Started a $30,000 account challenge. Okay where like I started an account with 30,000 and see how far I could grow it and I grew that $30,000 account into a million dollar in 55 days. we're helping each other. we're both making like a lot of money.

we're both killing it. Like why are we still not really happy with our I thought I wanted to be like a 1020 million year Trader cuz like that's a lot of money and like that'd be really nice you know? But as I've kind of matured in my trading, Journey I've started to realize that like making a couple million dollars a year is pretty freaking good. rather than devoting my entire life to trading to become that 10 20, $30 million Trader when I don't really even need that type of money, I'd rather just trade for an hour a day, make my million dollar and enjoy my life. But yeah, I think the problem that a lot of Traders have Shay is that they are using the same size on everything.

They're using 10,000 shares on their B setup, their C setup. they're a setup every single setup. they're using the same size and they're like I'm losing money on these setups and I can't seem to find consistency I can't make money as you guys may have learned from so many of my personal stories here on the YouTube channel, that trading has truly changed my life as well as the lives of many other Trader friends I have today I Want to share with you the story of Alex Tamise Alex is a multi-millionaire day trader who used to work as a Starbucks barista. I'm honored today to have Alex join on this conversation and you are going to learn how to trade small cap stocks, how to develop a trading strategy that works for you, how to master position, sizing and scaling in how to manage your risk, and how to maximize your profits in all market conditions.

The Humble Traders podcast is a No BS podcast for people who want to take trading seriously and make this a true career. All I'm asking for is a gentle tap on the like button and make sure to share this podcast with your trading partners. Welcome Alex to the Humble Traders Podcast. Thanks for having me good to be here! I've been looking forward to finally sit down with you and talk to you for a long time.

Um, because I've been following you on Twitter and I'm sure a lot of our audience have been following you for a while too. I think I started following your journey since 2015 2016. Um, so it's been. Uh, I'm really amazed and impressed by how far you've come since then.

Uh, could you share with the audience a little bit about you, your trading background, how long you've been trading? Um, and what got you started in the first place? Yeah, so I'm actually coming up with my 10year anniversary trading. Uh, it's crazy to think that's almost been a decade. Yeah, so probably in about four to 5 months I'm going to hit the 10 year mark so we'll throw a big party to celebrate. Okay, um but aside from that I started trading when I was 19 years old I was a barista making Starbucks at coffee and I was think I think back then I was making about $150 a week before taxes and after taxes was like $120 Yeah, I had a girlfriend at the time and I would probably use and gas was expensive back then too.

so I'd probably take around $60 put it into my gas tank maybe like $40 take her out like the movies like out to dinner like once a week and I probably had like 20 bucks left at the end of the week. So I was doing this for pretty solid amount of time. but it was. the thing that really got me into trading was my girlfriend broke up with me for like a rich guy and my thought process was I want to get back at her by getting so rich that like she regrets and in America there's two ways to get rich: real estate and stock market.

Real estate has such a big barrier to entry. you need a lot of money to get into real estate whereas stock market these days you could open up an account with like 500 bucks. so I was like perfect you know I have 500 bucks I could save it up I can do whatever and now that I don't have to take it out to the movies or spend money on gas I Have you know I'll make $500 a month right? so I'll work for a month, I'll take that money and I'll open up an account. So okay I thought that it was as easy as just like buying buying breakouts because as you know everyone's like oh, just buy the breakout and it's a very simple strategy.

simple pattern and you could just make money I was like perfect I saw so many advertisements, so many YouTube videos I was like Perfect all I have to do is buy the breakout and I'll be rich and every single time I bought the breakout I had a magical talent that stocks would just crash every single time I bought a stock. it would crash every single time 100% of the time. like what the hell is going on here right? So I just kept losing money and losing money and refunding my account $500 at a time $500 at a time while making coffee while like it it just it was just like a really I was like stuck I was really stuck in a place of just like consistently losing money and then I discovered what Short Selling was which was you can make money when stocks go down and I actually remember my first short trade ever I shorted 2,000 shares of a stock uh with the ticker symbol Vgg? okay and doesn't even trade anymore and within 10 minutes the stock went down 50. I made $11,000 and and I was hooked forever.

I was like I'm going to be rich forever like that's it if I have this Talent of just buying stocks and they crash if I just hit the short button and I'm I'll just make money So my first year I ended up losing money. my second year that I found out about shorting I started becoming a break even Trader and then by my third year I started to like slowly, consistently make like F like 50 to $100 and then after year four start to really explode and now you know 2020 2021 all that stuff happened and just went exponentials from there. Oh so you you kind of found out and you were able to start Short Selling relatively early on right? Cuz I know I think nowadays it takes a lot more Capital to start shorting with those Brokers yes how I know you started with lawning. so were you in a lot of these um like chat rooms and like that give you alerts and stuff with a breakout that's a really known like chat I start off by being one of those alert people I bought the alerts cuz I thought it's really simple.

like all right, we have a millionaire here, he's going to give me his signals and I'm just going to be rich I'm going to buy the breakout and I'll start calculating all right. month one: I'm going to make a th000 month two, I'm going to make 2,000 and I was like by month 12 I'm be rich like that's it. it's over like I got it like I'm done like whatever you have like a roadm plan I had a I was like every month I want to double my account every single month until like and then I was like but I have 25 I'm going have $10 million I was like I was like that's it right? simple and that's how we start right? That's how we start. So yeah I mean I started with alerts until I found out that alerts didn't really work and I pretty much lost money until the point where I like again I was a little bit stuck in my trading I really wasn't finding consistency I was really just struggling and then once I discovered shorting, finding that little niche back then was very different than it is now I feel like the the market is a little bit saturated with short sellers now because of all the AMC Bed Bath and Beyond all these crazy stocks that almost things are becoming a little bit more crowded than they used to be.

So what I used to look for back in the day was do you know on these charts like if you look at the daily chart you have a stock that Wicks up and then Wicks down and one Wicks up and Wicks down. So I was only waiting for those stocks on the daily chart that would just Wick up and Wick down and only short those stocks. But it took me like 3 years to say you know what? Like that's what I should be waiting for because when I started I would just short everything and that was not consistent. That's not a strategy, that's not a pattern.

