 In the pre-market, since there's not as many players buying and selling or market makers participating, you can get those quick moves faster. I found that actually writing out a journal is a lot better than typing it. Um, to me, it just makes it more real. So my routine now is just going through that, that list. So the last time we spoke, we spoke about your previous experience at a prop firm and you talked a bit about changing your trading style. So I wanted to know a bit more about your routine or your processes starting from the pre-market. How do you set up your date? I'm going to talk about this in two points. Um, just as an experienced trader and, and, and from a beginner trader standpoint. Um, you know, now that I'm, I'm more experienced, I, I know. I have a really good idea of what my routine is going to be like. Um, I also now have a different family dynamic. So I know that I have to be very precise with my routine. Um, so, and I don't have as much time as I used to. So now I have to pretty much open all of my platforms, all the new services that I have, uh, I like to use Twitter. Um, I think that's as, as much as there's so much noise on Twitter. Um, uh, I really like to use TweetDeck and I, I have my own personal curated lists of people that I follow and I break it down just so I can, I can quickly scan through that. Um, I'll use new services in my trading platform to look what's like, uh, what's gapping that day. Um, I'm really big into gapping, uh, as, as most traders probably are. Um, because that's where the interest is for the day. A gap signifies interest and, and then it's kind of figuring out what is that interest? Um, is it going to be some kind of fluffy PR for from a small cap? You know, and those are the ones that are probably going to get faded, right? If it's a gap up, um, my, without getting into too much of the technical detail, I'd prefer to go with the trend. So if it's something's gapping up, I want to try to find a long and if something's gapping down, I'm going to look for a short. Um, I don't like to do reversion to the mean trading. I just want to go with in the direction of the trend, because that's what the big players are doing that day. There's a reason that there's a gap there, gapping it up because it's good and they think it's good. Um, and vice versa. So my routine now is just going through that, that list. I have small filters set in for like certain price. I don't like things under three or $5. I think it is now. Um, I'll look at them now because they're more in play, especially penny names. Um, but I don't love trading those types of things. Uh, and then there's always a minimum volume requirement for me pre-market because sometimes players will kind of push something up, right? Um, I don't really know the reasoning, just a speculation, but they'll push something up or down on light volume and then completely reverse it, right? So someone's just trying to create liquidity to get out at the open. Um, so there needs to be some volume. There needs to be a PR, um, whether it's news, whether it's earnings. Um, so earning seasons are always big for me. Uh, uh, investor days are big too, especially when they happen overnight. And it's not necessarily trading the breaking news, but like just news, something that's happening, especially things like Boeing recently has a lot of, has had a lot of news. Um, so knowing that, knowing that there's interest and knowing that news creates interest that day, right? So that there's going to be a range of movement. By the way, at any point during this video, don't forget to check out the links in description. I did link all the tools I personally use in the description. Let's get back to the video. Um, you know, back in the day when I was younger, um, when I had more time on my hands and more time to do these, this, you know, the whole routine, I would be sitting here watching the level to watching to see what pre-market levels are also important. Um, seeing if you can really refine your entries. Um, seeing if there's pre-market range, if there's buyers and sellers so that maybe I can find some trades or maybe I can find. A way into something earlier before the market actually opens. Um, but now it's, but since I, you know, life, life changes and you get older, I just don't have that time to do that anymore. We spoke about something before and I was a little shocked. It was, uh, probably like a few months ago or even more than that. You, you told me that a lot of trader nowadays are really focused on the pre-market and post-market action. And they kind of avoid the, maybe not the avoid, but they treat less during the day. And can you elaborate more on that? Sure. Um, so the traders that I'm alluding to, when I first started this, these traders in my group, we, we were taught to really pay attention to the order for the level two when it was, when it held more significance. Um, I think now with more retail trading, um, a lot more like dark pool venues. So if you look at the prints on the level two, a lot more, like those white prints. And if you look at the designation, it's going to say D or Fi or F or ADS, um, depending on your, your platform. So those, those are dark pools that depending on your platform and depending on the route that you're using or the type of order that you're using, you're not