Before online before spamming Twitter Before all this other stuff, people went on the street and did it right. It's been 26 years I've traded traded everything Forex micro caps big caps The reason I think a lot of people say trading is like a business trade like a business is because when you're in business for yourself, you make a lot of mistakes and you have to keep taking punches to the face and figure out the right way to do things. And the same thing happens in trading like you're You're wrong more often than you're right. Those were the strategies that really have moved forward.

Any kind of short situation is where I want people to be like, no, this company is overvalued I Love hearing that because yes, it might be and I'm an accounting I can definitely give you the calculation on that like when I when Tesla went from 250 to two thousand dollars and then two years span. Yeah, I could have not predicted a final outcome, but I was able to see how short slows were piling in and how at 400 was too expensive and at 600 was so expensive and 900 is too expensive. Sports was very popular for us in 2008 onward because before the stock market was fully recovered, trading currency since to be like the liquid thing to do that couldn't really hurt you that much, right? Our next guest is a trading veteran who's been in the market since the.com bubble in 2000s. His name is Marcin AKA Chino China's career began at the Roxy one of Vancouver's most iconic nightclubs.

While working the other club. He was a computer science major in the 90s and eventually transitioned to becoming a CPA, but trading was the one passion that really followed him throughout the many decades. Junior.com Bull Market era China was quick to jump onto the intersection between technology and finance and he started trading. This has set him on a trading career that's been going strong for the last 20 years.

even though China has traded and profited from every cycle of the business. Market He will be the first to tell you that trading is never easy. He once lost 120 thousand dollars in 20 seconds. Today we're going to be discussing China's favorite trading strategies for stocks, options Futures and even Forex and his Tax Strategies for Traders and how to trade while raising three kids.

I'm very excited to get started with today's conversation. Please welcome my friend! China Foreign episode of Humble Traders A podcast for Active Traders I'm your host Shea AKA The Humble Trader If this is your first time tuning into our podcast, I Interview and share stories, training, strategies and experiences from some of the most inspiring Traders from around the world. If that sounds interesting to you, please remember to smash the like button and subscribe to see more interviews like these in the future. Welcome to the Show Tuner! How are you I'm doing well.

Thanks for having me. Haven't seen you in two years. a couple years. Yeah! July 2020 was last time we met.

Yeah yeah, how's how's trading thing with three kids now? Uh, it's good. Um definitely not doing the morning drive like I used to with trading I'm driving people to the bus. Um, definitely need to take the first hour and a half till eight to nine a.m Pacific to Center myself. But yeah I'm definitely it's I've adjusted.

you've adjusted okay hopefully for the better I think so yeah I don't I don't need to rush the first 30 minutes with everybody I'm okay with okay with waiting and getting, figuring where the balance is and where where you guys are going I think out of the many Traders I know you are one of the few people that I know that have started. Trading Even before the.com bubble bursted right? Yes, how long has it been since you've been in the market? August August September 1996 was when I opened my first brokerage account. So that's what? 26 27 years? Uh, in those early years it was more like swing trading because I was basically going along with the trend in the 90s and it was working out. So I kept doing it.

Um, probably full day trading happened more like in the early 000s when the bubble burst and there was a little more need to get in, get out like now. So before the bubble burst it, you were just buying and holding for three months actual underlying stock or options. Uh, definitely the options actually. I started with options because I don't know how much money and things were.

hundreds of dollars and not some things were thousands of dollars. So the only way to get in on those Tech opportunities for me back then was to buy calls, right? So I'd buy three to six month calls usually on either on stocks that split on me known very well. They're probably going to return to the original split price pretty soon and that worked. That worked from multiple years.

So 96 to 2000? Okay, yeah, 96.99 And then by early 2000 everything started changing. Yeah, so would you say before 2000 things were quote unquote easy. Uh, they were easy because I was naive enough to think they were easy. Okay, um, I don't think they were easier I definitely think it was a bull market.

Uh, I didn't know as much about shorting so I didn't know how to get in trouble that way everything was going up so that was helpful helpful for sure. Sometimes that's a bliss. yeah. I'm sure there was a bull market.

There was a small, uh, small order execution system called Sews which allowed us to execute on computers automatically on under a thousand shares while the big players were still still an open outcry pit. and it gave us some opportunities to front run news. Now that was a mixed blessing because they had Bloomberg and we had the news right? so we still didn't get news that fast. Yeah, but we were able to execute small orders faster than market makers at that time, so we were able to catch small opportunities here and there.

I Didn't track it well enough to really know if that made a difference, but that was my original thesis of why I wanted to get in right? Oh, can you explain to our listeners what's open outcry and why was that an advantage for retail Traders like you so open outcry Back then was what you see on TV was a whole bunch of people in a room yelling I'm buying this I'm selling this and the paper and they have Traders from different firms and market makers and hedge funds. whatever. And you know they were trying to make a deal and they were fast. but it was obviously not as fast as the computerized systems are today and that.

So system was a as a electronic system sort of the first one because market makers didn't want to deal with either penny stocks or smaller stocks that they weren't interested in or didn't have volume, so they sort of gave it to the system. If you traded under a thousand shares, it would Auto execute like it does now, All right. So there was opportunities to occasionally get in faster and get them faster than a market maker. Okay, that's like one of the rare opportunities you had to get in front of the yeah if you think about it in the 90s day Traders were the original high frequency Traders Like yeah, it wasn't the same speed or by any means, but it was the idea.