So I started after couple years I started to find what really worked. it's just waiting for that setup of looking on the daily chart it Wicks down and that's it every single day. one it Wicks down and I just started repeating that and repeating that. repeating that and that led to being a strategy right? And what kind of stocks were you focused on during all these three years when you longing first and then Short Selling and finding success.

What kind of stocks specifically? So when I first started I was looking for those one one penny stocks. Like the penny penny stocks you know one cent, two cent, 3 Cent and I like go to sleep at night and I' be like if it's at a dollar I'm going to make $500,000 you know I did the whole thing right I was just like I was like everyone else right? I was like everyone else. So I started off with the penny stocks cuz I Thought that they had the most room to go up until I discovered that they could actually go lower than a penny. They could go like 001 you know what I'm saying or like however many decimals down that it is.

It's pretty funny. yeah. and then uh, small cap stocks I Really discovered that like you could short stocks like above like a dollar. So my sweet spot was like stocks between a dollar and $5 in like the small cap World Okay because the large cap world has stocks that are like a dollar to $5 but the float is so large that they don't really move like you know, like like a right A or like a jet blue.

JetBlue is like $4 a share but like they don't move because like the float is so large. So I was looking at lower float lower priced small cap stocks because it gave me the most volatility and the most room to make money and you were able to trade that using relatively little account size right? Like like the 2,000 I don't know how much you were trading with. it's actually exactly 2,000. So it got to the point where like I was like okay, like shorting is it I found out what I'm going to do and I ended up uh, selling the rims on my car for $2,000 to fund my trading account.

The rims on your car cost $2,000 Yeah, so each Rim was like $500 at the time at the time. So I had 500, 500, 500 500 sold the rims off my car I'm sure I could I could send you a picture and you could like pop it up on the screen but um yeah I ended up selling the on my car as like my final day trading account with 2,000 I was like you know what if I lose this I'm going to quit trading forever really and that's kind of that account that started to get me to start to grow because now I had skin in the game now I was like all right like if I lose this like I can't really drive my car anymore like I can't really do anything like I'm I'm screwed So it was pretty much a $2,000 account that I ended up growing and if you know like most of your view viewers know that PDT is 25,000 Yes! So I had to grow that like 25,000 to open up an over the PDT account to find finally start to you know day trade consistently. So were you with while you were under the PDT rule? Were you really like how did you manage your trade so you can trade like three times a week right? How did you? So it's different back then? Uh they had a broker called Sh Trader which was a over over off theore broker I heard about that Yeah so they got shut down. so I was using them for a while until they got shut down and luckily for me by the time they got shut down I was able to grow that account to 25,000 and move that fun that broker is noer in exist they a of shady I don't I'm just Lu that I got my money out I did everything right but and they were allowing like crazy leverage at the time I think it was like six or eight times leverage.

So with like a $2,000 account you could have like $166,000 in buying power. you know it's a lot of money. were you using a lot of that margin power when you shorting I was using a lot of margin when I started cuz I didn't know better I didn't know like the power of margin like now I've realized that margin should be used to like be in like multiple different stocks rather than concentrating it in one stock because if you concentrate it in one stock and the stock goes up 10% you blew up your entire account ex ble up your entire account. So I got to the point where like I start to you know really get consistency after I started to grow that over the PDT and come to like a United States broker cuz that United States broker had more borrows available they had, you know, ecn rebates.

They had all these different perks and different benefits that an offshore broker doesn't need to provide you You? Yeah, and they're registered so you're protected and they're registered I think they have I think most. United States Brokers have like at least 250,000 in FDIC insurance and 500,000 in like insurance or something like that. So just that, comfort and the accessibility of all the perks that they gave was just like. It just really helped.

So you grew your account to over 25k essentially with only short selling. Yes, Oh okay, and what kind of were you in, you know, did you have a mentor or were you in the community or programs at a time that helped you get there? Yeah, I tried a bunch of different communities I tried like a bunch of different things and they were all kind of like really the same I feel like I don't know, like it was all like you know, focus on this, focus on that but it was all like kind of vague. you never really understood like what was really going on. Yeah and I actually remember one of my biggest trades I think I was 21 years old at the time.

so I'm now about 3 years into my trading or two and a half years, three years into my trading and I remember my biggest trade ever at the time was Cltx or CT CL something something like it doesn't again, doesn't even trade anymore. don't trade anymore. Yeah so if I remember correctly I made $60,000 on that trade and I was like 21 22 years old and that was like the biggest trade of the time for me. and back then the community that I was in had like these Las Vegas conferences so the head mentor of that Community was like listen like you should come to this conference you should get to like, meet people and do this and that Yeah so I told my dad and I was like Dad like you know I made all this money I made $67,000 in one day trading like I want to go to this conference in Las Vegas he's like oh like stock trading is like a scam, like you're going to lose all your money like don't even bother like don't do it cuz in 2008 my dad lost a lot of money in the the crisis that happened.

So he had money. he was not a day trader, he was like one of those like investors you put money Netflix you put money, whatever and he lost a lot of money in 2008 So he was like oh stock market is a scam You're going to lose all your money. You're going to lose all your money. Don't go.

You're not going to meet these people. It's horrible. Don't go, Don't go Don't go I was like listen dad like I really like I think I could do this I really think I could do this He's like all right if you're so convinced that you could do this, I'll come with you to Las Vegas and let me meet these people right? Let me come and let me meet these people right? So me and my dad went to Las Vegas to this trading conference and when we were there there was a guy that was presenting. he's a crazy Asian man right? he's a crazy I know who you're talking's a crazy Asian man right? and he's showing.

he's showing his P&l calendar making $500,000 in a month. you know, $100,000 a week like all this stuff and my dad was like this guy like seems like really really smart he's like he seems like this is the guy that like really knows what he's talking about. okay whatever. when the conference ended I approached him B at the time yes and I was like thank you like so much like you've helped me so much like I really appreciate like all that you do on Twitter like I hope that like we could stay in touch whatever he's like yeah yeah yeah like cool kid like cool like you're fine like this and that whatever.

so he's just kept in touch a little bit on Twitter started talking a little bit more, a little bit more and then we just became friends. Like organically became friends organically. And he was really really good at technical analysis. and I was really really good at fundamental analysis.

so his strength was my weakness. my strength was his weakness so we kind of molded that together. He would help me with technicals, I would help him with fundamentals and we kind of like merged together. We became like trading buddies.