going to get access to, right? But during the pre-market, those don't trade, right? They, they, I think they, I'm almost positive. I don't want to say almost positive. I'm 99% certain that all of them only open at 930, right? So when you're trading pre-market and if there's news, breaking news, you're basically dealing with the major ECNs, NASDAQ, ARCA, that's edgex, and there's not as much liquidity. So things just move a little freer. There's a little more range. Um, if you look at some popular stock today, so, you know, case in point, again, uh, arm, it's made, it has made a huge move, but there's been tons and tons and tons of volume, right? Um, in the pre-market, since there's not as many players buying and selling or market makers participating, you can get those quick moves faster. Um, there's not going to be as many shakeouts. There's not going to be as, as much, um, like noise, right? If you're looking at a level two or a one minute chart, like it seems like most traders these days are using, there's like a lot of noise up and down, up and down as, as, as there's price discovery. But when you're looking at a pre-market chart, you know, you're going to see a range, it breaks, it continues, it breaks up, it continues. It's just a little cleaner. So I know that there are a lot of traders that like to watch those things or watch the news and then try to capitalize on those types of movements just because they are a lot cleaner. I might have heard from someone, um, that some of the, some of these dark pools are, are HFTs. I want to say that HFTs turn on at like 830. So if there's something that's very active, they'll turn on and they'll, they'll just participate in the market. So the, the cleanest moves are, I guess maybe the most, the biggest moves tend to happen at that four AM open, that four AM to say five or six 30. And then again, at seven AM, when, when more brokers and some ECNs open, like edgex and bats, I want to say they open at seven. So, you know, you'll see big moves at four, big moves at seven. And then while you will see bigger moves again at 830 and nine, they just tend to be more, um, the choppy. So that's why some people will look to trade pre-market for, and then, and the same goes for the after hours, right? Something before earnings and most people think it's the wild, wild West. It's up and down, random all over the place. But because there's less liquidity, you can get very quick and fast moves. If you can time it and trade it properly, right? If you can, if you can control your risk, you know, there is a really high potential for a really good high R trade. Bringing back to a bit the process more, um, do you use any tools to journal that are not proprietary or anything like that? I personally use Evernote and trade review, uh, just to like log in my trade. But a lot of the journaling is actually in Evernote more about like, you know, how I feel or, you know, like more like write ups about how I trade it. Do you use something similar? Yeah, uh, post market review, uh, big for post market review. Both do, do both those things or used to do both those things. Um, for me, Evernote was more of a, uh, journaling, like a process. Uh, so that's where I would really write up trades. I would come up with themes or ideas of how I can make a trade repeatable or find the pattern. And there's other traders on Twitter and like yourself, you kind of playbook. That's how you kind of playbook for yourself. It's like, Oh, this was a gap up short or a gap down long or a flag breakout. And then you can kind of tag all those and you can kind of see all those trades and you can kind of, and you can, or if you don't, you should review them. Um, I just don't do that anymore. You know, again, it's a time, time constraint. I, I'd log in. So for me, now my journals for that has all become, has all moved to trade review, like you, I'll upload all of my executions. I'll tag all of my trades so I can look to see what trades are really working. Well, what's not working. Well, what mistakes am I making? Um, and I'll write some notes there, uh, but for myself, uh, speaking with mentors and some other traders and people that I really respect, um, I found that actually writing out a journal is a lot better than typing it. Um, to me, it just makes it more real, uh, seeing the word, seeing myself write out the words, especially the emotional things, uh, versus just typing it on to, you know, your phone or, or your computer where it just seems, I don't know, it's just too digital and too, too fake or too fluffy. You know, at least from, from my perspective, because I was writing, I found that I was writing the same thing over and over and over and over again, but I was writing them that, but it obviously wasn't clicking or processing. So I, I, for me, I've moved to more, um, more of these, like just, you know, notebooks like that and journaling that way. For the emotional things. Yeah. I started to do that also about these like little, uh, notepad, um, just to write down, but I think there's something about it that when you write it, actually with your hand, it kind of logs in differently in your brain. So probably a good thing. Don't forget to like and subscribe if you enjoyed the show and also leave a comment down below. If you have any question that you would like us to answer. Peace.