It was the same right that we can get in and get out for small amounts of shares before the big players can, right? Oh, so when the the dot com bubble bursted in 2000, what do you think made you like? how did you stay safe because I think a lot of people didn't see a comment. did you see it? Well I definitely wasn't I I Well I saw a little bit of coming because I was in computer science and I don't know if you remember what Y2K was. but there was this big rush that the entire computerized system is going to crash because in 2000 all the computers are going to think it's 1900 because they didn't have a full year in their computerized systems all across Banking and trading. So there was a big fear on this.

So I sort of was worried that something was going to happen I definitely didn't think was going to crash and I wasn't fully exposed I mean I was in calls but against calls expire worthless limited exposure so I didn't I did lose but I wasn't fully invested. You have to understand, some shares went from 3 000 to like three hundred dollars in seven days, right? So it was. It was. a big drop, right? and so a lot of people got liquidated.

I was the safety I had was I was an option. so I just went to zero. There's another liquid eight that was good, right? but you didn't No at that point I was successful for several years to the point where like I had withdrawn money and I was you know like I was scared to put have it all in there because I thought it was all going to go away. So yeah, no, I didn't blow up.

I've had a relatively small loss in comparison to what could have happened. Yeah, oh, was there any like memorable tech companies that you traded from the.com era? Oh uh. well. back then the big ones were really anything with that.com Was it like Pitts.com basically? Well, just yeah.

now that everything has AI in it back then everything put.com in it, right? Yeah, um I mean Nortel Networks was a big one that we traded was very popular until book. Runner Do you know what that was? No, they're not. They're an Ottawa based company that's now out of business. but they did communication telephone systems.

Oh right. and they like intercoms. Like not like like so just phone systems for large organizations. So like put in 15 000 phones that are all connected by PBX in the cloud.

That was their sort of thing. They were actually a real big company and they they blew up. They went out of business in 2000, right? Okay, uh, Adobe and different things of that nature software companies. You know Now those companies made money in a different way back then, right? Everything suffered as a service now.

but then they were still pushing the actual physics. Yeah, well. I mean instead of just getting Adobe for 23 bucks a month, you're buying the full license program. but you had to buy a disc.

I Remember, Yes, yes, or a CD Or yeah, it wasn't downloaded. Nobody's downloading anything, right? So yeah, it was. definitely. it was a different time, but it was definitely fun because it was new and exciting and I was winning, right? How would you compare that bubble to? Well, I wouldn't say what happened in 2020 and 21 was a bubble.

but how would you compare that hype to all the volume and extreme momentum we saw in the last yeah, last two years after Covid Pandemic. Well, so it was different. So the business has changed, right? So the difference is that? Okay, yes, there was a huge bubble in Tech but when it burst, it was only one sector. It wasn't all the sectors.

so that's the first thing to remember. And the second thing was that we're still dependent heavily on market makers. you know, taking buying something when nobody else wanted to. and they just dropped their bids, right? So there was a huge pullback and you know the reason you have Pdts because we got two thousand below.

There was no PDT before 2000. the reason you have PDT today okay is because so many day Traders blew up during that time frame that I think the Bush Administration initiated the PDT rule. Yeah, so that was because of that blow up. That's why before in the 90s there was no PDT just like go right six to one go.

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but was day trading really really popular during the.com bubble? Then it was that many people. It was my first recollection of it. But yes, just like day trading became popular in 2020 during the pandemic, because a lot of people became aware of it, It was definitely that was the first you know way way that people heard about it. You can do it at home.

you know, the first time I heard about people sitting in their pajamas, trading and quitting their jobs. That was, that was in the 90s right back. Um, did you have any former education in finance or anything related to trading? Not Finance Uh, I did a first. My first undergraduate degree was in computer Science and that sort of flowed well with me having a computer at home in the 90s when most people didn't and just being Adept at setting up a brokerage account in a computer.

you know, software? that's second nature to most people now, was not necessarily to all people in the mid 90s. I was one of you know, my household had three computers and I was I was unheard of back back then. Um, the computer is a giant. Uh, you know they're desktops.

They're desktops. Yeah, they're like a mini tower. You know it was probably this tall and couldn't get a big monitor though. So you sort of say space and monitors.

Okay, but you had a big desktop, right? So, but it was. you know you had. You had a computer at home that was already a big deal. Uh, and then.

so that was. It flowed well with for me with getting into it. But beyond that, No. I learned from books that didn't have the communities we have now, right? You guys can accelerate a new Trader can accelerate.

They're learning in a year that it took me probably five, six, seven years to get through books and trying to meet people right in their early, not in late 90s early 2000s, anything online with trading was just pump and dump right? Like yeah, you're promoting, you're promoting right? So it wasn't It wasn't necessarily helpful or you're at least fearful that it wasn't helpful, right? So the reason I started with large cap stocks the 90s was because I just didn't didn't even want to know how to learn those small ones right? So so you started off straight into a large cap. The tech companies I think options. Yeah I got into small caps in the Oos because as a basically I worked on Granville Street and if you know the how Street hustle you know the house also. So the House Street has a lot of promotion firms for penny stocks and the Vancouver exchange that used to exist that doesn't exist anymore.

Yeah uh yeah, they would come like they would promote. Whether you promote you, promote people that have cash and carry money that don't know anything. So they would come to the bars and restaurants and tell us about penny stocks all the time. What? All the time? But they were basically pushing promotion into different channels.

This is before online before spamming Twitter Before all this other stuff people went on the street and did it right. They did all the stock promotion in in person like at clubs and I'm sure they did it via email too, but they also did it in person. They just came in there. Oh wow, They had drinks.