We became trading partners and then at the time he was going through like a divorce. he was like really upset. So like we kind of became a little bit closer just like. and then it got to the point where we were like wait a second, we're helping each.

We're both a lot of money. we're both killing it. Like why are we still not really happy with our like, like why are we still not happy cuz we have all this money. we like killing it together.

We're doing so well together and we just really didn't feel like a lot of fulfillment. we didn't both of you God cuz he was going through a divorce and I was like really lonely like I wasn't didn't really have much friends. How old were you at the time? Early 20s? early 20s? I don't know, Maybe 23, maybe 24 and this is way after this is when you become profitable, you're making big money and you still don't feel happy. I Still don't feel happy at this point.

at this point I was a high sixf figure. Trader and that to me at early 20s was a lot of money. It is still a lot of money. A lot money.

Yeah so I was making all this money and like I was talking to B and like he's going through his divorce I'm kind of lonely I'm like single I don't really have too many friends I'm like what the like what's the point of this like I have all this money like I don't know like why am I not happy and then at that time was more scammers were coming up with like screen shares with like alerts with all this stuff and we're like wait a second like why don't we just like help other people the same way that Ba helped me. So Ba was like my mentor that got me to that next level. So why don't we create something that's legit that doesn't really scam people that doesn't have really alerts and teaches people how to trade properly? And that's how we created Mic And that's how we started to find fulfillment in our lives by like helping other people find their consistency. And that was like that missing hole that was finally just like put together after all that time.

And the big thing is like when you start like a community or when you start to educate people, you need to make sure that you have a strategy that works. Yes, so for us it's actually really funny is me and Ba would make money every single morning and I would stop trading I would stop trading so that I could like just relax a little bit whereas Ba would trade all day long. he would trade all day long because he loves training. he loves trading more than anything.

So he would trade all day long and I cut off my trading and I would start to realize that after 10:30 B would start to slowly bleed out his money because instead of trading he started to gamble. He start to gamble cuz he's bored. he's bored. Exactly.

he's bored. and it's like at the casino, like the longer you stay at the blackjack table, you're not going to make more money. the casino is going to make the money back. They're going to make the money back.

So by realizing that and recognizing that we created the zombie role which is like stopping to trade after 10:30 So these rules that Ba and I have learned through our own personal trading that Usit is now what we've passed along as well. and I try to say that like as a leader I have to lead by examples: I stick to the rules I stick to the process that we teach and it leads to like millions of dollars. I Do want to touch upon something you said earlier. Um, even though B started out being your Mentor teaching you, he is good at technicals.

You're good at fundamentals. Yes, so in a way it's not just him giving you giving and you just taking. so it's a it's a symbiotic relationship. Correct, You're providing him value, he's also doing the same.

So in this way, this is like a true mentorship. But it's not one-sided Correct? Yeah, and that's how you guys were able to kind of know. become friends, personal friends and now business partners exactly. If you Le off someone after a certain point they be like why do I need this person but if you provide value if you do like I don't know.

There was like when we started mic one of our uh, co-founders TSH was like I'll work for you for free I'll work for you for free for however long it takes and then now like after amount of time like he has a higher position. So it's just if you're able to provide value to people whether it be through helping them with something that they're struggling with or by working for free at the end of the day, it's so much value that is provided that it ends up benefiting you in the long term. Yeah, that's very true. Especially I find it very true, especially in trading industry.

most Traders don't make it and then most Traders struggle and that's fine. And they do want to go out and reach out for help, but most people just want to take. They just ask you questions like oh, what's a float, what's the market cap like Google this yourself yeah or look at one of your videos right? Think about how many videos you have on like level two on FL and whatever and they're like hey, can you teach me just like go to YouTube WR I'm a Trader and right float Yeah, you know I know So that's the frustrating part a little bit. Um, but but lazy people like that will in my opinion, never find success because they're not willing to put in that work right? This is hard.

Trading is hard. If you want to make more money than a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer combined it's It's a little bit difficult, it's going to take you some time, and if you're just that type of person that's like hey, uh, can you tell me what level two is when they don't really even do the work themselves to look into it, it's almost like they are Their Own Worst Enemy they're Their Own Worst Enemy Yeah, it's very true and unfortunately those are the people part of the 90% The people who correct don't make it correct Yeah. I'm sure our audience are really curious about what your daily routine like as a A Trader Can you share what the steps are with them? Sure I'll share. Beginning to end.

So okay. first things first is when I was starting my trading I would wake up at 4:00 A.m. I wake up at 4:00 A.m. every single day so that I know what stocks are moving, what news is moving And it gives me enough time to like, read the fundamentals and read the chart.

Now as I've kind of matured on my trading and I wake up around like 6:00 A.m. wake up at 6:00 A.m. and the first thing I do no matter what every single day is I have to check my phone I check my phone the first thing I do to see like if there's any stocks on my watch from the previous day that are moving after I check my phone I have to drink espresso I have to I'm like a zombie in the morning I I cannot function without coffee in the morning so I have my espresso I get right up to my office. So as soon as I get to my office, open up my trading platform and the first thing I do is I look at the top percentage gainers of the day.

Okay so I look at which stocks are gapping up the most on the day after I look at the stocks are gapping up the most. What I do is I read the news on each stock. Sometimes a stock has news. sometimes a stock doesn't have news.

