 So trading has become all about like psychology and discipline. And like, like we're all like broken people with mommy problems. And that really masked effect that people don't actually have an edge. They draw squiggly lines on a chart and they're like, that's their strategy. Right. And yeah, in certain markets, like that could work and it does work. Like in just market that actually works a lot, but that's not really an edge. And so like right now, we've gotten gone backwards where it's like, hey, you need to learn discipline. You got to do routines. You got to do cold baths, right? You got to stop jerking off stuff. And that's going to make you rich. What's going on, guys? We're back with another episode of the After Hours podcast. Today we have an incredibly special guest. We have Kunal, who is a absolute legend in the trading world. So thank you for coming on, my friend. We really appreciate it to have you. My man, I appreciate you guys having me. So give me a rundown. Why are there four of you guys? What's going on? This is a new fit. That's what he said. You're like the opposite of Joe Rogan. You're like, screw this, man. We're going to a point. In trading, there's so many different perspectives and so many different ways to make money. So all of us kind of have our own different strategy. And we mold that together with all the other audiences to see kind of what works so Harry in the white is long buys. Joe, in the white, then it trades options. Me and James are mostly small caps. So I kind of have a little bit of everything involved just to be able to give all different perspectives of all different strategies in the market. That makes sense. I made sense. And how long have you guys all known each other? Sorry for all the questions. I'd just like to get a little back. Who's interviewing who? What's going on? I'm just curious on this format because I like it because sometimes I've done so many podcasts and it's like, you know, you're one V1 and then I don't think you've got a lot of things to say, but it's like, you only have so many things. It's okay. Tell me about your trading stock. Right. And then it's like, hey, tell me about your struggles. And it's like this kind of, this is cool because it's like kind of like, you know, bros at a bar. Well, that's kind of the point, right? It's kind of like how we have the bar in the background. It's like, we've all been friends for like five years, which is crazy. It's gone. It's just flew by. And it's like, you know, we talk to each other in chat. We use Slack and it's like getting on a video format makes it feel like more like we're all together and it's like a really cool environment to like, you know, you see your friends in person more, you know, and we don't get to do it in life. Well, James, James is more like that friend that shows up where, you know, all of a sudden everybody in the group goes, ah, fucking James is here. Who texted him? Who texted him? Oh man. Oh God, I like this. I like it. I like that you interview us first. Yeah, it's a nice change of pace, but instead of asking the regular boring questions, I mean, we'll probably get to those too, but I saw one of your tweets today. Let me actually pull it up. I really wanted to talk about this. Um, you know, it was mostly like day trading is not gambling. There's a system more systematic than people think. And the exact words were too many outsiders don't understand how different trading life is from gambling. Trading is systematic. Gambling is not. Have you kind of elaborate on that? Yeah, a hundred percent. So even when you're gambling, so you're gambling casino, you're doing fantasy football, like I like playing cards and all this stuff, right? I mean, your odds or edges, maybe one or two percent, right? I mean, we've all been through Alex, probably, you know, I've seen you do it too. We've all been on runs and trading where we may not have losing day for a month. Yeah. You know, like that's not, that's not gambling. That's, that's like Michael Jordan shooting a shot, but even better, right? Cause that's only 50-50 shot. And it's not always like that. But right, we've all been on runs like that, like where it's like, you know, with day trading, especially, it's a little bit different than say position trading or investing or swing trading where like, say you have a 55% win ratio or something like that, then yeah, you're going to have like losing months and stuff like that because you only take some, you only take five, 10 trades in a month. So the numbers just don't play out where you can win all the time. But when you're day trading, like, too, sometimes you might take 50, 100 trades in a day, right? So, you know, the numbers tend to play out a lot more because of the frequency that you're also doing it. And so like in general, you know, like I barely gamble ever, right? But like in trading, like I've never looked at it like that because if you have an edge, you're trading a lot and you're just damn good and you know it, like you're going to make it. Yeah. Do you think the hardest part of trading is finding that edge? Do you think the hardest part is just losing it till you figure it out? Because I totally agree with it. I totally agree is trading is the only business where you could bet based on the pattern that you see first. And if the pattern that you see that does not have a high win rate does not show up, you don't have to bet on the setup. And vice versa is if you see that that pattern is showing such an edge, you can even go bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger into it. So do you think the hardest part about trading is actually indeed finding an edge that works? We all have like over time, everybody's going to develop like in all in center, right? Like there's always times like I noticed you had one when you were doing that challenge where you were all in on BVBY, right? That short, that's an all in setup. That's full account plus buying power plus margin, because you know, like that thing shows up once every two, three months. And hey, I may be able to risk only so much per day, but I'm willing to risk a week's worth of risk or two weeks worth of risk because this pattern is so rare. But I also know through my own anecdotal evidence, but also my own data, right? That this is a layout if I can nail it, right? So we all have to have these kind of things and develop that. I think right now, like what's happening, and this is like kind of like an American thing, right? Everybody is like so like mental, mental, mental health, mental health. So trading has become all about like psychology and discipline and like, like we're all like broken people with mommy problems. And that really masked the fact that people don't actually have an edge. They draw squiggly lines on a chart and they're like, that's their strategy, right? And yeah, in certain markets, like that could work and it does work in this market that actually works a lot. But that's not really an edge. And so like right now we've gone backwards where it's like, hey, you need to learn discipline. You got to do routines. You got to do cold baths, right? You got to stop jerking off and that's going to make you rich. And they're totally glossing over the fact that you need to have edge and then you need to know how and when to attack it. And that's where the rest of it flows from. And then of course you need the discipline and all these kind of things. But these are offshoots of that. Are you struggling to find the right stocks to trade? Are you making money for one, two, maybe three weeks in a row and losing it all in one day? Are you struggling with sizing up on your trades? Well, I found that the best way to