They talked about it like they're in it and you should get in it. And you know, tell these stories. Like 10 cents can turn into 20 cents really fast. That's a double.

They would tell those stories, but really, what I learned from them there is it was gonna go parabolic in the next couple days. Short it. it's going to dry right and then so then I I Saw this a few times, just by observation and then later I learned to take advantage of that of the short side or the long side. the short side.

That's basically how I learned how to short. Okay, so yeah, I definitely learned to share that way. we used to do things like at five in the morning, we look up the HQ and we drive around Vancouver and Omak Heights West Fourth It's a Condo building in somebody's house. It's not a real company, right? We we do those kind of things until you did your research.

Yeah, we do those kind of research. like try to figure that out I think Orain does that. now by doing Google search, you can look at it. Yeah, Google picture of the HQ and if it's somebody's house or a different shed, then you know it's not a real company.

So we did that physically back then. Yeah, so that in the early hours I learned mining Junior miners on how to shortage Junior miners that was sort of. That was a good time for that. Yeah, okay, because when the tech Bubble Burst the resources went right.

So China was ramping up. There was a big push for resources into developing nations like that and so everything in Vancouver was jumping right. Okay and tell us about your first career because well, I was so surprised when I found out. Okay, yeah, so I'm an accounting now, but my first career I was bartending on Grandma Street and a nightclub here.

Uh, at 9 32 Grandville you can look it up. It'll be easy to tell it still exists Roxy still exists I went there maybe five last time I went was maybe five years ago. Well, I was still in my clubbing phase. It's yeah.

The wonderful thing with the wrong city is if it came there 20 years ago, five years ago or today, they spent a lot of money to make it look the same forever. So it's always going to be a staple of Vancouver the way it's it's going for sure. Yeah, So yeah, I worked there for what was supposed to be a few years, ended up being like 15, 16, 17 years where I was studying, crossing over trading and um, yeah, but it taught me a lot of stuff because I like I met people there I learned a market profile which is sort of just how they distribute shares when they're promoting, right? So a lot of that stuff I learned basically by observation. maybe some people being too drunk and telling me some stuff that it shouldn't but it's slowly pieced it together over time, right? So in a time when I didn't have an online community to learn from, that was how I pieced.

Wow, that's like the the old school insider trading almost. Basically, if you're in a room full of drunk people, you being the sober person is an advantage, right? So since you're bartending, you were always sober. Yes, we were sober as many times as possible for sure. Oh yeah, that's so interesting for for those who don't know.

Vancouver used to have an exchange and that's like the the Pump and Dump penny stock capital of the World very much so. Yeah, yeah. and they shut it down which year I don't remember Wall Street Yeah, definitely definitely not either talking about it. There was a lot of scandals and then, but yeah, by the time earlier I was, it was definitely over.

Uh, everybody went. OTC There was a time when they're starting listing on both right they're on VSC and OTC because they were. they were basically okay. They were basically they.

they were worried that Vancouver was gonna shut down any minute. So they started listing them both. Okay, smart move. Yeah.

and then I mean then they went to Panama. A lot of local promoters that I knew have now moved to Panama and they do everything from Panama and so okay. Yeah, it's still going on though, just in a different scene. And it's more digital.

Nothing more more digital, more offshore. makes it easier, right? It's already harder to track, but and more erratic right? Because they can do it faster because I mean I don't know how well you're doing a shorting. but what? I've seen with uh, the offshore stocks coming in. Now there's no Rhyme or Reason They they go parabolic.

It's they go down. They go parabolic again. It's almost safer to go long because they're going to try to run it right. So shorting is not the same anymore.

100 it used to be. Well, it's like you said, it's never easy, but it used to be more straightforward and easier to read. Nowadays, they understand that retail is getting into shorting, so they take advantage of that and trap them so many times and then the actual dump happens. Yeah, that's something that's happened since the big short I mean I Know everybody thinks they're genius when they think they can short and when it goes down, they're going to make money.

But like when I started, it was like the most dangerous thing. People always say don't short because you buy something it can only go to zero but you go short it can go to Infinity uh and those are you know lessons I Still keep in mind to this day if anything I like to see when shorts get trapped and try to ride the wave on them, getting out right if possible so you're all you're usually more long, biased almost 80. Yeah I mean obviously I get a short one I have to. But like even in Futures I'd like to see them go slam low and watch those slow slimy shorts Pile in and then get in on top them right? So so how has your trading changed from.com bubble that bursted.

Then you get into penny stocks and you know, promotions gone. How has it kind of evolved over the years? Well I mean the first thing is just Technologies involved right? I mean back in the 90s or even early lows, all I had was whatever interactive brokers or E-Trade gave me which is was useful. There was a scanner in there but it wasn't what I have. Now now we have Trade Ideas scans.

You have Benzinga. You have news that's as close to where professional Traders have than ever before so that alone so access to technology has really improved. Obviously your internet connection is faster and so that's helped. Uh, probably the biggest thing I've I've changed though is I've stopped looking at candles.

really like I still do because every package has it. but I've really embraced Market profile which is more of like a bell curve letter system. I'm not sure if you've ever seen it, but it sure it sort of tries to illustrate to you how long a stock a stock has spent at a certain price okay, and then so then and it gives you a point of control, right? So if you know that the price is a hundred dollars for eight hours and then if it's now at 90, you know you're probably going to revert there or vice versa, it's up here. so it also illustrates.

