Every now and then you have one of those days where just throw the ball straight into the gutter and the only thing you can do is laugh. Alright guys, so we're gonna do a little midday market recap. Today is a red day recap, but a little bit of an unusual one. So finishing the day down one thousand, eight hundred and forty nine dollars which on the surface would seem like that's not a very good day.

which is true, it's not. it's my max loss, but at the same time, this was the first day that I chose to trade even after I was below my max loss I went down as low as - right around - 3200 or 3300. and that was sort of the point where typically I would have just said I'm done for the day I'm not going to keep trading I'm below my max loss I just got to throw in the towel. but I started to think that I saw a good-looking setup forming and I waited on the 5-minute chart and then I said, you know what I think this is a setup that's worth taking I took the trade and I made back just under $1600 and I wasn't being aggressive I was being conservative with my share size I only took 4,000 shares instead of you know, 5,000 or 10,000 and I was able to make 40 cents per share.

Now, obviously, if I take in 10,000 shares of that trade, I would have made $4,000 and been back to Green on the day. But if I had lost, then I could have gone down minus 5,000 on the day and I didn't want that to happen. So I figured you know I would take a stab at this setup if it worked. I would potentially add and maybe I would get myself back to green.

But really I just wanted to take the opportunity to take a good quality trade. It was a quality trade, a good set up, and a good winner. So this is for me. sort of interesting because it's the first time in over a year that have taken a trade after hitting my max loss.

So typically when I hit my max, so I'm just like, well, I'm done for the day. That's it. and you know I'm kind of bummed out and I end the day on a red note I spend the rest of the day feeling kind of annoyed with myself. but today I'm ending on a green trade.

Like I said, the first time in over a year that I've had a day that I'm closing red this much. but the last trade was green so it's kind of an interesting feeling because I don't really feel like this is a bad day. I mean I'm red, but it almost feels like I'm green. It's kind of weird.

So the challenge of course is that for beginner traders and the reason to have a max loss is because for me, as a beginner trader, when I would be down more than $1,000 I would start just thinking I want to get back to break-even and I'll just trade anything that moves I see a stock starting to pop up on the hide a scanner I buy 5,000 shares. it doesn't go up. it drops 10 cents now I'm down fifteen hundred bucks I look for the next setup I do the same thing the same thing, the same thing and I get myself into this downward spiral and that's exactly because. blowing at the risk of blowing up an account most of the days.

my worst days ever. the worst day that I ever had I was down four thousand dollars and I should have just been done for the day. But all right, I think I was actually only down like 1,100 and I kept trading. got myself down 2,000 3,000, 4,000 took that final trade and I lost $25,000 on it like that and it was so fast And you know that cost me thirty thousand dollars And it's because I was trading From an emotional standpoint I was emotional I was frustrated I was I was angry I was revenge trading I wasn't you know, Calm, cool and collected I didn't have composure I was being really aggressive and really angry and I wasn't in the place to be trading with big-sized But today was different and obviously this is years later.

but you know today was different and I was able to look at my account down thirty six hundred or whatever it was and say you know what? Obviously that's not great but at the same time I'm not. it's not that big of a deal and it I hit my max loss at like 10 a.m. so you know I hit my max loss and I'm like, alright, well you know should I throw in the towel and walk away. Normally I would, but you know there might still be some opportunities and then this set up started to run and that's when I thought okay, well that's that's something that I can trade.

So let's go over the trades from today. You know it started a little interesting because we had two stocks on the Gap scanner Evo k + FN CX and both of these were gapping up between like you know, 50 and 70 percent. I mean these were big gaps Eevee Okay, from 280 yesterday all the way up to 460 pre-market So on this one you know the bell rings, it starts to pop up a little bit. Obviously it had pulled back and I said all right well you know I'll go in this for a scalp but I'm really not sure it's going to be easy I think it's already gone parabolic pre market I get in.

You know it pops up from 34 up to a high of 44. A high of 40 44. Yeah. Small win made 100 or 200 $67 on it.

5,000 shares in out done So small win didn't work the way I thought it would FN XE sorry FM CX this one similar really strong pre market. the bell rings I got in for a scalp over the half dollar of 450 pops up to a high of 475, drops back down I stopped out $177 on 7,000 shares so you know it just didn't get the follow through. So there were two small trades and then I took a trade on Q Ba Q Ba K and this is one of those ones. That was fairly annoying because I put out my order to get into the trade at like 480 and I only filled out of a 10,000 share order I only filled a thousand shares.

it pops up to 460 or 560 and you know I'm sitting there feeling pretty frustrated that I only got a partial fill but I said you know what? That's okay I'll get in here on the first one minute pullback. So I got in here for the break of 5:40 and I added 10,000 shares. We popped up to a high of 58 I was looking for the break of 58 and 65 to go to high a day and then in this candle we dropped down to 24. So immediately I you know I went from being up, you know, whatever it was 18 cents to down 16 cents and I kind of held for a second.