fix these problems is to trade alongside a millionaire trader live on stream with no delays. My investing clubs new live trading stream is the missing puzzle piece to your trader. Every day at 9 a.m. I share my screens, find the best stocks to trade and build my watches live. Then I execute those trades live on screen. It's like you're sitting right next to me as I trade every single day. Due to the high demand of the screen share, we only have a few spaces available every single month. So if you're seeing this now, it means that space is still available. And here is the best part. If I do not generate $20,000 in realized gains per month on live stream, you do not pay. So go to myinvestingclub.com slash live trading to get 50% off your first month on the live stream. Spaces are limited and filling up quick. What do you have to lose? This may change your life. Yeah, I definitely completely agree. And yeah, in trading, it really does come down to kind of like formulating that and also learning from your mistakes. But one thing that I wanted to kind of ask you was what do you kind of like primarily trade, you know? Because like I've heard of you, I've seen you a lot, but I've never really kind of like followed like what you trade or what you do. So for me, it was very kind of like interesting to have you on because I was like, man, like I don't really know that much, but I'd love to learn. So yeah, what do you kind of trade? Like what's like a normal day for you? So I have a handful of buckets of different things that I trade. So in general, I'm a trend trader or like a momentum trader, like most people. And I have a handful of buckets within them that I do. Number one is, you know, I'm trading like high beta, large cap names that are got big ATRs up and down. And I'm using those as like essentially scalping, like income trade. So like Tesla and NVIDIA, Meta, like these kind of names where, you know, they're on your daily list and you're kind of trading them back and forth for income trade. And I'll use options to kind of get a little bit extra juice in them. And then beyond that, like I'm really looking for stocks that have like earnings breakouts or catalyst breakouts, you know, still mostly like tech, biotech type of names, but like anything that would be earnings breakout and then the subsequent right run after it, like stocks like a UPST or a Palantar, things that like will have a big base surprise on earnings with usually like a big beat that's usually a surprise. And then you start a trend and I'll be day trading those back and forth. And then the third bucket, which is really only in like kind of a stage two big run up phase would be like a handful of swing trading strategies based on, you know, position trading stocks that have these kind of catalysts. Awesome. Yeah. That's what led you to that type of trading. So like most of us, like I started off in the small cap game, you know, but that was just when did you start? So I opened Bulls on Wall Street 2008. That was full-time trading in about 2007. And you know, coming out of the recession, everything was a small cap, right? Like Bank of America was a buck, Ford was a buck, lost, you know, Las Vegas, Angeles, four bucks, you know, everything. And then Volkswagen going from 200 to 1,000 and everybody went, what the? Everything was, you know, everything was cheap. But like even before that, I was primarily trading small caps. And I would say like probably about 2013, 2014, the liquidity for liquidity purposes and just sizing purposes, I really couldn't get the juice that I needed to in small caps without just getting bad at like once a month, because you can only get so much size in them. And I don't have like the kind of discipline like that Alex does or Bao does where you can scale in or Nate does really like scale in and scale in and scale in and then catch the flush, scale in, scale in, scale in, catch the flush. I'm more of a one-shot, one kill type of person. So like when you're trading, when I was trading small caps and now, you know, going from say a small account to right when you're trading almost seven figures, it just doesn't work. You're getting bagged all the time on one of these rugs because I just don't, I don't have that kind of focus and discipline to sit there, scale in, measure in and out. Like that's just not my thing. And so at some point- If you scale, if I say scale ever, just go the opposite. It's going to the moon. Like if I'm- I've seen you scale Joe. It's not good. No, it's not. No, no, no, no. Scaled RKDA and it went from like low of the day to 20. I need to make, like I need to make my move and with the size I want. And you know, I may have one or two scales in it, but I'm just going to get the liquidity I needed small cap. And frankly, they were just stressing me out. Like at some point you make your money and then you're like, do I really want this stress? You know, like sitting there, like is somebody bagging it? Is somebody doing this? Is somebody shorting this? Like, you know, primarily I was still on the long side as the market was in a big run up. So I didn't even know how to short these things. So also like all my friends like Bow and Nate are shorting these things and I'm long with them and I'm like, what is going on here? I can be messaging Nate on Gmail, you're like, how did you know that's a short? Like I'm looking at this thing. It looks like a dust darn breakout, you know? And so it was just too much stress. I'd already made my money. Like I didn't need that stress anymore. And then of course for scalability purposes, like, you know, in my head, I'm like, okay, looking 10 years down the line. Okay, trading larger names, more momentum names is just a lot better for what I'm going to be trying to do. And so, you know, I still trade, I'll still trade cheaper stock, but it's just not my breaded butter. Like I'd rather trade something like a Carvana or an AI or something like that, that's, you know, 25, 35, $45. It's just got the big heat. Then trying to mess around with like a $2 stock. So what's your favorite type of set up? What's your favorite type of set up? What's your favorite type of set up? Oh, good, now that's a good question. So EPs are usually my favorite type of set ups, earnings, breakouts. And then the post moves of that, like probably for the next week or two. So what I mean by an earnings breakout is like usually something that's got like a big elongated base. So you're talking maybe three, four months, six months, even a year, right? You gap up on usually earnings beat that's a big surprise that people aren't expecting it. And then the subsequent, you know, next days, you could do this for weeks or even months sometimes. That's usually my bread and butter, like things with catalyst. You know, something like, for example, like a UPST, right? Like a UPST a few months ago in this last earnings report, I believe it was sitting at like 16 bucks. It gaps up to 19, pulls back for a few days to 16 and then right, it's off to the races to 60 bucks. That's my bread and butter. Like you've got a tech name that's an actual company, breaks out, pulls back, is that a good trend? That's awesome. I feel like hearing you talk like you are someone that has like such a defined edge. And I feel like you're like very, you're a lot like saying, I feel like you have like this energy and like you're really, really focused on what you do and you're good at it, right? When you were developing an edge as we were talking about emotions kind of before, was it really hard for you to find like what you were good at? Like did you have those moments of like high emotions, stress, like depression, anxiety, everything, like getting