What's up everyone? All right? Well today is day four and it is the last day of my small account challenge. Boy, this challenge went quick. I remember on the first day I was so excited. I was like I'm doing a new small account challenge.

This is going to be awesome. And then I traded like a maniac. I took so many trays, I went green, then went to break even, then green, then to break even and finally finish green. And then day two and three.

I really got in the groove. One trade, you know, one winner, two days in a row and now here we are. Day four and the challenge is over. Why is it over? Well, kind of had a rough day today.

Well, not really. Um, it was a fine day. I didn't take any trades in the small account, but uh, I looked at the comments on Youtube and everyone said ross, I want to see you do a small count challenge with no leverage. So on Monday I'm gonna start a brand new small account challenge with no leverage.

Okay, I hear what you're saying. You know, a three thousand dollar account with six times leverage means I can day trade with up to eighteen thousand dollars. So is it really a small account? I would say yes because I literally only put three thousand in it. Uh, But so in this case, I funded it with twenty five hundred on on, uh, the other last week or whatever.

So Monday, uh, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Three trading days, the account's got about four thousand, one hundred dollars in it. I don't have it open anymore, but give or take. So I'm gonna start on Monday with that amount.

but I'm gonna trade only with that four thousand, whatever. the the cash amount is each day. So I'm not going to use the leverage. I'm just going to trade with essentially the cash.

Uh, deposit the cash amount that's there and to the extent that that is more relatable to you guys and you appreciate that and like it a bit more, I'm happy to do it. Uh, you know, the question was, sort of, do I keep trading with leverage and grow the account being aggressive? And the fact is, I've already done that. I've done that. I've You know, I feel like I've set the record there.

I did 500. What was it? Uh, in December of 2017 and I turned it into 53 000 in one month. So I'm not trying. I'm not trying to set a new record.

There's no point. and ultimately, while that's was fun for me to do, I don't even know how helpful it really is to a student who's not going to be taking that huge level of risk on every single trade, which is what was required to grow an account that quickly. As a small account trader, you know what the right approach is. One trade a day.

It's the small account way. So that worked really well for me yesterday. and the day before and today there just wasn't anything that looked good enough for a small account. Now I did trade in my main account today and I had a great day.

Main account big account recap is going to upload separately, but there was nothing for the small account. So finish the week with no trades and I'm going to go in on Monday basically as day one of a new small account challenge of not using any leverage so we'll see how it goes. I hope you guys enjoy it. Hit the thumbs up please! I appreciate your feedback and comments.

They help me understand what you guys are interested in seeing. So keep them coming and I'll see you on Monday morning. Hope you guys have a great weekend. Enjoy the recap.

We'll see you on Monday. Hey, wait a second. If you didn't already know that day trading is risky. Let me be the first to tell you, it's risky.

Why is it risky? There are so many emotional traps in the market and I fell into a big one yesterday fomo fear of missing out. I was up thirty four thousand dollars and I wanted to swing for more. I ended up losing 50 grand and finishing the day down 15 000. Easy come easy go.

Training is risky so do yourself a favor and trade in the simulator before you ever put real money on the line. and with that I hope you enjoy the recap. All right everyone. So today is day four of the Small Account Challenge No trades, Zero trades.

Today I had the discipline to say nothing. Pre-market really looked appropriate for the small Account challenge and I didn't trade. Uh, so I also um, you know, So I the last three days the majority of the profit was uh, before the bell rang at 9 30. some nice pre-market trades.

So today by like 9 25 I was like, you know what if I haven't taken a trade yet, the time where I've been performing best in a small account has passed, so maybe I should just call it a day which was a no trade day. So ending Friday here the week, Day four of the Small Count Challenge No trades. but I will go over my analysis of why I felt that was the right decision. So the leading gapper this morning was Stmp.

Stmp was gapping up 63 percent, but it's a buyout. bought out in private equity deal for 6.6 billion dollars. So good for them, but no trades for us. Second leading gapper was Carve C-a-r-v Now I did trade Carve in my main account.

