of a trading hole By risking too much money. You're just going to dig the hole deeper down into the earth and you're not going to Make it any easier By paying for cheap classes and taking bad trades on top of that and losing more The only way to dig yourself out of the hole is to dig up out of the hole It's the same thing with credit cards It's like you got to just chip away at it chip it chip it chip it But again People don't want to hear that answer You know if I if I call trades like ba every day You know Everybody would be thrilled But I mean the last two days proves the point There were people that even screwed up this trade You know they screwed up the expiration date Or they didn't take it Or they killed it Friday actually because it was down Friday the trade was down And some people killed it with a loss and and the trade was huge on monday So no matter how you look at it dj The only way you're really going to get somewhere Is eventually Mastering the skill set and learning it It's just there's no two ways about it But you can tipy toe at the beginning and that's why people like to follow me taking the trades And that's why i'm here. I'm here to you can ask me questions. What do I think about this? What do I think about that? What do I think about this tron asked me what I thought about ba? I said get the hell out Yesterday is what I said He he stayed in one extra Contract he did okay. He got out today. He made money But that was that was chance in it because it was a great trade yesterday Trond are you there any other questions before I think there was anything else I want to say Sometimes you can get so caught up Into doing So sometimes you can get so caught up Into Trond is saying it was pure luck and it wasn't luck we sold off yesterday into the clothes That was you emailed me in the morning. We sold up into the clothes that was good yesterday tron But i'm just telling you get in a habit when you see something through the master target like that Just get in the habit of not overthinking it and get out It was a good close yesterday for the ba to continue lower You know which it did today um Anyway, so many people were were were habitual people as as human beings We are we're we're do things as far as habits. We're very big on habits But again at the end of the day You know, um You know at the end of the day Sometimes we have habits that aren't good Like everyone's talking about dry january People don't you know people want to not drink in january Well, that's really hard for people if you're watching football every sunday the super bowls coming up You know, there's holiday parties You know So I mean habits are hard to break And that's just human nature And it's the same way with trading But it is up to us to break those habits if we have bad habits The first step is to recognize that you have a bad habit That isn't really serving your highest good. It may be serving something for you It may be giving you a reason to complain or Tell yourself that you're not successful or you know, wine to your friends that are other traders Well, this really sucked today. The market screwed us whatever It's that's not going to get you where you want to be When you get to the point when you're really really really really really really successful You you may have a lot less friends than you do right now There's a lot fewer people at the top than there are at the bottom And it will always be that way So you really have to decide how committed you are to doing it And again, this is it's a it's an independent activity You know One of the reasons I block off the comments and everything is a room Then it's because I'm in charge. I have to be the one in charge I'm in charge. I'm the one that knows what's going on I'm the one that's invented the system in the first place. I'm the one that's You know calling the trains better than anybody else So again, if you want to be like me, you learn what I know But you absolutely have to master the skill and dj if you're new and you're like I just want to make money That's fine at the beginning, but eventually you have to say Well, I really want to get good at this And what am I going to have to do to make that happen? Well, we kind of went off topic today, but I think it was a good discussion Any other questions? Randy, I haven't talked to you for I feel like a while Why didn't you do the ba last week or did you do it and kill it? I'm not talking about this week. I'm talking about last week Were you not trading last week or I forget if you were in the room Vivian, I know you've been following me for a bit. Do you have any other questions? Randy, are you there? Hello, remember Ernie season starts Friday. You don't remember why you didn't do it Oh shoot Well, one thing going forward Randy, you should say to yourself is Again, how many trades do I want to do a week? And again, I'm talking about options trades too maybe like Hone it down for yourself. I'm going to do this many on a Monday or this many per week I'm going to be in this many things at a time because I because we it was a slow week at the beginning of the week So I you could have done it. I called that early on so maybe going forward You say, okay, I'm going to do Five trades a week or six trades a week or whatever And kind of pace yourself because you don't want to miss the next one Do you know what I mean? Like make up your mind how many trades you want to do a week and how many do you want to be in at one time? Say, well, I'm not going to be in any more than three at a time or something But you could have done the BA then You know what I mean? And definitely make sure you don't miss the earnings season's trades All right, very good. Anyone has any questions or if you're interested in the class email me at melissa at thestockswish.com Do good tomorrow everybody And then we'll talk to you later