to this point that you're so confident in how you are now? Yeah, I mean, we all are gonna go through that. Like, I mean, you're really an asshole if you're saying like you never doubted yourself, right? I think you really are, right? Like you can have all the swagger in the world but you're a jerk if you're really saying that. Like everybody's gonna go through that at some point. And I think the interesting part of trading and why this happens a lot too is a lot of people that get into trading are actually been successful in other fields. So like people were maybe good at sports or I get a lot of students that were like, are lawyers or doctors or engineers or programmers. And they're so used to success in doing this specific way that all of a sudden like when you get into this field and you're so used to winning all the time like you've been doing it your whole life and all of a sudden now you're not. Like it's a big kick to the nuts. And then like beyond that, like trading itself, it brings out your worst impulses. So like whatever demons you have, trading brings those out like five fold, 10 fold. So like if you're a habitually late person in your personal life, you tend to be late on your trades. If you're an anxious person, right? You get anxiety. Like I got friends that live here on the beach and they're like, oh my gosh, there's waves out. I can't go in the water, right? Like that's not everything. An anxious person, what are the odds? Like I'm in the urinal with a bunch of dudes. I got stage fright. I can't take a piss, right? If you're an anxious person, you can't do that. What are the odds like you get into trading and all of a sudden like you're this Zen master? No, there's no. And so these things start to take root. Like if you have these things going on in your personal they get magnified in your trading and they create losses. And then you also don't know what you're doing. If you don't know what you're doing and then this stuff is happening. And so it's like a perfect storm of just people getting wiped out. Like when they say only 10% of traders make it, like it's a lot less than that, right? I mean, you're talking, at least for day traders for swing traders or like people that are just buying BTS and shit, right? Like, okay, I can get 10, 15% make it maybe even 20%. But like if you're day trading or you're scouting, I mean, you're talking 1%. Yeah, absolutely. And I actually saw this video, it was a trader talk you did like a couple of years ago and you were talking about blowups and it was like really good. And I just listened to it the other day and it was, I don't know, it like rang true with me a lot just like dealing with like stuff that I've dealt with even recently and just tough trading and all that stuff. Was that something that you personally have dealt with even more than once? It kind of like alluded to that kind of in that speech and kind of how did you bounce back from that? So in general, I've never been trading since college. So I've always like, this is what I do, right? Like this is all I've known or all I've wanted to do, I should say, I've known other things, this is all I've known. So you're going to just blow up accounts. But some of the things that you gotta remember especially for you new guys is like, look, when you start off, your capital is so low, like blowing up is not really blow up, right? Like you have to take it with the grain. So it may be all the money you have, but like blowing up a $5,000 account or $10,000 account, that's not a blow up. Like a blow up is a million, right? Or two million, $500,000. So like this is gonna happen. You're gonna blow up some $5,000 accounts, $10,000 accounts for the most part. You know, I've had a lot of people I've run into, like their first accounts are hot and then they blow up later when they have a hundred or $200,000. But at some point, like these things just happen, they stink, right? Like it's like, it's the most humbling thing you can go through for most people. And it hurts. It's worse than a, I'd rather, you know, I'd rather my girlfriend get banged by all my cousins and brothers and blow up an account. You know what I mean? Like it hurts, right? Like- If it's a million dollar account, two million dollar account, I might be there with you, bro. $500,000, I don't know about that one. Like if you're a trader, like this is going to hurt more than anything, right? Because like a lot of times when you're new as trader too, like you are, if you're good or really you're serious about it, you're probably giving up a lot of your personal life. You're probably giving up a lot of bro time, a lot of stuff, a lot of dating. Like dude, I'm 42 years old. Like I've come up for, I'm living with a girl for the first time in my life. Like, first time in my life, right? Like you don't know a lot of this. If you want to be awesome, right? Especially in your twenties, like you're going to be giving up a lot of things. So when you blow up the account, it's not just I blew up the account, man. You're also like, you gave up so much of yourself to do this. And that's what hurts. Like, you know, it hurts. And also it's embarrassing. Like, how do you talk to somebody about this, right? That's like, you just failed. Like, how are you supposed to tell your parents? How are you supposed to tell your brothers and sisters? Right? Because the week before when you made 500 bucks, you're like, I'm on my way, right? I'm on it. I'm on it, people. And then right the next day, it's like, I got to look for a job. I got to do it. I got to do it. I got to do it. It is such a shitty feeling, bro. It is such a shitty feeling that no one really gets until you're down there and feel it, man. It's so toxic, but how do you, like, do you have any advice to just get out of that funk? Because you get into a certain mood where you're just like almost self-destructive after it. Dude, you got to do it. Like, you know, one of the things, like, you know, so my employees are all my childhood best friends. So like, it pulls on once we get 10 employees, the five of them I grew up with since grade school. And we used to always do one thing. Like, if I had like a nasty drawdown phase and it seems counterproductive, but we'd go on a bandit, like a monster bandit, to get my, get me away from this, right? Like sometimes you've got to go out and just have some damn fun, right? You got to have some fun for a couple of days. I'm going to talk about some real fun. Forget about the trade. Forget about the trading for a couple of days. But then at some point, two, three, four days, whatever, don't do more than a week. Because like, you don't get a vacation because you lost money. You know, that's where people mess up. Like, hey, I'm taking a week off, like I'm not trading up. No, you don't get a vacation because you lost money. Lost money. Make a couple of days off, go on a bender, make some bad decisions, have some damn fun, but then you got to get back into it. You know, you got to get back into it. Like, look, you may, you're not coming back with a full account or anything like that. Whatever it is, like you put a handful of bucks in, you're doing a simulator, you're studying, whatever. But you do have to get back on it at some point and there's no other way around it. Like you don't get a vacation because you blew up your account. You know, like the dirtiness, like the process of all this, like the homework, that's where the money's made anyways, right? And so at some point, you take a breather for a couple of days, redo your business plan, right? Review exactly why you're doing this. Go back through all these things and then you start off small. The problem is for most people is right when they trade bad, they start off too big because they're trying to make their money back. So it's a fresh take, right? Hey, I'm starting off small. I'm trading, it's humbling, right? I'm trading 25 shares of stuff. Don't go back on the simulator, any of this nonsense. I'm trading 10 shares of stuff. 