It's just a different way of looking at the same thing. So like anything you've talked about like a washout long or a parabolic with a Wix, it basically shows that a single letter is running up and then coming down right away. For me, visually really made me understand that hey, this is not going higher, this is just a run. we're up or down, right? So it did that.

and it also was the first mythology that really introduced different trading Traders Like short-term medium term, long term and how all those people affect the market differently, right? So it was the first strategy that told me hey, if all the Traders are thinking the same thing, that's your Trend day, right? Yeah, and then if they're not, then maybe it's a choppy there, right? So uh, that was the beginning, that was in the middle. I was 0 304 and that was the beginning of me understanding that. Okay, there's more than just there's people doing business right? It's basically explained as a business. Some people are doing this.

Some people are doing this. Some people with lots of money are doing this. So where are you in this organization, right? So yeah, that was the beginning of me getting it. Okay, and that's in 2004.

Yeah, 2003 2004 I Read a book called uh uh, Mind Over Markets by Jim Dalton If you look him up, he still runs courses I'm not promoting I'm not affiliated with him, but he was. He definitely changed the way I think about it and he basically showed it how he explains it more like wholesale. Like when you're going out like Costco buys a million units of something. That's how he explains wholesale Traders in New York Like we're just going to buy a million units of Futures and we're going to buy it Every when we start we're going to take it up 20 points and then we're gonna stop.

and then as soon as they stop, they stop selling. Then they'll start dropping and they keep playing their game in circles. right? So sort of. they go.

You know, Costco can buy something for a dollar. Make it twenty dollars. It doesn't sell. No problem.

We sell it for ten dollars. doesn't sell. We sell for five dollars. We still made money.

and that's what he explains is that we want to get this maximum profit but wholesale. Traders sort of run it up, run it down in circles like over and over again. which creates that frustration from you. Traders we're like it's breaking out.

No, it's going down. You lose money, right? You go long, It goes short. You go short. Now you're short in the hole.

They go long on you. That's what they are. That's what they're doing. This is the first strategy that sort of explained.

that's what other Market participants are doing so don't get caught in it, right? So that's when I learned not to try to buy the breakout and try to short the the fall right? Yeah, so yeah. I think uh, even to this day like it's when I look at profile. it gives me more of an understanding or more calm about what I'm doing. Uh, even if it goes against me right away because I understand that it's not going to go much further.

So and do you still stick with options trading even till this day? What has that? I Do I do a combination of both? Uh, like yes. I do options trading. uh I like swinging option strategies that sort of capture. you know, capture income? Uh, obviously.

I have no problem yellowing with zero DT here and there. Uh, try to stay away from Fridays now. but from Fridays Okay, the YOLO calls you don't do those anymore. I do I Just you have to also remember like zero DDT is a new thing too, right? Like options existed for a long time, but it was like monthlies, right? You only had zero DTD once a month.

The fact that you have zero dgt now every day is what last three or four years like I Don't even know how long that's been, but it's only it's a new phenomenon so you know it definitely adds to the volatility. I Think like every all the options expiring every day can't help uh with, you know smoothness? Uh yeah. I definitely like to play options primarily on larger stocks, right? because I I have money. but I can still buy more of say Nvidia right now if I have long calls friends.

After hearing China's experience over the last two decades, do you think trading is now getting quote-unquote easier or more challenging than ever? Let us know in the comment section below. nowadays, do you still focus on just trading options or have you kind of branched out to equities or any other assets? Yeah. I mean I've always been in equities and options. It just comes down to like if the equity is expensive I'm going to go option route and if the premiums are worthwhile.

Uh, but now because of time constriction in the morning with kids I've expanded to Futures in the last five, six years primarily Es mini. Futures Uh, they've been around since the mid 90s but they allow me to trade For example, midnight Pacific which is London open and have an opening drive, then when everybody's sleeping and I have a little more time in calm. then at 6 30 in the morning Pacific when it's a little crazy for me. So yeah, I've expanded that way.

Uh, play some Zero Dtts for sure. zero What? Zero day? Oh expiry options? yeah um YOLO sometimes you just sell them and see if I can go to it can go to zero. Uh, the EV is the same on both sides because for the amount of you might win 95 of the time selling but that one percent you lose, it's going to take your profits with you right? So yeah, it's a back and forth really if you get Overexposed um yeah I mean beyond that I mean I focus on just whatever. it's whatever's running right? So I like to look like the larger stocks because I feel like I have a even on an edge I just feel like other people have left of an edge to manipulate so I have a more of a chance to survive.

Uh definitely I'm stay away from the smaller stocks these days. Under ten dollars as much as I can. Yeah, primarily I can get the size I want I mean I can but I not with not discreetly. and then then things get crazy and then they get frustrated.

Yeah, it just gets bad. So I've stayed away from those, try to stick to larger names. uh and Futures where the liquidity is high and I feel like maybe I'm the small fish but at the same time there's other big fish and nobody has an edge. Beyond just playing what's happening in front of you? Tell us in a big picture yeah, what's your strategy like whenever you're trading options or Futures uh I definitely like.

well we always view your favorite strategy I guess uh I like version from the mean or rotation. so I like to watch uh, you know wash out long or or just and run to the downside stop: start slowing down and then I want to get in long and I want it to reverse. so I like to watch watch the opening balance. This is again a market profile thing where it runs to the bottom I'm pretty sure it stops running and then I'm going to go along.

watch along versus parabolic short and profile. The idea is that it's gonna if it started here and ended up here. it's gonna start going back here. If it can't keep breaking, it's going to keep going.

