 What's up guys, we are back with another episode of the after hours podcast today. We have a very special guest Tyler. He is one of the junior moderators in MIC Tyler. Thank you for coming on. Yeah, thanks for having me Harry and James. Of course, of course, so we always kind of follow like a very similar structure and like, I guess the first question is how did you get into trading and how did you kind of get to where you are now. Yeah. So I'll bring us back to I guess junior year in college. This was the spring of 2016. I was a finance and business analytics major at the University of New Hampshire. I was in a few finance groups and so I always kind of loved analytics and finance and business. What have you but I think I came across a YouTube ad for another chat room and that's what sparked my interest. An investment group that was just kind of like holding a long term portfolio and I was like, there's got to be a different type of investment. Yeah. And the YouTube ad just, you know, came out a perfect time for that. And so I ended up joining that group. I was in that group for I think three years but originally once I was in that group I bought a few DVDs I learned, you know, just kind of what day trading was about, which I'm super grateful for and it's probably within the first month I knew that that was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life, despite not even trading not even making money. It just, the love and the joy I felt for it was great so that's when I got into it and then I guess I'll just kind of carry on. Are you having any success at that time or is it kind of just like losing money or like really just still trying to figure like even starting. Yeah, so, so within the first few months I wasn't even trading at all. I had an internship over the summer so going in a senior year at college I took pretty much all the money I made for my internship, and I opened up a TD Ameritrade account and was just like longing break out for like what felt like two years. So I wasn't making any money I think I lost like 75% of the money I made on my internship. And then towards the end of my senior year in college though, I knew that I wanted to take trading more seriously because it was tough, honestly for me senior year like I wanted to enjoy myself I took school very seriously. I don't think I balanced things as well as you did Harry. And once I know about that. I was like, all right, like if I want to take trading seriously I got to find a way to do it more full time while I still have another job and so I kind of had the idea to move from New Hampshire on the east coast to California on the west coast. So I could actually wake up early for the market open before I did my normal job. And right now I'm in. I think that's sick. Yeah, thank you because that's a dedication man I mean California traders I have so much respect for because waking up that early is not easy. And especially for trading or it's a job where like you never know if you're going to get paid if you're going to lose money so it's it's tough so I respect that that's cool. Thank you yeah it was it was crazy because I didn't know anyone out and I was in San Francisco at the time didn't know anyone wasn't making money trading and at the time I was still in the other chattering so I was waking up 10 minutes before the bell and obviously the time the process evolved to like now makes up at like 330 in the morning. Yeah, which is which I absolutely love surprisingly. Yeah, yeah I guess cool. That's why I got into it and then I can touch on more like when I joined them I see and how things started to change if you want but that's kind of how I got into it. Yeah, so you were part of that kind of room whatever it is I'm sure people listening can decipher like it's one of the main one of the main usual. So, you know, you kind of break away from that room you get into MIC. Yeah, how did you find out about MIC in the first place and then how did you kind of see your trading maybe change a little bit once you joined. I have a question. So, I joined MIC I think two or three months after it was, it was created. So I think it was in the, I joined probably early winter of 2018 maybe towards the end of the year. And I found out about it just through Twitter I think that's how Alex or pal post about it, and I knew about them on and off for the years prior being in that other chat room I just was exposed to other names so really grateful that I was on Twitter at the time when I saw that. Immediately I was a monthly member for a year and a half and then I transitioned to annual but for the first year and MIC I was still under PDT and I was still just like longing stocks. I think I was trying to break all the bad habits that I that I was that I created. I didn't till the spring of 2019 when I opened up a venom account to start shorting under PDT still. I think over the last two or three years of longing I realized that there were so many ways to leave money long that might as well like just kind of flip it and see if I'm comfortable with shorting and doing the same thing. And I spent a year under PDT just shorting with venom, and it was so difficult because you don't have the shares available to locate any of the stocks that are typically on the watch list and it was really difficult. And so I went to concerts twice a week like non niche setups just to like force myself to short and it was really difficult and I wasn't consistent whatsoever. And then, during that time I was just saving up a ton of money from my, my whole time job. And then in the spring of 2020. So I guess almost a year ago, as of last month, I opened up an account with cobra to short and it was above PDT. And it took me probably six months with that account to start to find some consistency. I was probably trading like three or