20 shares of stuff, whatever it might be. Hey, I'm profitable for a week. All right, I up my risk profile. I'm going to 50 shares. Profitable for a week, I'm going to 75 shares. Profitable for a week, I'm going to 100 shares, right? And kind of build it up like that. It's really the only way you can do these things, but you got to be real careful like, when you block that account, like you are so vulnerable, but you got to just get it out of your system, have some fun, then you got to get back to work. You know, that's really where the money's made anyways, right? The ability to do work when you don't want to do work. That's where the money's made, right? Like, you know, if you had a bad one day, and you're still at night doing your trade journal, you're doing your scans, like you're reading some books or whatever, you're watching YouTube videos, whatever it might be, trying to learn something, that nitty gritty right there, doing it when you don't want to, that's the edge. There is an edge. So there's different edges in life, right? So like if you have low capital especially, right? There's edges in life. So you can have an edge in capital. I have more money than somebody. You can have an edge in experience. I've been doing this longer than somebody. You can have an edge in smart. I'm a higher IQ person than somebody, but also if you can have an edge in your work ethic, you can have an edge in your routines. You can have an edge in your resilience. You can have an edge in your physical well-being, your profile, are you working out? Are you doing these things, right? You can have an edge in all these kind of things. So you can also work on these things. When you're new and you're losing and you're low on capital, the edges are in your work ethic, your discipline, your body, all these kind of things. And you have to really attack those because it's gonna take a while to get the other one. Bro, that is so powerful. I love it. That was awesome. Yeah, so let's go back to this UPST example that you talked about. This particular chart, you know, if you're somebody that has that small account that lacks that discipline that's gotten beat down, why would you recommend this chart over and over again? Okay, so this is a class-size class-size breakout and you'll see this pattern show up like a thousand times in the last few months. So you have a stock that's essentially $400, right? It just narrows its way down in the bear market to 16, 17 bucks. I think the low is maybe 20 bucks, right? So now this thing is left for debt. Everybody knows it's a turd. It's not just a turd, it's probably the smelliest of turds you can possibly have in the back deck. But at some point, like if you notice how long it just goes sideways, at some point buyers and sellers are at an equilibrium, right? There's just nobody left to sell. You'll get hit with bad news all the time. Like it was sitting there at 13, 14 bucks is still getting hit with bad news, downgrades, all this kind of stuff. But nobody cares anymore. Nobody cares anymore. It was 400 bucks. Everybody knows they're 14 bucks. It's a big piece of crap. And then all of a sudden, like one day when they announced their earnings, you see that gap right there, right? You see that gap right there. And all of a sudden the earnings come out and it's like a little bit of a surprise. And then, of course, they'll throw up, hey, we're doing some AI stuff, which is all BS, but right, it's just all worded. So now when you have something like that, that's the catalyst that propels them, especially if you're talking about just big cap stocks. I'm not talking about small cap stocks, which are more a whole different way of doing promotion. For big cap stocks, it's always the earnings report, right? The earnings report sets us up. So you pop up, you get a three day pullback, and then right now you're off to the races. Long term, so on a short term basis, or if you're talking like one week, two weeks, three weeks, right, stocks run on news, sentiment, right? Just like basic momentum. But a long term basis, the driver of stocks, right, is earnings and earnings growth. Now, we don't gotta read this stuff, right? We can watch for how it reacts after its earnings report. And this is a tried and true, this is called P. It's called post earnings announcement drift syndrome, right, so post earnings announcement. So the earnings are already announced. Everybody knows about it the first day, but yet it keeps going up and up and up and up and up and up and up. And this is about, you know, partially the stock and earnings, but mostly about the market cycle too, right? When you have something so beaten down and the market cycle changes, these small surprises can be a catalyst. You'll see the same thing like for example, PLTR probably around that same time. That's going to the same chart. PLTR is like my favorite ticker, man. You know, you'll have a very, very similar, a very similar look. That video, it's another one of these. You spike up to eight, you pull back for a couple of days and then right next thing you know, you're off to the races. Yep. And PLTR is even a tougher one because the flow on PLTR is probably in the billions. It's a thick bastard. But even then, the power of these things can really get them going. And that's something you'll see just over and over and over, you know, in the enduring earnings season. You know, shop is something similar that's a little bit higher priced. Right, and the video started that way. You know, like if you see like even something like that that's really large cap, the video had that earnings break out from like 300 to 400 a couple of few months ago. Right, and then what do you see after, right? You still start drifting higher and higher. And this is already like right a trillion dollar company. Yep. That's insane. Was it hard for you to get used to the idea of buying higher as stocks are moving higher like this? Cause it goes against a lot of people. And my, at least if you're a trader it goes against your comfort zone. Like you always feel like you're buying a breakout, you're buying a stock that's gonna dump on you, especially coming from small caps. Yeah. Was it hard for you to get used to that idea like this stock has good earnings, it's gonna go higher. So this is a little bit of a nuance, right? So in small cap stocks, there's an assumption that it's a turd, right? There's an assumption that it's a pump and dump. So you have like this inherent, right? Belief on X, Y, Z. So for large cap stocks, it's the exact opposite. It's a pump, right? It's a pump. Large cap stocks get pumped too by the analysts, by the brokers, by all these kinds of things. So, but it's just going in the opposite way. You know, when we're looking at small caps, we're looking at everything and assuming it's a turd and then right, you're kind of trying to take these bad boys down. And with large cap stocks in this particular market cycle, right? It's the opposite. If stocks have their earnings out and then people are piling into it, right? Then the pump is up. Absolutely. Are you systematic with your exits? Because when you're buying a chart like that, obviously like a stock like an NVIDIA or PLTR, like you don't necessarily know where it's going to stop, obviously. How do you determine how you're going to get out of something like that? Especially seeing how far these things can run. And is