It's going to revert back to at least halfway back so that's my probably my favorite one. Okay, and then obviously view Op Reclaim review up Reject. we live on that pretty much for every from everything from Futures to a lot. Big cap small caps live on View: Op uh yeah, those are the two big ones.

uh that I like I try to stay away I mean obviously in a trend day I have no problem going all in and just writing it up or down. Okay, but it's easy that's not always easy to identify right right away. Yeah, probably the rotation of of zone right, just down, up, down up if you look at Futures that happens quite a bit like this morning. I think it rotated like three times before it broke out up and down up and down like so you can capture 40 points and Es Futures with even on a small one or two contracts is several thousand dollars right? So it's uh, that's what I like to play the most if I feel most Comfort identifying that and then also it seems to be successful based on my journaling right? So a big thing I got into when I started to get profitable and it always was figuring out that you know my expected value.

but like my execution I sort of brought everything back down to pro sports right? So I know how to play basketball and you know how to play basketball I don't Okay the principal I just got the uh. the principle is I know the rules of basketball I know how to play basketball I know how to throw a free throw but if I go against even a retired Michael Jordan Who's going to take me to town because his execution is so much better? Of course I applied that to trading. So even though you might give me your strategy and it works well for you and you back tested at 86 percent, that's are you executing that. So when I started tracking my journaling, yes, the strategy was important, but how well I executed was also important.

so that came together for me into getting a percentage win rate whatever that was. and then I could have have an idea of what my expected value of winning was on a regular basis. All right, and beyond that, to improve that execution I spent a lot of time after, like in the afternoons replaying, retrading a win or a loss I always took the time to basically replay it, see if I could do it better or see you right, or see if I got lucky because the biggest fallacy I think that happens to people in markets right now is I made 300 Grand in three months? Yeah, congratulations, you still could have done everything wrong. Got lucky, right? So yeah, the big numbers are posted and people get excited, but that's so true.

But that and that doesn't mean that it's you're doing the right thing. but it's really hard to convince somebody otherwise so you really have to take a step back. Look at what you're doing. you know, look that.

hey this was a winner. but did I get lucky or did I actually execute what I thought was appropriate. especially in you know if you record your screen or at least have a replay of some type. Now you what you remember and what really happened are two different things very often in my experience.

uh I always think I know exactly what happened when I replay it. Uh, it never is that way. right? So so even after so many years, you're still doing the journaling replay I I Feel like that effort like I feel your success is a lagging indicator of your effort. It's just a lagging indicator of your effort.

Because you do it. you're gonna get some success and you stop doing it. You'll stop being successful. Yeah, you can Coast A little bit you can Coast a little bit on your on your hard work from the past, but if you're not continually updating yourself you it's going to go away right? It's just like if you're a lawyer you have continued education credits.

Same thing with being a Trader you have to. You have to just keep on top of what's Happening see how you're executing. Things change in the market with you and you know, are you staying on top of that, right? And since you're in our homework Community quite a bit. Remember, we used to talk about short squeezes that you love to play.

Yeah, can you kind of talk about what kind of strategy do you play on that? And how often do you get to play these short squeezes? Um, lately not as much as I wanted to. but in the past I really enjoyed I perfected this short squeeze during the Blackberry years and the reason I say the Blackberry years is because I learned something with Blackberry that I applied to in the future to now Tesla and other stocks and that is a polarizing stock. So Blackberry black BB right? That's correct. So Blackberry was obviously a huge brand in the early 2000s and it was everything.

But then when the iPhone came in, it started waning. But there was a lot of a lot of opinions, right? People like iPhones better. Uh, Blackberry is better. Just like now, there's a lot of opinions with Tesla Electric's the Future No it's not the future, blah blah blah blah.

but that builds that's a perfect melting pot for people going like I'm going to be short seller? no I'm going to go along and that creates opportunity for them to get over excited and start shorting. And I can almost like when I when Tesla went from 250 to 2 000 in that two year span. Yeah, I could have not predicted a final outcome, but I was able to see how short sales were piling in and how at 400 was too expensive and at 600 was too expensive and 900 is too expensive. But it didn't matter.

the fundamentals weren't in play. there it was. It was all supported on short positions, right? And while some short positions were able to, you know, hold out like Bill Gates or somebody of that nature, a lot of people weren't right. So one of the First Natural strategies I identified when I started day trading was that if a stock close is strong, it gaps up in the morning and now I understand that's because just Market participants are just taking out shorts capturing ability just a little more.

Just another 10 for five percent even if it drops right away afterwards because it's trying to take people out. So I saw that with Tesla a lot I Had a really good summer in 2019 with Beyond Meats Beyond Meat. same thing fake meat. Uh, no real Meats the future No fake meat is healthy I Remember that question that's a that's a very strong polarizing stock and that stock opened at forty dollars in May and it was 200 in August right? So before I think in September the lockup from insiders came out and then everybody just dropped it.

but it was people kept shorting and it kept going up like that was in the summer of 2019. I could have thrown a dart board with as many columns as possible on Beyond Meat and every morning I woke up in profit, right? right? It was. It was. Those were the strategies that really have moved forward to any kind of insurance situation.

is where I want people to be like no, this company's overvalued I Love hearing that because yes, it might be and I'm an accounting I Can definitely give you the calculation on that, but it doesn't matter. The market can still stay rational longer than you can stay solvent, right? So so true. And so that's what I look for I look for people being opinionated and going against the trend and I'm going to try to take them out. Do you think that's what happened? What's happening with the AI stocks right now with Nvidia crushing everything with earnings just yesterday after hours? I mean yeah, they did great I Mean first of all, they're they're doing great as a company so that doesn't hurt.