four different setups at a time like I had a pretty refined process but the one big thing that I was doing wrong was just trading so many different setups and not picking the one. Yeah, your story is cool because I feel like I've, I don't know if anyone knows but Tyler and I met up last spring actually is right around the time you probably got over PDT. It was he came into Boston we went out and got lunch together. And at that time you were still kind of inconsistent like you're still, you're piecing it it was cool to watch because every day that I get something now I get a little another like little I started to understand. But yeah, you're right like at that time you were trying to trade every every little strategy right every balance you're trying to learn how to scale do this that the other thing. And I think your, your biggest killer at that time was just overthinking, you wanted to hit everything and like be perfect on everything and you were good at it but it was just such a killer. But then what made the bigger change for you right was you just started focusing on one setup. Yeah, I'm really glad you said that too because I'm actually looking back at that once we had. And I remember I was like starting to feel some consistency, but I wrote that huge word doc and I may have actually sent it to and I called it unsustainable consistency where I was using the level to and the time of sales too much. So hyper focused on overthinking, throwing so much size on risking like 510 cents, and I already knew better from years prior like I don't know why I was doing it. But like, I would have some big wins and then I would have some huge losses and so it was funny when we met up for lunch I remember being like I'm starting to get it I'm figuring out and now looking back at that I'm like I don't even know what I was doing back then. Yeah. Six months ago, but I think it's pretty common. What's cool now is like, I think over the like I've been meditating for the last like two years or so and I think over that time I've become really self aware and conscious of my thoughts and what makes me feel certain ways and I think throughout the last six months. I've been able to take that into trading and I've started to really learn I'm like, what just makes me feel good like where am I stressed where do I find myself overthinking where am I like, you can feel it in your body and no James and Harry you both talk about it in your mind, you can use your body as a tool to understand if you're oversized undersized that you're trading not mentioned. Over time through I think this kind of self awareness and meditative process I started to kind of shift my focus to just trading things that just made me feel good. And I know we always say like you want to, you want to make the most amount of money with the least amount of stress and I never really took that the heart until I guess the last six months. So, I guess make, yeah, relatively long story shorter. I started to just focus on these stocks that would fade and I wasn't trading like the specific all day faders with a set criteria. I just noticed that when I very screenshot fire runners. They'd always end up just fading and those different times throughout the day and I kind of like to be the idea of you know setting a few orders you have your risk and stop in place there's a place to add and then you just kind of let it go because for me I didn't even I didn't want to look at level two I didn't want to look at time sales and finding a strategy that would force me to not do that I think was the most beneficial thing. And then over time I started to ask, you know, there are a lot of questions about about a strategy. And I think it's been probably four or five months now where I've been just specific to all day faders. And what's been so great about that is that it's so systematic that I actually don't think at all. This is the biggest thing for me, because once a top is set, I know where my stop is, I can get on the size I want, I have a clear spot where I know I will add, and then I lower my risk to the same dollar amount. That to me was a light bulb going off that I can add in risk the same amount. Like I feel like with you what's cool to watch is like, you might trade like, like I'll, I fucking trade like 1020 times a day right like Alex or bow or Harry like Harry owns the trade that much actually but like you it's like, I'll see way less trades from you like maybe it's like once a week or once every two weeks but I know in that one trade you're making more money than you were trying to trade like 10 different trades in a day. So you got to this point just by listening to yourself right like kind of seeing like when you were trying to scalp like you used to say you were uncomfortable. You always have these questions like I don't know what to add I don't know where to get in scale. And like, it's cool to watch you grow to this trader now that like, you have confidence in your setup and like I don't really see you taking losses that much I'm going to knock on wood for you. Even your even the losses I've seen are so controlled and manageable and then the winds are like massive compared to that like you can see it right. Yeah, thank you. So it's, it's cool man I love to see that like, I don't know it's like it's fun watching traders grow, especially like that's why I love being a bot I love seeing it. When you said that you were kind of like using the tape exclusively. Maybe you can like kind of go in a little bit to what you were kind of like looking for or like what do you even thought in your head because I know a lot of people. I get a lot of messages from people who are like man, like, I know that you just trade off the tape and I'm like no bro I don't like you can't just stare at the level to all day without a chart and then