it, you know, do you have some sort of system in place for that? So that's a great question. Great question in general. If you are in a bull market, so there's four different market cycles. You've got accumulation phase, distribution phase, run-down phase, run-up phase. So bear market, bull market distribution, basing at lows. Each phase of the market requires different rules. So if you were in accumulation phase or distribution phase, these are basing phases in your top or bottom of the market, right? You're not going to be able to hold as long because you don't have any trends, the wind at your back, right? So your sell rules will be completely different. You're going to have more of a choppy environment. So when you get your reward to risk or you're hitting levels of resistance, you're selling. In a run-up phase like this, right? So when you come out of a big long base, right? After a bear market, that is the most powerful part of the stock market. So your sell rules have to change. So rather than having like a static reason of selling, hey, I hit my target, I hit a level of resistance I'm selling, you have to have something dynamic. So we use something that's called like a reasons to sell list, right? So it can be a host of different reasons. But in general, like you're going to have four or five different things. So it could be something like, hey, you got parabolic, you got extended, right? So I'm going to take some off the table. I'm using moving averages. I use a nine EMA, 20 SMA, 50 SMA, 200 SMA. If they're riding above that, right? Then I have no reason to sell also. If you breach your higher highs, higher lows, right? If you're just stair-stepping and that starts to breach, that can be a reason to sell. So you have to be super dynamic about it because in a run-up phase, stocks go a lot longer than you think. Like if you look at something like even something like a piece of crap stock, like a meta, right? Like it's been running up, if you put on your chart like a nine EMA and a 20 EMA, it's just been riding up the whole time. So like you don't have necessarily as many reasons to sell, right? So like you have to be really careful on these kinds of things. And this also holds true for day trading. Like I'm primarily still a day trader, but it's the same type of thing. Like when you have a day trade and you're just running up your EMAs, like you have no reason to sell. And so you want to be careful with this stuff. So rather than saying static, if I make 50 cents a dollar I'm going to sell, it's got to be something more along the lines of like, hey, if it's trending and I have no reason to sell, then I'm going to keep riding it up. And then I want to have a dynamic list of things that need to happen before I do these things. So of course in any extension, I'll always piece out of some because that's just common sense, right? Like you don't, those are gifts. But in general, like if you're not getting extensions and you're just grinding it up, then you got to hold those bastards. So in something like SPX today that dumped, yeah, based on like the, I think it had something to do with like the currency. Go to the Q's today, I'll tell you. So I had like a hundred puts of this before I went to the beat. Did you say to Q's? Yeah, go to the Q's. And hit up a five minute chart. Whoa. Right, so go to a five minute chart and then start zooming in around like one PM for example. Right, so if you add a 90 MA to your five minute chart, right, you'll see like once the Q start dumping under the VWAP, it hugs that 90 MA literally till, well, it hugs it to about three o'clock. Yeah. So like you can use something like that. So 90 MA is like the shortest term moving average you should use, but it signifies pure momentum. So when you're riding up or down that and it's hugging it and you've got pure trend and you can do this, I do this on CVNA or AI or any of this stuff, you can keep riding it. So like you have no reason to piece out of something like this, right? Like if you're caught out shorting the CVNA on the dump around like one PM give or take and it just sat there riding down the 90 MA like literally for a couple hours, right? And so like you can keep holding on to something like that because it's just hugging your trend. So you can use like things like this to give you guides. Now indicators in itself are no reason to buy yourself, right, they are just guides. So like if you think of any trade, every trade is just a coin flip. It's a 50-50 shot, right? Buy, you sell, you win, you lose, stocks go up, they go down. So how you differentiate between this and turn the probabilities in your favor is you have to look at every stock like a lawyer, right? I'm building a case. Is this stock worth my time at your capital, right? So like first we always start with price patterns, right? We have a base price pattern. And then we overlay our indicator while you moving averages, things of that nature. And they help us guide us and they just move that needle a little bit. So like if you have, if every trade is a coin flip and you have a great price pattern, now you go from 50-50 to say 60-40. Did you just have a coin to reference at any point? All these things, now they start to really kind of, they just tip the wheels a little bit and now you got something. Did you just have a quarter to reference like at any point and then to intraday, you're just like, I need to make my decision. I love it. I love it. Was it hard for you to gain the confidence to like hold against like a moving average or something because you're just seeing your P&L obviously like increase the whole way. Like while you're kind of riding this moving average. Did it take a long time for you to be able to actually sit and hold and then really get out when it, when it broke the moving average and it told you to or is that something that came to you naturally? Yeah, those are things that just happened with accumulated experience, right? Like this is just, hey, I have a system in place or I have a set rules in place. And then once you do it and you've seen it thousands of times, then it's not a big deal. Where a lot of people struggle is you need repetitions like to be a trader, right? You need to see so many specific charts to your style. So like for example, if Alex is shorting parabolic, right? So you need to see a hundred thousand of these examples over time before like you're really, really you can trade intuitively without a checklist. So the problem is like most people they don't really spend that much time doing homework. They don't spend that much time doing scans. They don't spend much time looking at back examples of that specific setup. So if you need to see say a hundred thousand of these and you just do like, you know, you just turn on your trade ideas, get scan every day. Where do you get your repetitions on seeing this, right? So you've got to replay this so many times before like it just becomes intuition, right? Intuition only comes from experience. And so you've got to look at them like, man, if I'm a new trader I'm going through thousand charts every day. Even I'm just trading small caps and there's only like two that fit your profile. Thousand charts every day. Look at that five minute chart. Look at the daily chart, right? And start seeing like, could I have traded this? Could I have not? You know, like when you do scans it's not just about finding ideas for the next day. It's about getting a pulse on the market. See, when you do a thousand charts, 1500 charts whatever it might be every single day do you have such a pulse on the market? You're seeing how every stock moves. You're seeing how every stock breaks out or not breaks out. You're seeing