Yeah, uh. definitely opinions, right? Definitely opinions where AI is going? Uh, opinions where Nvidia is going? Um yeah. I Don't think I would short in video or any kind of tech anytime soon. Um, any kind of tech or just like it like openings I Feel like anybody that's in Tech is going to be associated with AI right? It's just a matter of time.

it's it's it's our current crypto and obviously there's gonna be some successful people that are emerged from that, right? Just like from the.com Amazon emerged and then they're successful, right? And so somebody's going to emerge like an AI be super successful. It's gonna be a super valid company. It might be Nvidia it might be Microsoft We don't know. Um, but you? definitely? Yeah, definitely people are.

Some people are people are creatures of habits. So anything new people will be like no, this is this is not real. We're gonna short it and that can lead to successful upside right. And even in down markets.

people always ask me in 2008 how that went. Yeah, everything went down but it wasn't didn't go down a straight line, right? There was a lot of short squeezes and there's a lot of dead cat bounces that took people out that were short without conviction, right? So yeah, what are some of your favorite short squeeze plays in the last? I don't know. Last two years, two three years? Definitely okay. So with short squeeze plays I like to look at how some Market profile how structure in the stock is building over over a period of say a month or two so you can see sort of like in profile.

They have these single run prints which is basically shows that hey, the price was here now it ran up here and before it started building out more and it shows that it's sort of like a P shape And that P shape illustrates to me that these new prices are built on top of of short positions because when it ran up that that increment where that one lines there, it's only less than half an hour in that price point, it's trapped shorts and then they build more on top of it and they went up again and it's sort of. You can see it in candles more on a long time frame like big gap ups and then and then consolidation. Big gap. UPS It's the same thing.

It's just a different way to visualize it when I see that I Go this. This is short position so now it's going to take some. There's going to take some to take some inventory or some stock to really drop it. So I watched that for a month or two.

Uh, and then I'll start now. I'll start building a position into it knowing that it's going to squeeze some things into something like a news report but or some sort of announcement. That's that's worked really well for me. Um, it doesn't have to be three months, sometimes just four weeks.

three weeks. But I can see that it's built on top of just shorts getting like even recently, right? Oh my. God that dead ceiling. Everything's short.

everything. No, no, it's it. might still be bad. we don't know.

But the point is that it wasn't a done deal either way, right? So people got overzealous that I think was going to go short and you can squeeze them out of that and that's both both in Futures and in stocks. And let alone if a stock like Nvidia reports, well, if you get lucky with that, I don't play as many earning reports that I used to I feel that's a little bit of a crap shoot and yeah, I've been on the wrong end of it enough. it's a gamble 50 50. I've been in underwater enough times and it's like maybe not right and also I play options so like a lot of the IVs priced in to a lot of options before earnings.

so like there isn't really much of an edge there. But definitely as soon as they announce I'll get in something for sure. Um, okay, because I know there's continuation there. Yeah, I definitely.

I'm definitely more optimistic as a human being. so I like more upside like yes, we short. Yes, there's times, but something short, but every time I'm short I'm again I'm like this. It doesn't feel good.

but when I'm when I'm long I'm like this feels good like it's gonna go Okay, it's definitely. It's definitely a personality thing for sure. Okay, yeah, because I've spoken to many, you know, primarily full-time short position Traders and they're like no, no I wanted to go parabolic I want to make sure this is a crap company I'm gonna go short I'm like yeah, yes to all those things. but I can still keep going right? That's that's always my thing, right? And that's my vision is like it's going to keep going, which you know if I don't pay attention will catch me in trouble in small caps where they'll drop it on me, right? So yeah wise like to stick with larger companies where I sort of know more than mechanics of the market what's going to happen right? So I rely on that I rely on the fact that if I'm right then bigger players will take out will run it up to take out smaller players and I'll be Just come come along for the ride.

That's usually what I like to sort of rest my Laurels on is that I'm not that smart but somebody else is smart I'm gonna try to follow them right? So so you usually more long biased. Has that ever gotten you into like in trouble? Any like big losses from being too long biased to bullish? Well, I mean and not not so much in stocks because I was able to get out. There was an incident with Forex though and you trade the Forex too. You treat everything.

it's been 26 years I've traded, traded everything Forex micro caps big caps probably the least I trade is crypto but I've traded crypto. but yeah, in Forex I was trading Forex Forex was very popular for us in 2008 onward because before the stock market was fully recovered, trading currencies seemed to be like the liquid thing to do that couldn't really hurt you that much, right? Okay, so I was trading Uh, the Swiss franc uh Euro pair. So if you don't know how Forex works is the value of one currency has to be pegged against another currency so it's not called a pair. So Swiss franc against the Euro I was long the Swiss franc because the Swiss franc at the time was a very very very very strong.

It was. no matter, it couldn't get beaten down and I was long on maybe a 200 000 position. Keep in mind it's cash right? So you know you can lose one percent. Might be four grand, you know, nothing.

Nothing huge. Uh, but then at 1 30 a.m Pacific I believe it should be September 11th or 10th 2011. Uh, the Swiss the Swiss National event came out saying hey, the strong Swiss franc is hurting our exports. We're gonna, we're gonna.