think that's going to work. I need to put all the little pieces together and that's why like, I'm kind of happy that you did bring that up because there are a ton of people who are looking at, you know, let's say a place like hi a day and they're like well we see a lot of merchants going off on the tape man that means I should be wrong. And I'm like, Oh, that's just the wrong area so like maybe you could dive in a little bit as what you were searching for what you thought was going to happen because you know it does sound that like, like you did try to go a little bit like just off the tape. And I mean, coming in like if you read Twitter, and you only just read Twitter. That's a big thing that's talked about every single day, whether it's like big names or like, you know, even kind of people who are smaller that is a, you know, something that's talked about almost 24 seven on Twitter like oh man do you catch that tape read man that was the tape. So like maybe you could kind of go in like what you were kind of looking for. Yeah, yeah. You know, looking back is again it's probably like over like over six months through a year from now I think what I was looking back, I think I was just. I think I was afraid of trusting the lines and so I would look to the tape and level to as confirmation that there was rejection. And so I draw my line out I wouldn't place my fantasy orders there and I was like I don't want to put my order there and like see it working. And then at that point, once you do think you see it working it might get a little stuffy then I would be reactive. And I know there's some folks that are reactive when adding and things like that. But for my initial trade shorting like shorting like broken day one stock into like those pre market resistance line. I wouldn't trust my lines I wouldn't trust myself so I was using the level to a confirmation to be like, Oh, I think now it's stuffing so this line is working. You weren't necessarily looking for like oh hidden buyer oh hidden seller stuff like that you just want to see if it rejected or. Yeah, I think it was a little bit of both like it's funny because during this time it was the most inefficient way to trade like you should never trade like that but I did run a lot about the level to and so I wouldn't see hidden buyer things like that which is great, but I don't think those should ever be a reason to those shouldn't make a decision to enter up to the position I think it can maybe just add a little confirmation to something that you already have in place. If that makes sense. Yeah, I think the tape so funny like I think the tape confuses traders more than it should I think they use it more than they should like, like for me like I'm one of those guys like honestly I think I could trade without the tape and like trade in the exact same way I tried now, just because I just trust my line like balance of like bow does use the tape and he talks about using the tape but like, really all his stuff is fantasy order so like in reality like, I think it's a misconception and like you fell into it, I think I fell into it to where like, you were lying you're like there's a there's a signal in the tape that I'm missing the tape and I know Harry's big on tape so ever again everyone's different but the tape is just to me is just a tool that you can use to better your entries or to you know tell the story of the stock of that day. And yeah, I mean it's cool and like I feel like those little things probably kept you from growing for so long because you were just like searching for this holy grail that didn't exist and you didn't find your holy grail until you found a setup that made you comfortable. Yeah, and it wasn't until yeah until six months ago I've been trading for five years and it took until the last six months to realize I need to stop focusing on things that would just stress me out. Yeah, I just wanted to get in for one second. I think for me like I spent a lot of time just purely watching this house talks move I think. And like, I would just like lock myself in a room where, you know, I would just watch like these recordings day after day after day after day until I finally got it that's just what I kind of did. I think there's a lot of ways to go about it. That's personally how I did like I would look how price kind of reacted around levels and stuff like that. But there is a ton of different ways to make money. And I mean, I think the route that I chose was definitely the hardest, and like I don't know if it's the most efficient but I would just sit and watch because I was like shit like I need to get experience I need to get screen time how am I going to do that I'm just going to sit and watch recordings day after day be 230 at friggin in the afternoon I'd be like all right, here comes the open get my plan ready, you know, just reporting after recording and that's what I would kind of do. Yeah. You know, and I would kind of picture myself as like okay if I'm a professional basketball player or a hockey player, how many times am I going to shoot the same ball or the same puck every single day until I'm good until I can get it you know that's how I always kind of pictured it. And so that was just kind of my approach but there are, you know, several different approaches that you can kind of. And do you think that like, if you had have just traded with fantasy orders, it would have been a lot more efficient than trying to sit and try and read the tape and stress yourself out. Absolutely. I think fantasy orders are just the way to do it because it should remove any sort of stress that you have, especially if you have like a pre market hide a risk. This is for shorting at least if you know where you're stopping out and you know your lines and you just put your fantasy orders and literally step away. It's the