Okay, if a stock doesn't have news, it's a pretty big Edge because most of the time it doesn't have a catalyst to keep it up. So if a stock does have news, I'll look at the news and I'll read it and see what it sounds like. Often times a lot of people don't realize that companies PR the same thing. So I try to cross reference to see if this company has ever PR the same thing.

recyle the headlines and based on that that's a different level of an edge, right? Okay so first things we look at what stocks gapped up, then we look at the news. then what I do is I look at the fundamentals of the stock. So these days there's a bunch of different tools out there to like use to help with fundamentals. I use dilution tracker because they're pretty simple.

Uh, look at you know if they have any outstanding warrants, if they have like an ATM if they have a shelf. So I try to get as much information on a stock as I can before I even look at the chart. So after I get that information from the fundamentals and I say all right, this stock is gapping up. This stock has a news Catalyst This stock has you know something in the fundamentals or the filings that kind of looks a little bit sketchy.

Then I look at the chart and like we mentioned earlier, is the chart. One of those daily charts where it Wicks up and Wicks down. Or is it one of those charts that's like you know, looks like a breakout is about to happen. Is it like gapping? Like how is it gapping up? Is it gapping up into previous resistance? Is it gapping? up? into blue skies? or is it one of those Wick up and Wick down.

So depending on that, that's going to be something that I try to narrow down as well if it's one of those stocks that's gapping up into all-time highs I don't want to short it I don't want to short it cuz there's no previous resistance. but if it's a stock that Wicks up and Wicks down. Day one: Good if it's a stock that's coming into previous resistance good, then after that I pretty much uh, plot out my Uh entries and exits based on support and resistance I Keep it really simple. So these days a lot of stocks are moving pre-market and by the time you wake up pre-market the chart is already kind of formed a little bit.

So I like to use those pre-market levels as my uh potential resistance and support. So I'll just draw my resistance or Draw my support to be able to visualize it on the chart. Now these days there's different pump Pumpers different discords different this different that that are moving stocks as well. So I have friends and other people in like all these other discords that let me know.

pumping different stocks so pretty much find what stocks are gapping up the most. read the news, read the filings, look at the daily chart, draw my support and resistance. What I've realized in the world of shorting is every single day. there's usually a hot stock moving.

There's a stock with tremendous volume. There's a stock that has all the attention. There's a stock that all the Traders in the chat rooms and all people on Twitter are talking about that stock. I Call the hot chick of the day and I call it the hot chick of the day because it's okay.

I Call it the hot chick of the day because if you go to a bar and the hot girl is there, all the guys are going to give her attention right? All the girls are going to give her attention and she's not going to say yes to any of those guys. She's going to dodge and dive and Duck and thing. But she has a friend. she's just getting the free drinks.

she's getting the free drink but she has her friend that like may not be like as good-looking but like she like if a guy talks to her, she's going to talk and engage and have fun or whatever. So instead of finding the hot stock of the day, the hot chick of the day to trade that everyone's going to lose money on I Look for her friend right? I Look for the side stock. the stock that may not have as much volume that already came down pre-market right. The chart is already formed premarket and I'm basically waiting for that stock to have a bounce into pre-market resistance rather than to short rather than looking for that hot stock that keeps making higher lows and higher lows and higher lows and higher lows and ends up parabolic right? So a lot of short sellers they have this fallacy that the higher the percentage Gap is on the stock, the more I want to short it whereas sometimes it could just keep going and going and going because has all the attention.

Yeah, so for me I focus on the stock that already has made a a topping action premarket. it's already topped out pre-market and I want to short that bounce into previous resistance. That's my bread and butter go-to setup every single day. The problem is that most short sellers they go for that hot stock.

that kind of goes to resistance and then consolidates and shoots up shs up because it has all the volume all the all Theos all the so as a short seller I do not want to the hot stock of the day I Want to focus on the side stock that not as much people are watching that doesn't have as much attention because those stocks to me have the most Edge and the most capacity because there's less competition whereas the hot sock at day it's short crowded, there's way too much competition. That's what's been helping me these days. So you're basically risking in this case, In this particular strategy, are you risking around that pre-market highs? So I've realized as a short seller that your ultimate stop no matter what, always has to be mandatory pre-market High Because if it breaks premarket high of the day, it has the ability to keep going. So as a short seller, no matter what the rule, no matter what is, if it breaks premarket High you have to stop out.

You have to stop out. Don't wait for it to see if it's going to reject. Don't wait. Don't do anything.

Get the hell out if it's going against you. But what's really good is on these side stocks is the pre-market high. After it's kind of made its initial move and come down, the pre-market high is so so far away. that like, you have plenty of room to make money, whereas the hot stock of the day it could just really relatively quickly break that and just halt up.

Yeah right. I've been caught in so many scenarios where the hot stock of the day that was gapping up 85% 150% goes higher and higher and higher whereas a stock that gapped up 40% ended up closing red because no one focused on it. They're like, oh, like, this stock is not going to do anything like whatever I'm not going to touch it I'd rather focus on this stock cuz I can make more money on it but that's not how it works so I like to focus on the stocks are forgotten. Theide stocks that people aren't really paying attention to I Also realized that since Short Selling became more and more popular.

Like you said earlier, any stocks that's trading around 80% 90% 100% that's able to hold around there, they tend to go higher. Yes, because that attracts all the short sellers you were talking about. and they they get squeezed and it goes higher. And the Alos are very like they.

the Alos just got way smarter. I think ever since 2020, the pandemic I think they got so smart because in my opinion, when the entire stock market was crashing in like 2022 is like 2021 2022, a lot of the hedge funds couldn't make money, They couldn't make money cuz everything was going down. Yeah! so I think that they programmed their Alos to start focusing on small cap stocks to like start making up that difference in P&l that they were doing because now there's so much algorithmic trading in small caps, you can see it non-stop The the volume on these small cap stocks is absolutely ridiculous sometimes. and I think it's all algorithmic trading, just getting smarter and smarter and smarter if that's the case.