how every stock reacts at the VWAP or not reacts at the VWAP. You're seeing what the daily chart patterns are that it's coming out of. And it gives you this awesome pulse on the market. Whether you use the charts or not you're like finally in touch with what's really happening in the market. What happens with most people is they turn on their scanners in the morning, right? And they're like, oh, this idea, this idea, this idea. Okay. But do you know like how that idea really vibes with all the thousands of other things that are happening in the market? Are you using your strategy during a time where it's actually going to be affected? And that's what happened in 2022. The COVID traders made so much money and then when the market shifted those patterns didn't work. And it's not that the patterns were wrong it's that you're just utilizing them in a different time. If they had spent time going through charts every single day thousands of them every single week they would start to notice that every single breakout fails. Can't do them anymore, right? You would see that every single flag pattern fails, right? Every single VWAP bounce fails because you're getting distributed. And so that subtle shift that happened before the indexes show like the index has really started to tank in the beginning of 2022, but the distribution and the failed breakouts and all those things were happening well in excess of that, six months before. So you gotta do that homework. So was there like a timeframe that you see, you know, you've been doing this a long time you've been teaching a long time too is there kind of like a sweet spot because of time that people need to learn these things. You know, there's the 10,000 hours there's all those types of things that kind of judge that but you're somebody that's been doing this for what, was it now, 15, 17 years? Yeah, yeah, so quite a while. I mean, you've seen a lot of people come and go in this game and has there been kind of a timeline that if somebody takes this timeline you've seen them succeed more than others? Yeah, the repetitions you need they gotta come at the beginning because if they don't, what typically happens is you get these bad habits and it takes a long time to break them. So in our business, right? You have MIC, I have my business we have Nate investors live you got Tim Sykes all these people. I can't count how many students I get that leave mine to go there or come from you to come to me or come from Nate to come to me and then they go back this way, right? So people are trying all this random stuff. See in today's world, we're all information whores, right? Because we have so much stuff at our fingertips we believe that if we buy more information we're going to be better. And so nobody ever becomes a master, right? Baus says this all the time, be the master of one set. I met Baus in 2009, he took me to my first night club for bottle service. I had no money back then. I met him at a conference. He took me up all my pay for everything. In my 20s, Baus like, yo, let's go to, you know let's go to the Cosmo, right? Let's go to the rooftop and go to the night club. He's like, it's Kim Kardashian's birthday party. I'm like, oh, I don't got money for this. We don't know if Baus 45 or 65, you know he's aged. Right, yeah, he wasn't aged in 40 years. Yeah. I've learned so much from what he always said one thing, right, become the master of one thing. So what happens is because we have so many chat rooms, Twitter, social media, YouTube, all this stuff nobody's getting good at one thing. They're just homie hopping. They're homie hopping from this to this to this to this, right? One chat room to another. Oh, I'm using one scanner to another. I'm doing one indicator to another, right? It's like, oh, I need a new scanner. Do you think every time they change, it sets them back? It sets them back so much. All of these things work, right? Yeah. But are you really willing to spend some time dedicated to learning that specific thing? Because if you do, you spend a year at it, two years at it, you're going to get it. But what happens is like, if you're in MIC and you're shorting small caps and it doesn't work for two weeks, you're like, oh, I watched Canals podcast. Let me try large caps, right? It'll be better. It's better. And it's not, right? So you come my way, then you sit there and you're looking at it and you're like, gosh, I'm doing this large caps. That's great. Boom, right? Oh, no, I'm losing some money. I'm not doing my homework. Boom, let me go to Nate's chat room. Let me go to this one. Let me go to this one. So we have all this information. So you have a week foundation and then you're just adding crap on crap on crap and none of it makes sense because the rules are different for all these styles of trading because you're looking at different things. And so nobody ever gets better because we have actually too much information out there. You're sitting there on the YouTubes and all this stuff. We buy gap scanners. People think that trading gaps is a strategy. No, it's a small piece of a puzzle, right? It's a 2% of a strategy. That's just the start of a strategy, right? Oh my gosh, it's not gaps. That's just the start of something. It's nothing, right? But people spend all their money on scanners and they're like, hey, just stop scaping up. I'm gonna play it. It's like, that doesn't mean anything without the structure, without the context of everything else. Could you maybe talk about how you use like support and resistance and volume? Cause I know a lot of people are going to wonder kind of about that talking to you. Like, how do you use volume? How do you use support and resistance? How do you kind of go about charting? Because I think that's a question that a lot of people are probably wondering. So great question. So support and resistance can come in a handful of ways, right? So the most obvious into your face support and resistance is just the battle lines that are drawn at specific levels that are between bulls and bears, right? So inflection points. Stocks are having a battle at a certain spot, right? So that's just price support, price resistance. So these are inflection points you trade around. Moving averages can act as support and resistance. Your Bollinger bands can act as support and resistance. So you have a handful of things trend lines can act as support and resistance. So you have to have a dynamic, movable way of looking at support and resistances. And it also depends on just the time of day and the type of stocks that you're looking at. So for me, if I'm new, the easiest way to look at support, resistances, things of that nature is to think about battle lines. What are levels where there's so much action being taken place that a powerful move must come from there? So I'll give you like a prime example. Like I was messing around with this coin stock today, right? So coin had, I'm just going off memory here, but coin had like maybe about a four day level at about 96 bucks, give or take, right? So like a four day on the five minute chart to go back. About four days, it just been tested 96, tested 96, tested 96, tested 96. And then finally like today, because the market was trash, right? Like you started like really marinating around that 96 over and over, I would say for a good two hours or something like that. So tested in the morning, and then it just kind of hit it, hit it, hit it. And then when lunchtime was over, right? Like you flush under that. And so that's your easiest way to look at support and resistance is like, can I make battle lines where there's a war between bulls and bears? And then the key to this is you would, if you have a breakdown, you