most stress free trading that you can do. For me it like still kind of didn't work with scaling and then adding like something just didn't click with me, but I think that's the best way to do it as a new trader or an experienced traders like if you just set your lines and fantasy orders, it removes so much overthinking. And I'm glad you brought up how it works for you Harry with reading the tape because everyone's different. And just for me, it wasn't comfortable and I realized I was getting stressed. Actually it's kind of funny I got this Garmin watch track my track my heart rate and like sleep and everything. And when I would look at the level to tape like James when we would go out to lunch like my average heart rate in a trade was like 100 to 110 and like when I go surfing it's at 110. It's like 55. It's like I'm dead. And like that's how it should be is like you can almost use your body use watches as a way to gauge like what works for you. Yeah. So as you were finding your like your setup like because you are focused on these all day faders like you said, what was it that you kind of dove into to get you to like your present edge like what was it that you were looking at like in what really got you to the point of being comfortable in these trades. Yeah. So I have to give a huge thanks to the to the bear and MIC I've asked him a million questions and he has a few videos that have really helped. I did. There's a few things I think the first thing is I did my own back testing and that kind of thing doesn't necessarily have to mean that you're plugging away and Excel it can simply mean taking screenshots of all of the faders that have worked over the last quarter of a month and just review them. So I would do that and that helped give me a lot of confidence that looking at like 60 to 70% of these stocks that would just fade if a certain criteria was met just gave me confidence. That was I think the first big thing. And then, as of recent. I might be going a little over the top here but I'm trying to create some code and create different things to remove any type of bias or emotion whatsoever so over the last three or four months. I found out what like what criteria makes sense for all day faders, and I use think script and think or swim to create a code that's a custom scan for me, so that all I have to do is focus on those thoughts. I don't even look at anything else and I use my fee is a scan it's the best scanner that we could have but I was like, if it doesn't fit this niche I'm not trading it and so what also has given me confidence over time is knowing that I'm trading a setup that I know is profitable. If I just stick to my process and that whole process is the biggest thing and so if I can create within my process do different things to prevent any type of thinking to enter that process. I don't want to be winning in the long term. If that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. When I place my orders. It's a conditional order so once my limit order is it it'll give me my stuff it'll give me my profit cover. When I add I'll just move them around a little bit. And I don't have to do anything, which is great. And then there's a few other things I'm doing now to try to like automate a little bit more but that's what's giving me confidence is knowing that a strategy is working and I have the discipline to stick to it. I think like with the all day fader setup like I mean if you really simplify it down and you're you're you know you're talking about it. It really just means that you have more sellers than buyers for the entire day. If we're really simplifying it down. So how are you going to get that excess supply. Well it's going to come from bag holders it's going to come from dilution. And also, we're going to have excess supply throughout the day whether we know it or not we're going to have a big out traders that are stuck. We're going to have, you know, we're going to have those breakout traders who are stuck we're going to have those shorts who are slamming the bids right. All these things need into that excess supply which makes the stock go lower. So, I mean, you can, there are a lot of people who are like, Oh, this is like set up D12796, but all that really means at the end of the day is that we have more sellers than buyers for the entire day, and that every single person who bought was met with excess supply excess sellers, which made it go lower. Right. I'm glad you say that to because I think the most important thing on top of just supply for getting the stock to fade is having the range for it to come down so if you can get access supply with enough range and meet where you can add. If you continue to see it fade. It's the most important thing. Right to be able to get down right, we needed to get to earth. Yeah, exactly. I think one of the hardest things for like new traders is that they feel that they have to trade every day like every time they sit at their desk if they're not placing 1020 30 trades that they're failing. How did you get to the point now where you're comfortable going like a week, two weeks, whatever, without trading about touching a setup or anything, and what gave you that like that kind of like I don't want to say Zen but that confidence to just sit there wait and just be patient. So I think, you know, with a lot of meditation you can do this thing where you can start to like recondition how your body and mind thinks and at a high level. And if you recognize as an individual that you have certain thoughts that you're like, oh I want to trade I need to trade I should get into this and you recognize and are aware of those thoughts. And you can change the way you're thinking. And so what I did is every single day that I want to see my ed present, I would just continuously remind myself that if I don't trade