Do you think it has gotten a little bit tougher to trade small cap stocks in because it didn't used to be like that when the the bigger funds or like Elos were involved. So how has it changed to modern day now? I Think every year trading gets more difficult I Think every year that you wait, it gets more difficult because like you think about I mean when we first started trading most of the time like I remember seeing people that would just short a stock at Market open and then cover it at Market Clos and it would just go straight down. it doesn't exist anymore. Or like during the pandemic, you would just buy any stock and it would just go straight up that doesn't exist anymore.

So I think the market has a way of just getting harder and harder and harder and cycling out. more people and more people and more people. But interesting to your point is, I Think that now because most people are in the short selling world, the stock squeezes that we're getting are a lot more ridiculous. They're a lot crazier.

They're a lot more. uh, insane. So that actually gives veteran short sellers more of an edge because the Newbie short sellers are driving these stock prices up whereas theet are waiting and getting even better entries. So I think that if you are a veteran someone that's been doing it for a longer time.

I Think you have even more of an edge because there's a lot of dumb short sellers driving up these stocks higher for more veteran traders to take advantage of it? Yeah, okay, I Never thought of it like that. Yeah, okay, there was a another Trader I traded with uh for a while. He's a really good short seller. Whenever he shorts, he's saying yeah, wait for on the chart to see at least two blowups from other people.

Like other, uh, short squeeze charts that you can tell on the when the stock like squeezes up and comes back down. wait for at least two times. Then third time you short it. Yeah, so that's his strategy.

He waits for the premature short sellers to get squeezed out, then he shorts when the stock actually is going to break down and there's no more shorts to have to cover. Yeah, there's There's so many different ways to make money in the market. There's so many you could skin a cat in different ways. Like for me, what? I realized on day one, avoid those hot stocks and focus on the side stocks.

And day two, then you could attack that hot stock because on day two, that hot stock NOW becomes a side stock because now there's a new stock moving that day. So for me, day one: short selling I focus on stocks that have already topped out pre-market and are bouncing to resistance I avoid the hot hot stock and on day two, the hot stock NOW becomes a side stock because there's a new stock moving and that's when I could capitalize on that day one stock because everyone blew up on day one on that stock. so they don't want to touch it anymore, they don't want to touch it anymore. Whereas for me that didn't touch it, that ignored it.

Now I have a pretty big Edge to short it on your Twitter uh you share a lot of your charts yes and I Noticed that you're really good at scaling into your trades. Yes, Can you kind of talk about how you position size your trades? How do you decide when to add and uh, how do you try to maximize the best out of this one short trade? Great! So this's a really good question. So I think a big problem that people have is they think that you have to size up on every single trade I Think that's false I Think you cannot size up on every single trade. and the example I give is this and is I Actually really like this.

So okay let's say we're going to make a bet and we're going to make a bet that Ba is going to get drunk. so you win the bet if he gets drunk. Okay I'm going to give you two scenarios. Let's say me and Ba we go to Disney World and there's like a couple beers that he gets or whatever you know hangs out.

There's probably like a 50% chance that like he'll get drunk at Disney World Let's say okay now let's say B's at the club he's got a ball of Hennessy There's a couple cute girls with short skirts and they're all over over him. I Would say there's a 99% chance that he's going to get drunk, so wouldn't you always bet on those 99% of him going to the club would? Don't you use max size on bow at the club rather than using Max size at the Disney World Example One has a 50% chance of winning. One has a 99% chance of winning. So I think sizing is based on the setup and the opportunity.

So now that you understand that example, I'm going to tell you how to get it even further. So let's say on a stock that I would rate I think each setup should be have like a rating right? So for me, my A+ setup is a first red day. That's one of those setups that I'll bulldoze in size. That's about at the club setup where I know that's going to be 9% win rate.

So on a setup like that I am using exponential amounts of size. Let's say my normal size is 10,000 shares. I'm using 100,000 shares because I have such a high win rate on that setup. Because of that, the odds are in my favor.

Whereas something that has like I don't know like a B setup or a C setup I'm only using like 10 or 20,000 shares because that probability is not as high. So number one is you have to grade your setups. If you know what grade your setup is, then you could size up depending on that setup. So depending on what that setup is, you have your specific sizing.

So if someone doesn't know how to grade their setups, they're not ready for size. That's number one number one. Now let's say you did grade your setup. You know what you're going to use.

You're going to do whatever it is. So for me, if it's a B setup, I Think the simplest thing for short sellers is just to wait for it to be under Vwap because if it's under Vwap, there's resistance at top. There's a lot of Supply into the so. that kind of gives you an example.

So my rule of thumb is I only want to use 30% of my size above Vwap. So if my Max size is 10,000 shares, I want to use 3,000 shares above Vwap. and if I see like a death candle or break under view app then I'll get to my 10,000 shares. Okay, whereas if it's a first red day setup that I'm going to use 100,000 shares, My signal for the first red day setup is when the stock goes red short it.

So I'll often times even go my full size as soon as the stock goes red. Because that's when the signal is that profit taking is going to occur, that things are going to change. So sizing is based on the setup and how to size in on the stock is again, almost relatively based on the setup. But I think the simplest simplest thing that you could do is 30% of your size above Vwap, 100% of your size under Vwap and make sure that you are sizing exponentially based on the setup.

A C setup should use 10,000 shares, a B setup should use 25,000 shares, an A set should use 100,000 shares. Now, that's not for you to use 100,000 shares on every step. That's for you to understand the scaling, the the, the variation of size. You know, 10,000 25,000, 100,000 Notice, the A+ setup has almost 10 times as much size as a C setup.

Yeah, and that's how you could exponentially make more money sizing based on the setup. So focus on grading your setup and then sizing exponentially based on the setup in front of you. Wait for that bow at the club setup and go all in. And if it's a bow at Disney World, don't bet us heavy.

That makes a lot of sense. And also in that case, then you do have to accept the fact that for that's say, your A+ setup most of the time it works out. but when it doesn't, the loss is also exponentially higher than the RIS. Correct.