want that 90 may coming right up on top of it. We call that curls for the girls, right? So you want that curls for the girls on the kitchen coming right up on top of it when it breaks down and the 90 mays right up on top of it. That's when the flush starts, right? That is when the flush starts. So like when I look at support and resistance, like I'm looking for these spots where there's an epic battle going on. And then I'm training around that dependent on the overall trend of the stock, but also the overall trend of what's happening in the market. So for example, this actually, right? The market is already dumping today and this stock was already relatively weak in the morning. While the market was up, the stock was already dumping off. So this is like a gimme trade. This was already showing relative weakness. And then you have this battle line that's happening right around that 96, 95, 50 range and you just test it and you're testing it. And every time you test something, it gets weaker and weaker. So then when you get that 90 and make curls for the girls coming up on the kitchen on it, that's when you're gonna get your flush. I love this guy's analogies, man. I know. You know what's funny is back, I don't know if you'll remember this, but dude, back in like, hey man, it was like 2015, 2016, I think, you spoke at a Sykes conference. Oh yeah. And that's where I met you. I looked way different, shorter hair, less weight. Skinnier. Yeah. More trackers. The long hair is kicking, man. I'd give a million dollars for that hair. I appreciate that. Now, so you said this thing, you know, with these analogies, man, that's the first thing I thought when Alex told me, he's like, we're gonna interview Kanal. I was like, oh, this is gonna be great because he's always got these analogies and I love. And he's like, when you were in this conference, you said, you stand up on this stage in front of two, 300 people, maybe more. And he's like, you know, when you're in college, pulling and praying is fun, but you can't do that in stock market. I was like, I love this guy. I love this guy. I'm all about it. I'm all about it. And then oddly, the world flips, like when you get to my age, like now the rules change, all of a sudden you're thinking like, maybe you need to do a little pull-up. The opposite of a pull-up. You're a praying bull. We're lonely at our age. I've been stuck for a couple of times behind the computers. Dude, that's been my whole life. I don't know what you're talking about. Just hearing you talk, bro. It just is very clear to me how professionally you treat trading. It kind of goes back to the first question I had was, is trading gambling and listening to the way you talk, it's very clear that you treat it like a business. You're not just showing up, looking at what scanner's moving, what chatroom is pumping that. You are looking for, all right, what market cycle are we in first? Are breakouts working? Are breakdowns working? What moving average is it above 200s, under the 200s? So you're treating it very professionally and that leads to professional results. So something that's interested me for a very long time and a question that I ask all of our guests is now that you've, quote unquote, made a trading, you've made your millions of dollars, you've made, you've done what you've had to do. You now have consistent income from trading. You have a nest that's saved up. What do you do to diversify outside of the market? How do you build longer-term wealth by using these short-term gains that come from day trading? So that's a great question. So I actually started something in 2011 where I would buy one share of the QQQs, I've opted now, I'd buy one share of the QQQs every single day. I just take my profits, then they were much smaller or buy one share of the QQQs. Back then it's probably like 80 bucks, 70 bucks or whatever. Buy one share of the QQQs. Buy one every single day. And then like a couple of years later, I'd buy two. And then a couple of years later, I'd buy three. And then when the market would dump, like whenever the market would start pulling back and get oversold, I would up my purchases and double the purchase prices. So then I start buying six every day. And just something so simple like that, right? Is an easy way to just build wealth. So like over the years now, like I have, I don't even know, thousands and thousands of shares. I put it in an IRA, thousands and thousands of shares of damn QQQs. And because the NASDAQ has been flying for the last, right, 13, 14 years. Every single day, even right now, I make some money, buy some QQQs, right? So you got like basic things. You don't have to get so fancy with things. Like a lot of times people like, okay, I need to invest in some private equity and this and this and this. I always, for me personally, I try to stay in my wheelhouse. So I've lost tons of money, trying to be Mr. Big Shot businessman. And because it's out of my wheelhouse, I spend my whole life thinking about this specific thing, stocks, right? And so I tried so much stuff, like trying to get out of this, like, you know, I invested in a Quiznos in North Carolina and did business in this. Do I love the shit out of some Quiznos? Yeah, a couple of things. First of all, retail business is a lot of work, no money. Like I try to buy, I've got a couple of employees that are like, you know, friend tax, that are like my childhood friends. So I try to buy and borrow over here. I'm like, I'll put them over work here. I can hire some better people, right? Then I'm sitting there looking at the numbers and it's like, dude, $8,000 a month rent. This cost, this cost, this cost and you make this. When you compare that with trading, it's like, why are you doing this? Like this is like a day's pay. Like at the end of the year, it can be a day's pay. You know what I mean? And so like, I'm a big believer in sticking your wheelhouse. So long-term stuff, like dollar cost average into the QQQs, right? I even use these robo-laps, like wealth front. You know, I put 10 Gs a month into wealth front. They split it around and do this. Like, right, it's just passive investing. It's not big shop returns or whatever, right? Like you just build into this stuff. And you've got to stay away from like, when you make money, like all of a sudden, you know, you get big city dreams. I'm like, I'm going to invest in this. Like I saw Grant Karko do this real estate thing and I'm going to get into this. So I'm going to get into this. Unless you know what you're next and you have an expertise about it, dude, you can get smoked. I've had quite a few business investments that like, I'm like, oh man, this looks great. Like I'm a business man. I'm owner of bills on Wall Street. No, I'm an owner of a side business at 10 employees, right? Like I'm not some big chef, right? Like you start investing this stuff. It never works out the way you want unless you have an expertise on it. But also you'll notice like the returns are just not. Like when you do real estate, when you do retail, you're talking sub 10% returns usually, right? It's hard in the stomach as a creator. Cause you're thinking like, I make 10% on my kind of day. I'm like, it's really hard. And so I try to do passive investing, long-term investing in the stock market. But I try to stick with stocks and things that I know because like the rest of this stuff, man, I just haven't had, I'm just not good at it. And you know, a lot of people can be different. I mean, I guess your friends are going home 10, you know, rental houses and stuff like this. Yeah, they make some money and stuff. It's like cool. But like, all right, like you make a thousand bucks a month on a couple of