I was like okay, well let's just see what this is gonna do and then in this candle we drop down to 486 I had to stop out and I lost 44 cents with 10,000 shares $4,400 Loss happened pretty fast so I went from being you know up a thousand on the name to down you know, whatever it is 3600 on the name and that's when I went from being you know up on the day to at my max loss. So at that point I was like you know this is this was literally nine, Forty five, nine forty six and now I've hit my max loss and I was feeling frustrated because I had I had said out loud before I took the trade that I should be cautious on this because of the fact that I didn't get a really good profit on the first move. So I should be more conservative with my second trade. but I got in with five thousand shares and then as we popped over the half dollar 550 I was like it looks good.

I'll just double up I'll have a 544 average 545 average. Looks like it's gonna go too high a day, you know $6.00 possible target. it just didn't work. stopped out so you know that's the luck of the draw.

I was I too aggressive I was too aggressive relative to the fact that I didn't get a good fill on my first trade. If I had had my first trade work out, then this would have been fine, but I was risking too much considering I missed that first big breakout. This one had a headline this morning squeezing up on the hide a scanner so that was that one. and then traders in the room started mentioning Nov n was running and I looked at this one as it was starting to squeeze up and I was kind of like looks interesting but you know I can't can't trade it I I'm not going to buy on a one minute up.

you know a big position, it's it's already pretty extended. I'll wait for the five-minute pullback. Meanwhile, it runs all the way up to $8 So another time when I decide to sit out and I would have actually done just fine if I had chased it. but whatever I set it out I wait for the pullback.

we get the pullback and it ends up being a pretty, you know, a pretty sharp pullback here all the way down to three. - sorry 636. Then we pop back up, pull back for a second and this is where I decided to get in. What? I thought here was a break over seven dollars would get us back up to eight dollars.

So I got in with 2,000 shares and then doubled to 4,000 with a like 680 or 688 of 690 average and my back of the line target was a move back up to $8 If that had worked, would have been a $4,000 winner. But what I was thinking is that I'll let it come up here. it'll probably hit some resistance at 7.50 which it did. it popped up to 750 and then it pulled back and so that was when I was thinking okay I'm going to add potentially over 750 Well he come up to 740 we pull back, we pop up to 746 and it's started to feel heavy and that's when I said you know what I wanted to see this above 750.

it doesn't seem like it's happening I'm just gonna take my 40 cents. took my 40 cents 1,600 bucks and that put me from down 3600 to down 1,800 which is a little bit more respectable and does feel a little bit better. and I think it was a good trade I was I was calm I didn't I was trading the five-minute setup I wasn't being overly aggressive on a one-minute trade I wasn't chasing I was waiting for the pullback and this is the type of trade where if we had gotten the pullback here and we ended up breaking over 750 and let's say I added 4,000 shares. So now I would have 8,000 shares but with an average at about 8:15 sorry 7:15 So now with the 7:15 average with 8,000 shares, if this had gone up to even 765 770, I'd be up $4,000 It goes up to 780 to $8 to 815.

Now I'm up 8 grand And that's how you can turn a small winner into a big winner by adding to it when it's working at the same time. That's the same way you can take a small winner and turn it into a break-even trade because if it came back down to 7/16 I'd be out breakeven instead of having you know a $1600 winner which is what I have now. so you know pros and cons and you kind of measure that against the potential strength of the of the setup. Is this the type of setup that could realistically go back to eight or even higher? and I think it was.

It just didn't work. you know? So I'll be more aggressive on those types of setups And you know, in hindsight, it sure would have been nice to capture some of this move here on the one-minute chart. I think the entries. The reasonable entries would have been this one minute pullback at 6:17 and possibly this consolidation at 5:59 So you know when I see a one-minute when I see a stock hitting my scanner and you know all I see is kind of like you know this first squeeze.

That's when I start to think this has potential and sometimes traders will say look I don't see what you see there but I'm looking at this and I'm looking at the daily chart and I'm recognizing that if this works, you know it really could. There's a whole lot of potential and it has what we look for it solo float stock with volume and with a catalyst so you know you've got one, two, three of the criteria. This is a stock that I'm going to try to be more aggressive on. So you know today's today.

We're obviously I'm giving back a little bit of profit I made about sixteen thousand five hundred dollars in the last two trading days before today. So up sixteen thousand, five hundred and then back down eighteen hundred. That's that's down about twelve percent I can handle that. That's a very reasonable and healthy pullback.