Yeah, that's the risk people have to accept. Correct. If you know that something is going to work nine out of 10 times, are you just going to shy away from it every single time? You can't It's just odds. nothing is 100% Even if you play Blackjack and you have a 20, the dealer can still get a 21 and they can still win.

They win. So that doesn't mean that you just don't do it. You have to take it. You have to take that, uh, that setup because you don't know how often it's going to come.

There might be a time where I mean I Remember during the pandemic, there was like a first red day setup every month. Whereas when the pandemic ended, it was every quarter. So it changes, it changes, and you can't just be. You can't shy away.

So a lot of people are fearful of losing money in the markets. whereas I think my talent is that I'm not really fearful I'm just like I want to maximize I want to Max I hate missed opportunity I hate it I hate it more than anything. So what really upsets me is if a first red day setup comes on and I don't size up big enough I don't get big enough. That's what really pisses me off.

But oh, interesting. But yeah, I think the problem that a lot of Traders have Shay is that they are using the same size on everything. Yeah, they're using 10,000 shares on their B setup, their C setup, their A setup. Every single setup, they're using the same size and they're like I'm losing money on these setups and I can't seem to find consistency I can't make money I just make money and I lose money I make money I lose money.

It's cuz you're using the same size on every single stock. That's not how it works. You have to size of exponentially based on the higher probability that certain stocks and certain patterns certain opportunities give you. Thank you for sharing your scaling in and entry strategy.

What would you do for take profit and exiting? Yeah, so what? I've realized that like a lot of people, like once they enter a stock on the short side, they set like these arbitrary price targets right? So like let's say they short stock at $5 they're like I know I'm just going to cover at $3 I'm going to wait, there's an offering that's going to hit and I'm going to cover at $1 right? Okay and what I found out is that like the market doesn't care about your stupid price targets like you could say, whatever price Target you want in your head, it doesn't mean the stock is going to get there I Think the simplest way. the way that I use is I Always cover based on where is support on the chart. So if support is at $4.50 I want to take a little piece off at Support. the next support is 425 I want to take a little piece off at 425 rather than setting these Targets in your head of like an offering is going to hit or bad news is going to hit or it's going to do this, it's going to do I'm going to cover at $2 because a piece of what ends up happening is like if you never take profits off the table, stock is going to reverse stock is going to reverse.

So I think keep it very simple is draw your support lines on the chart and always cover at support and always short at resistance. What? I think a lot of people do. That's like pretty screwed up is they buy resistance and they sell at support right? They buy resistance and they sell at support. Whereas you should always be selling a resistance and buying as support.

there was one Trader that I knew and all he would do is just short at resistance and buy at support, short at resistance, buy at support all day long and then there was like another Trader that would just keep uh, buying at resistance cuz he kept trying to buy the breakout so it doesn't work. Okay so if you just keep as simple as shorting resistance and covering I Know it sounds really simple, but think about it next time you're trading. is are you shorting or selling at resistance? Are you buying or covering at support? or are you panic selling at support and panic buying at resistance? So I always use a chart. Chart is the simplest way to determine things so always use support as your exits if you're shorting and if you're like longing, always use resistance as your sell.

If you keep it that simple and don't set like price Targets in your head like for example, you buy a stock at five, you're like it's going to go to 15. I'm going to retire Market doesn't care about your arbitrary price Target but sell it at Resistance or you short a stock at five, it's going to have an offering go to One Market doesn't care. cover at Support: Keep it simple. so in that case, does it matter to you what your true risk word is cuz sometimes the support or like I think it's a good idea to take profit as support when you're short.

but I'd say it's only one to one. would you still take it I mean I would take it I I would the way that I think about things is not really in the risk to reward type of ratio I Think about it in the grade of the setup and the probability ratio. So I think about it in terms of how what is the percentage probability that this setup is going to work and what is that grade on that setup? That's kind of more so how I determine it rather than using the risk reward because I think it could be too like I I don't know just like never worked for my trading I know a lot of people that use it and it helps them a lot. but for me it just it just doesn't work.

It's too complicated for me I'd rather just keep it really simple so you don't do I know there are people who like crunch spreadsheets. they like track numbers. You don't do that too much more. Okay, so you are.

Does that mean you are more of a discretionary Trader and that works for you. It's cuz for me, like when I started trading I wanted to do I I like to be efficient right? Like less is more so. Like trading is also based on your personality. like like Ba is like I think of him as like an octopus.

He's like he's He likes to have his tentacles all over the place right? He's like a little bit erratic. so he has he has each of his eight tentacles and eight different stocks at the same time. Whereas for me I'm more, um, conservative and I'm more efficient. So rather than bow using, you know 10% size on 10 different stocks I use 100% size on one stock because if I'm able to focus on one stock, all my attention is on one stock whereas if B's trading, you know five stocks, he has 20% attention here: 20% attention there, 20% attention there, 20% attention there 20% attention.

You don't have enough attention on all the stocks, so you may miss certain things. but that's his personality. his personality. He likes to be in everything whereas my personality is less is more so I like to focus all my attention on one stock and spreadsheets and number crunching is too complicated for me so I'd rather just keep it simple.

Keep it really simple is what works for me because I know a lot of Traders are like okay I do data I do this. I do that and it's good to help you determine what is your a setup, your B setup your C setup but after you know what setups you are the most profitable on after you know the probability of those setups, it's just a matter of waiting for those setups to come so you can repeat it, it doesn't I if I keep crunching numbers right now I Know that the first red day is my best setup I know that shorting into resistance is a 80 90% win rate I know all these things so I don't need to do it at this level I see but when I first started I did a little bit just to determine what works now. but for now as I'm you know 10 years into my trading yeah I don't need to Crunch any more numbers I already know what works you know obviously you yeah you're more seasoned now and you're experienced I think I think for newer Traders They do need to do a little bit more of those journaling work to get to where you are to understand. and these days they have like Trader viw all you have to do is upload your trades.

when I first started I uploaded my trades I found out my win rate I found out which stocks I make the most money on I found out everything and all you really need to do is just get a data set of just like I don't know. Maybe like a year or two years of trading, input it all in there and then you'll have all the answers and really realistically, you don't have to do it again cuz you know what you have to work on. you know what you have to work on. like I found out that I lost the most money after 10:30 A.m.