today. I'm preserving mental capital and real capital to attack when my ed presents itself tomorrow. And I think that friendly reminder that I will tell myself every single morning that if I don't trade today I'm better positioned for tomorrow when my edge is there. I started to just be ingrained in me when I'm now okay sitting. I went three weeks I think in April, not crazy. They get stuck. It looks like he's frozen. Tyler. Well, this is just uncomfortable. Let's see. If he doesn't unfreeze. I'll tell a story. Yeah, there you go. Oh shoot. I don't know. But it's the last thing that last thing we heard was, um, you went three weeks in April without trading. Oh yeah, and I guess yeah just to summarize like I think it was the reconditioning where I kept reminding myself it's okay to not trade because I'll be in full mental health to capitalize when my edge is there. That reminder daily has got me to a point where now I'm not worried or concerned about not trading for a day. You know, you can just talk and then I think I'll just do one more question and it. Sure, so do you, do you think that all traders of all levels should try to incorporate some form of meditation, whatever they call you know mental like focus like, do you think everyone should do that and how do you kind of recommend new guys get started into that. Yeah, James question real quick is mine is similar because I did have a post about the same sort of thing about taking time off of the, you know, really just. I guess my post was more about just having some balance being able to take some time off like feeling good like taking care of the health so I think like that also adds into James as well and that's a good place. So, I mean, I guess, as well as James is question like thoughts on time off thoughts on yeah, just taking care of yourself. Yeah, these are great questions thanks for asking this to wrap it up and let me know if I cut out maybe. Yes, I think every single trader and non trader should should meditate. There's something as simple as one minute every morning just focusing on the breath to something as 30 minutes to an hour. There's a whole conversation on visualization that we could get into it and another podcast maybe. But I think every trader would benefit from it, because in its simplest form meditation you're not removing any thinking like people think that when you meditate you have to literally just be so still and nothing's happening. It's kind of the ideal state, but when you meditate you're just becoming aware of all of your thoughts and imagine as a trader at any point throughout the trading day, you can just be aware of all of those little thoughts and voices in your head saying, you should add more size or you should hold a little bit longer, you should remove your stop like all of those things that relate to fear and greed. If you can be aware of that before it happens, you can prevent yourself from actually acting on those emotions, if that makes sense. I think it's super important and if everyone wanted to start like I think headspace and calm those apps are great places to start that's what I did. And then anyone can shoot me a message in in the MIT chat because I have a list of probably 10 to 15 books that I would recommend that relate to just kind of mental health and how to clear those thoughts. But yeah, so James for your question I think everyone would benefit, even if it's as simple as just a few minutes every morning before the market opens. Harry to your question on like time off and as it relates to mental health and balancing that. I think it's super important in February took two weeks off to go to Hawaii. And I didn't even I deleted Slack from my phone to deleted the charts with everything. And it was one of the best things I could do it was obviously hard because you're like removing something you want from your life for two weeks. I came back, despite the market being a little slow for all day faders, or it was actually a little trappy. I was just in such a good headspace like I wasn't overthinking I was like I'm just going to keep everything pretty slow I size down. So I think that that time off is so important just because I think some of us can get in this this mode where we're constantly grinding working studying and you just need those those days away. And then I'll conclude by saying like my process pre market, used to be looking at three or four my C video the day. And now my process from 330 from the market opens at 630. It's all doing things to just make sure I'm in the best mental state I can be prior to the open. And so it's talking with my parents and brother on the East Coast, it's sending the money for a cup of coffee it's reading a few books that's 20 30 minutes. And hopefully while I'm meditating the stock doesn't pop up so I don't, I don't miss the locate or something but I just do things now to just make sure I'm in a good mental state. Because when the market opens or when the stock hits my criteria pre market I want to be ready to capitalize so all that to say meditation is super important I think and making sure you're in a good mental state. What I think is, is what can make a trader successful. And I still have a lot to learn. Like I'm not saying I figured it out. Yeah, I think it helped me start to realize where I want to be as a trader and where I'm going. I love that. I think that's a good tip for sure. Yeah, cool. Yeah, that's awesome. And I think, yeah, I think if any, if anyone wants to reach out to Tyler, you know reach out to him in chat. And like I said I've talked to a million times and he's very helpful when it comes to that stuff and always a good person to help remind you to stay kind of in that good headspace and yeah thank you for coming on. That was awesome. Thanks a lot. Yeah. Thank you both for having me. No problem.