houses. Like it doesn't even move the needle for me. And for me, I just can't even stomach spending a million dollars by two rental houses to make a thousand bucks. Right. We come from a dream world. What we're doing right now is a dream world, you know? And we're numbers and we're numbers often are throwing out the window when you're good, right? Like when you're good, true numbers, like what's perceived as possible are thrown out the window, right? And so like, it's just kind of those things like I just don't like doing it. So I stick with passive investing for the most part, you know, I've invested in retail businesses and things like this Quiznos and some of my buddies' businesses and stuff like that. And it never moves the needle. It never scratches the itch. Quite like a trade goes. Something like, you know, what I do like in 2000, coming out of the recession, you gotta wait for recession, then you get all the good, then you get the good stuff, right? So coming out of 2008 recession, like my cousin's a doctor, we're in Michigan, like I knew a bottle of what the car washes in Detroit were $2. They call them $2 car washes. Like you'd find stuff like that on sale for like 50 Gs, 100 Gs, those you can do. If you can get deep discounts on stuff, then it doesn't matter, right? All of a sudden. But like those kind of businesses now, like even a simple car wash with all this inflation, all this crap, $2 million, won't work for $2 million. I pay $20 every time I need to go through the drive-thru car wash. And I'm like, what the fuck? It's just water. Just come on. Dude, I spent 50 bucks at Taco Bell on a drunk night a couple months ago. What's going on? Something that you said, Kunal, about moving the needle, I kind of want to step back on that is, I've kind of gotten to the point, whether it be good or bad, that money is, I've lost touch with money. I've lost touch with the value of money, right? So, 10,000 here feels like nothing, 1,000 there feels like nothing, 100,000 feels like nothing. It's very good. It's very bad. Because when I was talking to Luchi about it, it's very good because it allows you to take on more risk. It allows you to be more level headed when you're taking bigger trades. But the kind of it is that your risk can get out of control really quickly because you're not so connected to it. So have you ever had that happen to you or are you in that phase of just like money is kind of disconnected from you? And because of that, it leads to bigger risk or bigger reward as a byproduct? So this has happened so much and it can last for long periods of time. So I'm a big believer like dude, I wire out my profits like literally every week, sometimes every day if I'm like on a hot street, because it becomes a video game at some point, right? If you just leave it in, it's all at risk, right? And for our strategies and specific, like what you guys are doing, even what I'm doing, it's only scalable to a certain point. It's not scalable to 10, 20 million dollar accounts. Like that's a whole different strategy. I don't even know, you don't even need a million dollars to do this, right? Like, you know, you can make millions of dollars a year with 300 to 500 thousand dollar account. Like people wouldn't believe that, but we know that's true. Like if you're hot and you've got your skill level, like you don't necessarily need a million dollars to make a million dollars, you know? So you've got to take all that out. You know, I'm a big believer just taking out the profit, but there's a huge disconnect. And the only way to really solve it is to take it out. Like Luchi's a whole different, he's a whole different beast. Like when I was sitting in 2011, I, he was living in New York. He had a place on Wall Street, right? He had this like huge loft and we're trading and then he like, he's like, yo, let's play some video games, bro. This is 2011. So he's a young man. Like he's 20 in his 20s, late 20s. He's like, he had hundreds of puts on Google at that specific day. And during the day, the options market was very illiquid. You know, during that specific time, like they didn't have zero DTE and all this stuff. And they didn't have the YOLO trade. So option market was super illiquid. He was moving around the options market himself with like $500,000 because he's going all in on every trade. Like he has no fear of this. So he sits there and he has hundreds of puts of Google and he smokes some pot. I'm drinking whiskey. It's like noon. It's noon on a Wednesday. We're playing video games. We're sitting there. He's got this huge projector on the wall and we're playing video games. And Google actually got hit just by blind luck with some news and this thing starts to tank. And he was just like, I'm like, bro, you should get up and cover some of these. No problem, man. Like it's gonna tank. He's like, it's going to 82 or whatever, you know? Like he had a target in his head. I'm like, bro, it's at 100 or whatever. Like it's dropped 10%. He's like, no man, it's going more. He's kept playing video games. And then at some point, like just looks at his watch, he like gets up and he covers it. And it was like, dude, I was like, what the heck? Like, dude, you have that kind of leverage and you're in it. Like, you know, you would be watching it tick by tick. He just so relaxed. He just smoked some weed, playing video games. Like he knew this was going to play out this way. And it was like, what is going on? He's just a whole different animal of purpose. But I think one of the best things that you can probably do, like when it becomes a disconnect, is just to do like good stuff for your friends and family, you know? Spoiler nieces and nephews, your third cousins, right? Like your parents, your friends, like whoever, so that it becomes real. Because when you do nice things for other people, their reaction, like most people, if you bought them something for 100 bucks or 200 bucks or even a nice meal, it's like, what? You spent $200 on me, $500 on me, right? And it like totally changes your perspective of like really what money is. Like, you know, like my housekeeper over here, Ms. Wanda, she sits here all day like cooking and stuff. And you know, like I bought her just like, you know, like I didn't buy her the iPad. I bought her one of those cheap iPads, like from Amazon, the Amazon Kindle iPad. Like just like for shit to handle, they're like 200 bucks, right? And she lost her shit, right? Oh my God. Like, you know, just like stupid stuff like that. It'll just put you back in touch. Like, man, something like that, like I bought her a fake iPad. Like, this thing really worked. And like the same thing, you know, you did something, you send your mom some flowers and you know, like I grew up poor. Like, you know, like we didn't send flowers. My dad never sent flowers to me and no money, right? Like doing stuff like that. My mom was like, well, how much does this cost? My mom was like four flowers, right? They're not even roses, right? They're like daisies. I mean, what's this cost? I bought my dad something and he's like, you're gonna spend too much money on this. I'm like, don't worry, dad, it's hot. Ah, you gotta do it. Good, good, good, good. Yeah, you just have to do it that way. Otherwise it's all a video game, right? It's so funny, dude. It's like we've gotten to talk to a lot of like just absolute killers on this podcast. And just like, I've noticed you guys all have such a good like sense of reality. And like, you have like a really good way about you about making the money real and like treating those around you well and like with respect. And like, dude, I really like, I gotta salute you, man. It's really awesome and it's impressive.