I lost the most money going long on stocks and I lost the most money on stocks over $20 a share. So by eliminating stocks over $20 a share by eliminating trading after 10:30 I was able to increase P&l It seems like you really understand the way you trade like you. it seems like to master trading you have to understand yourself. Yeah yeah, you have to understand your personality.

uh what you like, what you don't like and where you tend to mess up. Oh yeah, I mean I know my biggest problem as a Traders I get too greedy I get too greedy and I oversize sometimes right? I oversize. So my biggest problem in my trading is I get too excited I get too excited if I see an A+ opportunity. Yeah, if I see a bow at the club or a first red day setup that I get in too big too early.

So that's my biggest problem right now. My trading is I get too oversized. Yeah, I get too oversized So that's something that I'm working on now. And like we mentioned a little bit earlier, I've been sizing down to help combat that as well.

Well, you know, but you have to. Trading is a matter of finding your strengths and weaknesses as a person and as a Trader. So my strength as a Trader I would say is discipline, stock selection, and my ability to like push hard when the opportunities there. My weakness is that I get too greedy I have too much fomo and I get in too big.

We just heard some very powerful insights on Trader Psychology from Alex. Now my question is for you, what kind of trading mistakes have you been doing that's holding you back from becoming profitable? And how are you going to address them from now on? Let me know in the comment section below. So do you mind sharing your What? what? some of your biggest wins and your biggest loss? Sure! So let's start with the biggest loss Sure! So my biggest loss was actually a few months ago I lost $450,000 on top. Oh and the reason why I lost on that I used way too much size was that like a one of those Chinese stocks that's super low float.

So let me tell you what happen: I missed. You know all these Chinese IPO scams they all went to I missed every single one of them like HKD single one of them I did not touch I missed it I was like this is the one that I'm going to nail I'm going to bulldoze in size I'm going to go big I'm going to make a million dollars on this trade because I saw so many other Traders making so much money on these Chinese scams I was like this is the one for me this is the one so I over size on the front side I used way too much size, way too much size and I ended up stopping out for a massive $450,000 loss and I stopped out around like I don't know I think I stopped out around like 20 or 25 and it wow you stopped out already too 200. I would have lost $10 million. Oh jeez, I lost $1 million if I was stubborn So that was my biggest loss and that came from oversizing.

Yeah, so that was 100% oversizing. That was the worst loss I've had because again I was emotional because I missed all the other Chinese scams I had fomo I was like this is is the one that's going to make me so much money and I was oversizing. So the three cardinal sins of my trading all my biggest weaknesses came together in one stock. All my biggest weaknesses came together in one stock and I got destroyed $450,000 so that was also right off.

the bad of me having some of my best consistency ever. So I was a little bit overconfident because of how consistent I was because this year uh I started a I don't know if you saw but I start started a $30,000 account challenge where like I started an account with 30,000 and see how far I could grow it and I grew that $30,000 account into a million dollar in 55 days. It was the craziest thing ever was the best thing ever. So like when I made 30,000 to a million in 55 days I was so confident I was like I got so much money in my account cuz like I I like to do a challenge at the end the beginning of the year just like make it a little bit more fun.

So that was my Challenge and what I used to do is every time that I got my account from 30,000 to 50,000 I would wire out 15,000 as a paycheck I wire out a paycheck this time I didn't do it Okay I didn't do it. So my account was just 100,200 500 a million dollar. So I had a million dollar account just chilling there and I broke my rule of not wiring out. So I had all this money in my trading account I had all this buying power and I just pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and it ended up eating me in the face because I was too overconfident from all of my past wins this year I had too much ego, too much greed and everything and that's prob really valuable.

Lesson is number one: I never want to have so much money in my trading account that I could lose and number two is I really have to control my oversizing and I have to make sure that I size up on the backs side and not just because I have fomo that this is going to be the one. So that was my biggest loss and that happened this year. My biggest win ever was I would say so in terms of in a single day it would probably be AMC I made most money shorting AMC I if I remember correctly, I was short Shing it around $70 Oh wow and I ended up covering around $30 in the same day. that was the day that had the big ATM offering so that was also a first red day setup for me.

Oh okay so that was about I made about 7 a plus plus that was a plus plus. I made about $700,000 that day. Biggest trade ever, but my biggest ticker overall is probably Bed Bath and Beyond Oh prob I probably made probably over a million dollars like in terms of like different times adding up I think just this year I made 700 Grand on it like over multiple multiple times I love those meme stocks my the Me: I actually went back through my trading and the meme stock is where I made all my money I made a lot of money on Meme stocks on the short side, on the short. like the most, my biggest winners have been the meme stocks.

So AMC is probably like 700,000 in a day and probably like overall probably like 850,000 in terms of like adding other trades B Bath and Beyond is close to a million and I was say GameStop is like probably half a million so probably just on those three tickers. about 2 and a half million. So but those tickers are no longer in the small cap realm so you do kind of go outside of those. They started off as like the small caps and kind of evolv due to short squeeze into those different Realms yeah those um meme stocks right? They were both in 2020 and 2021.

um and then a little bit earlier this year as well. and during those years you're able to push size I think all all most of the Traders I know had the best years in those times. those years How how do you adapt and how do you feel about the current market cuz obviously volume has since then dropped off quite a bit. right? We don't get those multi-day Runners with really high volumes anymore.