We're gonna defend the Swiss franc by selling into the market and lowering its value so that people in the Europe Eurozone will buy from us. Ah, currency went down nine ten percent and that's 60 seconds. My stop got blown and the slippage was I don't know. very large.

I was about 120 000 loss in a minute or two. Oh my God. Um, that was 1am, 1 30 in the morning. our time.

Yeah, so that announcement came out in Europe and that was probably the biggest loss. I've taken a little bit of instant sweat. Went for a cigarette the whole the whole nine yards right? So only one cigarette, only one. Okay, wait, don't don't smoke anymore.

Yeah, that's good. Why is there smarter? But back then that was that was yeah, that was 2011 2011 Yeah, so yeah. I mean you know trading Forks was wonderful because you learned a lot of things about influence on Full of Cash like. So what we learned in 2008 was yes, the stock market went down, but for Canadians the US dollar was par two or actually below Parts at one point.

So there was a lot of opportunity for us to get into the U.S market in anything housing stocks because we were personally purchasing currency at a rate that hasn't been seen since. So even the the value of something didn't go up, the currency was going to probably rebound. So that's I know, many, many, many many many many many many Canadian Investors who did very well because they just went all in on either. American Real States American Winnebagos.

Uh, and yes, obviously if they bought banking stocks in the states as well, right? So uh yeah, there was also opportunity. I mean I bought Lululemon for like 12 a sharing. Oh my, 2008 right? Starbucks for six dollars a share, You know, in hindsight, not large enough positions that I should have about a few thousand shares here and there. But still, you know those were once in a lifetime opportunities.

It seemed it didn't feel that way at the time, but it definitely definitely was. Yeah, so when? Okay, so you kind of saw the same thing again in 2020? Yeah, everything's so fearful, but the bounce back was so much faster. Right in 2020? Where would you guys drop for a month, right? Yeah, we dropped for, you know, a couple years. couple years, right? Let's say that a solid year where you weren't sure it was going to Bounce by 2009 you're like, okay, it's bouncing.

it's sort of settled, but it still wouldn't come back. And then 2010 was the beginning of whatever we see. now the bull run into 2023. So yeah, no.

I mean hindsight's 2020. But definitely definitely being ready and understanding what's going on. And understanding that in the I had to quote like Warren Buffett But in the grand scheme of America and Canada, it's going to survive. It's going to keep moving forward.

so just keep going right? So with that law specifically that we just talked about, yeah, were you were you already in accounting back then? were you able to uh, I mean yeah, I mean I was I was in a I was probably a senior accounting student at that point. Uh, so yeah as I was an accountant student. Um, yeah. I understood what was happening I understood how I you know I Emotionally internalized and accepted that loss I Feel a lot of people talk about being able to take a loss, but what really happens is they can hold loss.

If you see, oh, I'm holding A loss, and that's great. But you need to be able to take a loss, right? So yeah, that's I think we're gonna realize it. Realize it? it's time to get out. Yeah, you were wrong.

It's okay. let's keep moving forward. Um, the reason I think a lot of people say trading is like a business treat like a business is because when you're in business for yourself, you make a lot of mistakes and you have to keep taking punches to the face and figure out the right way to do things. And the same thing happens in trading like you're You're wrong more often than you're right.

But can you cut the losses fast and just focus on the winners right and try to inch your way to the successful rooms right? Because I don't didn't happen to me like that. It was like try it. No. Try it.

No. try it. No. Okay, this one's okay.

Try keep doing this one a little bit. Try this one now. Okay, keep doing this one. That's how I slowly inch my weight there right? Um, probably slower than most people if I had to if I had to gauge because I talk to people now.

like even the market profile thing I Think it took me four or five years to absorb that. That just a general idea of how that works right? So now that now people are observing information and learning much faster once they get on something. the resources are much broader, right from different sources. And yeah, if you want to put an effort, you're going to be able to get there really fast since you practice accounting.

Does it help you can optimize your trading profits? How to do things more? operate your business more tax efficiently? Well, obviously I have tax knowledge. So yes, you know. Can we talk about starting a family trust that has a hold code that has a operating company? Yes I know how to do that. Is it absolutely necessary for every Trader to have that kind of complex structure? Probably not.

You know you have to have a certain level of income to make that worthwhile. from, uh, just a cost perspective. I mean some of the advantages I have as we talk to in different webinars is that I know how to self-incorporate and start a corporation and keep it running. But if you don't can't do that yourself, you're gonna have to.

You know, hire advisors to do that for you. So is that first 20, 30, 40, 50, 000 investment for that worth it. Now there comes the points in your profit career where yes, you're going to give this much money to the CRA or to these people to save you money. So let's save you money so that makes sense.

Uh, you know when I Always tell people the first thing you can do when you're trying to do tax planning strategies for yourself is just it's not sexy. but good bookkeeping you know? keep the records of your expenses. You know if you're I'm falling asleep here I'm just kidding. it's true, right? Yeah, if you don't want to do it, then hire somebody to help you do it.

Or there's lots of apps now that'll help you do it. But you know track where you spend money because remembering last week is different than remembering last year. And if in the beginning, even if you are profitable, you know you can probably write off 30, 40, 50, 000 of subscriptions and travel and books and different things that apply to your trading which will reduce your net income. Um, I mean beyond that it's always hard to give your advice because if you are working a job for 200 Grand a year and you made 10 grand a year and trading profits, that could hurt you more than if you're a student unemployed and you made 30 grand trading profits because you know you'll actually get taxed at a 60 rate on that 10 grand because you made 200 Grand elsewhere.