My account right now is at sixty two thousand $147 so tomorrow it'll be it. You know, sixty thousand and 300 bucks something like that and that's fine. I'm fine with that, you know? I I was feeling a little bummed out when it looked like I was gonna open tomorrow below 60,000 because I was feeling like I just kind of crossed over this threshold and now I drop back below it. but you know, whatever it is, what it is, it's fine.

I'm I got back above it now and so that's good and you know hopefully we'll have some good opportunities tomorrow to get a nice little bounce back trade. But all in all, even right now if I stopped trading this week and today this has been a great week. Last week I only made I think was five thousand dollars so we just double check you I think it was only five thousand because I lost nine thousand on Thursday and Friday so I only made five thousand dollars last week this week I'm up 14600 roughly and I'd say that's a pretty good week if I can have a good day tomorrow, good day on Friday I get myself up to maybe 18,000, maybe 20,000 or maybe we'll have a couple days that are slow and I'll just finish the week in the 15 you know, 16,000 range and that's fine too. But you know I want to make sure I'm mindful of the fact that I just had a couple big steps forward and I don't want to get complacent or do something that's overly aggressive and I think today I was pushing it a little bit.

So of course this is one of those things where I was pushing it on the wrong stock cube e AQ or q bak on that one minute pullback didn't work but and Nov n sure did from 562 to 616 all the way up to $8 So that's kind of the thing where it's like huh? what is the deal with that You know these are these are two very similar stocks and one just totally exploded. Three points and the other one could only go like 50 cents and then it pulled back and it's you know. So it's kind of like look, even the best traders are only right 65 75 % of the time so you know Q bak Good-looking set up just didn't work. not necessarily any fault of my I don't think it was a bad trade, it just just didn't work and ovn great setup I didn't take it because I was kind of just off of a big red trade and I kind of want to just cool off for a second and then ended up taking the five minutes set up which was good but not nearly as as much range.

so you know it is just it is what it is. The one that works is the one I miss the one that doesn't work is the one I got but over the long term I Know my metrics are solid I know my accuracy is pretty consistent. So I'll have a trade where I get in the same as I did on cue bak and it works and it ends up being you know, big trade like an O VN It's just a matter of time so hopefully we've got some good trading tomorrow. and Friday even though I could trade this afternoon to try to, you know, get myself back to green I don't want to do that I think that that's pushing it, that's forcing it I Already, you know kind of broke one of the rules I've had for a long time which is to not trade below $1,000 But you know sometimes rules are meant to be broken and in this case I think that it's always a good idea to reconsider why you have the rule and what purpose it's serving right now.

The rule for me with not trading below $1,000 was because I knew I had a hard time maintaining self-control and discipline when I was really deep into the red and I would start doing things that were a little bit reckless and that were sloppy and I think that this process of conditioning myself to experience loss and not get stressed out about it has allowed me to have a day where I'm down 3600 and I can still focus I can still think clearly I can still make good decisions, so this is a really good sign for my own emotional development as a trader that I can now have a day where I'm down 3600 and I can still trade myself out of it whether it's well, even if I do have another loss and I go a little deeper into the whole I know that I can maintain composure. You know that final trade I took I took smaller size so if it didn't work I wouldn't go down more much more into the red you know I knew I was right. kind of at the edge of where I would just have to say I'm done but I said look, this is a good setup I'll take another I'll take a stab at it if it works, it's great. If not, I'll stop out for five hundred dollar loss.

At this point, it's not going to be a big deal. It ended up working and because it was the type of setup that could have given me an eight thousand dollar winner if it, if it really went the right way, it was absolutely worth four hundred dollars of risk 100% regardless of where my PNL was standing on the day. And a lot of traders say you should manage your your trades and don't even look at the P&L But at the same time, you have to be mindful of the fact that if you have a day where you're down six seven thousand dollars, you know, take the hint like walk away right? you're having a bad day Today I was having a pretty good day. I had three winning trades and then I just had a fourth one that was a big loser.