You'll see right here for 41 000 in profit. Fine, but this is not a small account type of stock. It's too expensive. At 30 dollars, it just feels too expensive now.

Um, there was. I put out a survey to our students because there were some comments on my uh, Youtube recaps from the last couple days about my small account challenge. And the the biggest Uh comment was, you should do this without leverage because you know you're saying you've got two thousand dollars in the account. But then with six times leverage, you're able to trade with, you know, Twelve Thousand dollars.

So really, it's a twelve thousand dollar account, not a five, uh, Two thousand dollar account. Well, technically, that's not right, because in fact, I deposited Two thousand, Five hundred dollars in the account. So it is a Two thousand, Five hundred dollar account. Uh, However, of course, with the broker that I'm using, I get leverage so I can choose to day trade with as much as you know, that, whatever amount times six.

So today, for instance, my leverage, uh, my account value is, uh, four thousand, Three hundred, and sixteen dollars. That's the value. Uh, including the profits from the first three days. So that means I have buying power times six.

I have twenty five thousand dollars in buying power. So you know, on a stock like um, Sgoc or something like that, which did pop up a little bit later this morning, I would have been able to buy. Let's see, approximately you know, 3 000 shares or whatever it is, 4 000 shares. I mean, I would have been able to take a pretty big position in it.

So I hear that feedback And so I asked our students, um, the following questions: what account type would be most valuable for for me to trade Because the fact is, um, you know I'm not doing this for my benefit. I'm doing this because I want you to learn something from it. So should I trade in a cash account cash account under Pdt? A cash account with like, you know? Well, I asked the dollar amount too. Well, let's just say 2 500 bucks? Should I trade in a small account with settlement margin but not use leverage? Meaning I can take one trade a day, but I don't use leverage.

Should I trade with margin and leverage? Or should I trade with a margin account under Pdt? Which means I can only trade three times a week. The resounding answer is, uh, trade small account with settlement margin but not leverage. So trade once a day, one trade a day. But rather than using the uh, twenty five thousand dollars in buying power, just use the cash balance.

So in this case, uh, today would have been four thousand dollars. Okay, so that's what I'll do starting on Monday. Thank you for the feedback. Starting on Monday, I'll be trading with the cash balance.

Now the only problem with that is, um, related to the hot keys. There is not a hotkey to just trade based on. Um, it. The hotkeys are based on 25, 50, or 90 of buying power.

So the problem there is that even the 25 of buying power. is going to be a little high because um, six divided by four is 1.5 So I'm still trading. Really, I'd want to be. Um, I'd want to be trading.

I'd want a hotkey for trading one divided by six, which would be sixteen percent of my buying power. And they don't have a sixteen percent of buying power hotkey. It's not an option. Well, I could just show you right here.

These are the options. It's twenty five percent, fifty percent, seventy five percent, or Ninety percent. So I can. So that so that so that's the problem.

Uh, I can punch in 25 and make that the hotkey that I use and press shift one and then just mentally think, okay, well, I should take away like 100 shares. but to sit down and and sort of do the math of it I think is gonna probably slow me down a bit. But and I don't think that I can and I'll just check since someone asked I said ross, can you just type in Um, you know, like a different number. Um, it doesn't appear that I can.

I mean it. let me delete that, but it does not appear that I can type that in. So um, yeah. so unfortunately the answer there is is no, Um, but that's okay.

I'll do 25 of buying Powers the hot key and then I just know that I have to, you know, drop it down a little bit from there. So that's okay. I mean, I could, even if I was going to be conservative, cut it in half. So if I type in shift one um, and it says oh, for Carve, you can buy 600 shares, I could just drop it in half to 300.

And then I'm trading with 12 of my buying power, which is a little less than 15 16 which is certainly the cash balance. So anyways, it's not going to be an exact science, but just due to the hotkey limitations there. But that's okay. Um, I think the the bigger takeaway is, uh, do you know, continue this challenge Trading without, um, without leverage.