Yeah, how do you adapt when volume dries out, how do you adapt and stay Nimble when it's not in your Market Ideal Market condition? Yeah I mean so I Know you say that a lot of people made a lot of money during the pandemic and my biggest regret in my trading is I didn't get bigger. That's my biggest regret is I didn't get bigger cuz back then you know I would be making $20,000 in a day and I'd be like that's it I'm good. I'm going to go walk, walk away enjoy my day. but I could easily pushed for 50,000 60,000 I could have made millions and millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars during that time.

but I ended up not realizing how big of an opportunity was I was making really good money. but I didn't really realize until after how how abundant that opportunity was. So I actually uh, am making it my goal to so that when that next type of euphoric Market happens may happen in 5 years, may happen in 10 years I Don't know when it's going to happen, but when it happens I'm going to push like crazy because that is the time to make money. So actually my biggest regret is not making more money during that time because of how easy it was cuz I didn't know I didn't know how easy it was I Don't think anyone have seen a market like that.

Yeah, the only comparable thing is 2000 and we weren't trading in the year 2000 B has seen that, has seen it, has seen it right B has seen it. So like if we think about it logically, maybe the next time it's going to come is 10 or 20 years I don't know if I'm going to be able to still be trading or what's going to be going on around that time, but I know that my biggest regret is not going in bigger when that happen. Now as you know, the market has changed since then, everything has been totally different and in my opinion the market has kind of equalized. and by that I mean all those people that made crazy money in 2021 or uh, in 2020 or 2021 probably lost it all in 20122 guaranteed they lost 90% of those Traders lost all their money because what they were doing is Now not working.

They did not know what risk management was, they did not know what hard stops were so they ended up losing their money. So in these current market environments I Think the best that you could do is just size down and be a little bit more patient for higher probability setups because a lot of people are looking for the same type of short squeezes that were happening during the pandemic. But we technically can't get those short squeez because there's not as much Market participants anymore. A lot of those Market participants got flushed out and they blew up and there's no stimulus money coming into the market anymore.

So I think that a lot of that dumb money that came in has been gone. So I think it's actually a little bit more difficult now cuz the only people that are left are smart. Traders and the AL It's very hard to compete against Smart Tros. We want more more people that are on stimulus checks, more people that are gambling, right? So the Market's definitely gotten harder.

That doesn't mean that you can't make money. it's just a little bit tougher to make money because there's not as much opportunities whereas during the pandemic, we had three, four, five, six stocks moving every single day. Now, we have one stock moving or two stocks moving so there's more competition from smarter people. That makes it harder.

Yeah, let me ask you a follow-up question. In that case, do you think trading is a zero sum game? In what way? Because like you said right, for experienced traders to make a lot of money, there has to be an influx of dumb money. So when they no longer exist, it's harder to make money. Because in some ways you need those dumb money to be very you know, careless with their trades For a lot of big traders to make money like the meme stocks, you know all that hype, right? So do you think that makes trading day trading stocks a a zero? Some game like someone has to lose for you to make money.

Yes, that's that. That's the way the market is designed. The market is designed that someone always wins and someone always loses. Yeah, there's a guy that's always buying Tesla at 400 and a guy that's selling Tesla at 400.

There's a guy that's buying Tesla at 100 and selling it at 100, right? So if you think about it logically like when the entire Market crashed and like I use Tesla as an example cuz like it's a stock that a lot of people are relatively familiar with. Tesla went from like I don't know, like $300 to $120 right? So someone had to sell Tesla at $120 for someone else to buy at $120 So whoever sold it at $10 Now as we're recording this I think it's at like 250 or whatever the stock price is at. So that guy's like God damn like I sold it too soon whereas the guy that bought it is like I'm a genius so someone always has to lose for another person to win. and I Also think that trading becomes a lot easier if there's more dumb money involved.

So yeah, for sure, when all those newbies and all those people came in I mean like I don't know if you've ever played video games while like in Call of Duty There's like a saying called like the Christmas noobs because all the parents get their kids Call of Duty for Christmas Okay and all those kids are brand new. Uh, they're brand new uh players and they're very easy to kill in the game. they're called Christmas noobs. So like every time Christmas comes along, you could kill a lot of these people in Call of Duty and level up and do all the stuff.

The same thing in trading is like the stimulus noobs. They come into the market and you clean up right? So it doesn't mean that it's impossible to make money trading, it just means that when they that influx of dumb money is a lot easier to make money trading that makes sense. It's also a little bit sad to. it's sad.

but like that was us when we first start. think about our first year. someone else was like profiting off us our first year because we know we were buying the breakout whereas this other guy was shorting the breakout right. So it's it's linear.

It's linear I think in some ways every new Trader has to go through that cycle of okay I'm really dumb in my first year I'm losing money I'm getting taken advantage of, but you can if you can like hold your ground and be able to survive through that first year of you learning the ropes. eventually you're going to be come be able to come My head on the other side, It takes time I mean if I look at it if I look at it now I don't know what the hell I was thinking still trading for 3 years when I wasn't making money but I was passion you pushed through it I was passionate I really liked it I Trading became like my entire life I would consume trading videos on YouTube I be watching The Wall Street movies like I was really interested in that world so that passion helped me be able to like push through the um, the adversity that trading provides. And if you're not totally in love with trading, it'll be really hard to push through those tough times. One thing I realized recently is that oh, if I can trade, I can do almost anything like this.

Not a lot of things that's as difficult as trading in my opinion besides parenting, but those are. That's what a lot of the the the fathers who are trading tell me. But I have yet to find out. I'm not ready for that anytime soon, not anytime soon.

So for now, the biggest difficulty is just trading. Yeah, you mention that nowadays, even though you're technically full-time trading, you only trading for like an hour a day. Yeah, right. So in a way you are part-time trading just like when you first started.

Yes, right? So what was your schedule like when you first started to be able to trade part-time while handling your Starbucks job? Yeah so I I was very lucky that I was working the night shift at Starbucks so I was able to trade in the morning during you know Market hours of 9:30 10:30 whatever and then I would go to my job at 4:00 and I'd be there all night. So to me I had the benefit of working like the night shift whereas a lot of other people depending on their time zone a lot of them like for example like in California the Market opens up at 6:30 in the morning so a lot of people could trade from 6:30 till like I don't know 7:30 8:30 in the morning then go to their day job at 9: so I think the time zone really matters but also like I know like we have members in mic we have one guy who's like a truck driver so as he's like driving