So I was able to just kind of put that to the side, keep trading and you know, get myself a little bit out of the hole which is fine. So I think that so what I've done is I've changed my max loss on my account to minus five thousand. So I'm down more than five thousand I'm done for the day I will be done for the day I won't keep trading. but I think that if I'm down a thousand or two thousand or three thousand, that's within a range where I can I can probably still, as today's shows continue trading and bounce back.

but definitely if I'm that far in the red I'll be a little bit more conservative with my share size just recognizing that. obviously I'm not having the best day ever. if I see something really good I don't want to be I don't want to stop myself from taking it. but I just need to be a little bit more cautious so you know I may have days where I'm down a thousand bucks and I say look guys, I'm done I'm not going to push it, not having a good day I'm not feeling it and that's fine and ultimately it's ition.

have to be the broker that makes the decision for me to shut off my account. It should be me, right? it should be me who says look, I'm not in the mental place keep trading I'm annoyed I'm frustrated. You know this orange dog over here keeps barking. she's driving me nuts I Gotta just you know, take a walk, whatever it might be and I for a long time delegated that responsibility to my broker because I was having a hard time.

you know, following the rules. Essentially I was having a hard time following that max loss I'd have a day where I was in the hole I would keep trading I'd get more and more frustrated I Just you know to start swinging at the fences for anything that moved and just not good. and I think that this is one of the challenges that a lot. Raiders Have you know a lot of a lot of our students? Our a lot of our students are men which is maybe not surprising, but of course we have women in the room and we love having you guys.

but a lot of the students are men and a lot of the young men I know like myself when I was in my 20s, you know I would get so frustrated because you're trying so hard and you're just not seeing results and that frustration can you know kind of get you a little emotional I Mean I Think it would be. You'd be hard-pressed to find a day trader who hasn't you know, thrown a computer or you know, slammed down his desk or something like that. I Mean it's just. you get to this point where you get frustrated, but you can't take that frustration out on your account, right? Because the market it's like I mean it's like fighting the ocean.

I Mean the market is always going to be stronger. You know you can't bully the market. You can't. Just you know market, order in with your entire account and think you're going to be able to get the trade to work.

I Mean the market is always stronger so that can be very frustrating when you're having a day where you just feel like you keep coming up. You know? sure? So I Think for me getting a little bit older, that emotional composure and kind of you know, emotional development has has really been in my favor. And some of our students who are coming into the classes you know who are retired in their 40s, 50s, 60s, or even older. They may even have a bigger advantage of that ability just to take things in stride a little bit more so.

I think that that's that might be. You know one of the inherent challenges with trading and one of the reasons that a lot of day traders fail. You know men can be hot-headed can get frustrated a lot. This is a job that a lot of men predominantly men are are trying to do.

We may not always emotionally be the best for this job. I Mean you have to be willing to take risk, and I think that that willingness to have a high-risk job is maybe more attractive to men and less so to women. but you know it's so important at the same time to be able to maintain composure and that's something that takes time. So you know some of the things that you can do to help build that composure in yourself and strengthen that muscle, which is essentially the ability to maintain composure is like a muscle and you know you can strengthen it.

you know you may not have it. naturally, but you can build it. So a couple of things that have helped me in the past you know: meditation and exercise because both of those things are things that I don't like to do right. So for me to force myself to do something I don't like to do is showing I mean that's that's composure.

That's discipline that's self-control The more you practice forcing yourself to do something you don't want to do, the easier it will be when you have to force yourself to stop out of a bad trade or to throw in the towel on a bad day because you just get used to you know exercising that that level of you know of discipline on a daily basis. so any other way that you can practice it will well I think improve you it as a trader and something that I've said before is the fact that you know I when I was kind of working through this process I would you know write down my emotional state after I would take a trade I'm angry I'm frustrated I'm about to you know, throw this computer out the window. you know wherever I'm at or I feel great and start to recognize when if you look at a series of trades that went you know, read, read deeper, read deeper Red Super Red max loss you know then that's when I would start to realize okay, well what was the trigger that led up to that loss? All right. Was there something I can trace back as being the trigger and now start to have that sense of mindfulness that look when you have a day where you're at your daily goal and then you hit your max loss, that's a trigger for you that often results in this kind of downward spiral.

It's different for everybody, and some people maybe are fortunate enough that they don't have to deal with this. But most traders you know trading the market is not something that comes naturally and I think that the natural human emotions of fear and greed do not always help us as traders. You know they encourage us to buy way too high and then to sell. you know, as the stock is dropping back down so you know that's something that we have to learn to to overcome.

All right guys! So I hope that that's helpful and I'm definitely not trying to be sexist in any way. I mean I'm just from my experience working with students and you know these are some of the observations that I've made. So I hope no one takes it the wrong way. But in any case, you know here we are Wednesday Finishing the day a little bit in the red, but at the same time today feels like a victory because it was an opportunity to trade out of the red to show composure to maintain that calm, cool, collected state of mind when I just as easily could have continued to trade and gone deeper and deeper into the red and really made a big mistake.

Alright, so any questions you guys have or comments you can of course feel free to ask in the chatroom. And for those of you watching on YouTube or Facebook you can post them in the comments below and I will make sure I get to them. Alright guys. I Will catch up with everyone first thing tomorrow morning.

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