So my thought is, um, that I'll just, uh, start over, essentially on Monday with a new account. I'll start over just with what's in there with four thousand and tomorrow, uh, Monday will be day one of the small Account Challenge using no leverage. All right, So no leverage trading with, um, you know, just my cash balance. And yeah, okay, it's a four thousand dollar account.

so it's a little bit bigger than uh, 2500. but it's still, generally speaking, a fairly small account. If we would say anything under 3000 or 25 000 is a small account, then it's a smaller account. I know for traders that you know Robin Hood or some of these other brokers, you might have like a 45 account and you're like that's a small account.

I agree that is a small account. but if you're going to try a day trade 4 500 for 45 dollars, I should tell you right now it's It's not going to happen. It's and I'm not trying to be negative, but let's just be honest. 45 It's not going to happen.

You need to put more money on on the line than that. and if you don't, if you can't afford that, if you can't make it happen right now, then keep studying. Keep watching videos like this, learn as much as you can, practice in a simulator, and hopefully, um, I don't know, like sell a pair of shoes and come up with you know, a little bit of extra money and then maybe you can start investing in the market or trading the market however you'd like. But really, you need at least well.

the minimum account size for the broker that I'm using is 500. But of course, remember, with 500, you will get leverage. So you know 500 times leverage gives you more buying power for intraday trading and you manage that risk accordingly. But in this case, I'm going to just use leverage.

No leverage for the rest of the challenge or just day one of a new small Account challenge. on Monday. it's approximately a four thousand dollar account and um, I'll just do next week. Pretty much, um, the same as I did, uh this week.

except uh yeah, no leverage. It'll just be one trade a day. So that's it. One trade a day.

Uh, and if you choose to use leverage in your account, you do So at you know, your own, your own risk. I mean this is the way this is the this is this is trading. So in case you didn't already know trading the market, it's kind of like going to the beach. swim at your own caution.

There's no lifeguard here, there's there's no one. If you want to go in the water, you're going in the water and you don't know that it's risky, Then you know you missed some basic education somewhere along the way about the market. But I try to communicate that in any case, that trading is risky. I think it goes without saying.

I think it's commonly understood that trading is is risky, just like swimming in the ocean is risky. But you know, popping up a couple signs doesn't hurt. So in case you didn't already know, trading is risky. My small account challenge.

The results of it are not typical. The result for me of 2500 to 4 000 in, uh, three trading days. that's you know. Obviously that's not typical because I've been trading for a long time.

But you guys said Ross, I want to see you trading a small account. I said, all right, I'll do it. Set it up with 2 500 bucks traded it using the leverage for the first three days That went well, but the feedback is hey, let me see you do it without leverage. So next week I'll keep going, but without leverage and we'll see how it goes at the end of the day.

Um, it's not going to change the fact that I'm going to focus on one trade a day, it's just it's at this point it's just a factor of share size, so that's where we finish the week. Unfortunately, no trades in the small account. As I said, Stmp buyout carved too expensive. galt.

This one pre-market was selling off too much. I just didn't think it looked good. Tblt Uh, this one was an 80 million share float. Tsri was a little expensive but also light on volume.

Rs Ls kind of like Dtst was a continuation setup. Didn't have a lot of faith in that and I thought that the majority of the eyes in the market were on Car. I want to trade the stock that everyone's watching. I want to trade the stock that every trader all around the world trading the U.s market is looking at today and that's usually going to be one of the top five or ten leading gainers, leading Gappers.

All right. So for that reason, Car was the obvious one. Unfortunately, as it turns out and as will be the case on some days, it just wasn't the right one for the small account challenge. So the better approach was no trade for the big account.

It was fine, so I traded in the big account. All right. So that's it. That's how we finish the week.

Day four, We'll be back at it on Monday day one of a small account challenge with no leverage And that right, There was an entire video with no ads. I don't monetize my Youtube channel with video ads, which means you guys get to enjoy the content. But do me a favor, Please hit that subscribe button and give me a thumbs up and let Youtube know that this channel is the channel to watch. If you want to learn about day trading, you.