But if you're not earning any other income, 30 grand with even no expenses is basically no tax right? So I Think knowing your personal situation and always getting professional advice. but in always paying the CRA because they want to get their fair share. Yes, always pay the CRA Yeah, We always. We advise you to pay all uh, tax authorities in all countries.

Um, there's a lot of legal ways to structure your finances to reduce taxes. Um, and in Canada after bookkeeping would be set up a corporation right? because there is half a million dollars in profits and an operating companies taxed at 11 in BC Slightly different different provinces, but it's favorable. can sort of be more favorable. uh, than the personal tax rate which starts at 26 and goes all the way up to 60.

right? So I To run perspective: 200 Grand a year profit? You pay 120 Grand personally or like 28 grand in a corporation. so that's that's at that level is when you get to a point where okay, if I only if I had to pay 200 you know 120 Grand into the CRA And now my accountants and lawyers take 40 Grand and I save still save 60 Grand That way then that makes sense to start engaging all those people in helping you to get there right? So would you say like 100k Mark It's kind of like the Crossing Yeah, it's some real Traders Yeah, 100K 100K Profit right? So you might be able to make 150k, you have expenses to get you down to 500k and then that's where it starts making sense to do those do those things I Mean we talked about this before. The other issues you have with Incorporating is you know you have to get a brokerage account and corporate name. Now you're You know your everything's more expensive.

You're a professional. As soon as you have a corporation, you're a professional so your data fees are much higher. The same thing you spend a hundred dollars for is now 500 bucks. All right, So you have to be ready for that.

But if you're ready for it then I would advise you do it. I would advise you plan for it because I've always talked to people on the wonderful thing about trading is you never know when you're going to become successful So like you can be no, no, no no it's always like a surprise So it's good to be prepared because if you know you might have had losses for multiple years. but then you had a blowout two months and we have a couple people in the room that are like that. um and that's when if you're not ready any in other businesses too all of a sudden you turn around you have a high tax bill.

like what happened I'm like wow, welcome to making money and that's the reality now right? So you have to be ready for it and usually first time entrepreneurs of all types. If it's trading or any other business, they don't make money. They don't make money, They don't make money and then they do and they're like why do I owe money I'm like well now you've made money all right So yeah I would say be ready right? So if you do want I would almost incorporate earlier earlier and not use it and be ready because as soon as you start being profitable, what I would advise you is to just you know. Hey, I just had a good month personally.

Okay, switch over right now to corporate next month. Okay, like transfer the money and start because there's one thing if you made 100 Grand one month. but you started doing that for five months. So completely different game, right? But whether you want to personally use those losses you incurred the previous year, Yes, and and those are and those are things I don't know, right? I'm assuming you don't have lots of your readily neutrals.

Sure, if you have, if you're carrying heavy losses from before, definitely apply those. But if you if you've you know gotten it and you think you're going to be a hundred thousand dollar a month Trader roughly then switch over to the corporate side and if you not, then you can always go back and forth. I Know people that go back and forth all the time, right? Oh, so they sort of switch over to they'll make like 40 50k Personally, they'll run the rest of the corporation uh, depending on what's convenient for them, right? Uh, definitely. I would say it doesn't take a lot of money to incorporate and keep it dormant.

If you're on the cusp, go for it and be ready. Yeah, I Guess there's no such thing as how can some people might hate me for this. In in the States they have, you know, a lot of Traders they move to Puerto Rico Sure in Canada we don't have no, Not as far as I know, there's no there's no jurisdiction that has a trading free zone. We talk a lot about having something in the Cayman Islands set up for us because that is a British ex-colony That's more a joke than anything else.

But yeah, there's no there's no jurisdiction in Canada right now I have to go to Dubai Dubai Yeah, that's if you start making enough money then you have to. Dubai's the route. Uh, become domicile their corporation. there.

trade from there, right? Yeah. Trader And as I said, the trainer has been sharing a lot a lot of allergies managing money as a Trader. If you appreciate them, please remember to smash the like button and feel free to leave any more money tips you may have down below. you've been trading for over 20 years.

Has there ever been a point or multiple moments where you thought about quitting trading altogether? Uh, I don't think I've ever thought about quitting. but there's definitely moments where I slowed down because of life right when I was going through accounting courses or just a little bit of a drawdown I didn't have money to put back into the system I Think people assume that I would sit in front of the terminal for 25 years every day Monday to Friday trading but it's not like that. I definitely went through like bursts where I traded for three years very regularly and then it slowed down more about swing trading and occasional day trading. Okay, um, depending on what I was doing in life, what was the longest break you had from Trading Maybe six months and that wasn't really a break I wasn't I was in swings, but yeah, I wasn't trading daily? Um yeah.

I mean in the last decade? definitely not any big breaks. There were some breaks and probably earlier lows to lay those. I guess sometimes I'm just traveling with friends. sometimes I was just wasn't into it I was focused on other things.

Uh, but yeah. I was always monitoring the markets and always doing research, so that was always an ongoing thing. Uh, it was definitely always an interest of mine I think that was probably the difference that a lot of people go I want to make quick money I'm like yeah I want to make money but I'd like to I'd like to know why, like why it's happening like I was always interested in why it's happening and so when I talked about different things like short squeezes and different things that mechanically happened I was always interested to know why those were happening because I know it wasn't just me, it's a series of events. So I was definitely always a almost a renaissance man when it comes to learning about the markets, right? And that's always an ongoing Journey because I don't feel I'm done in any way shape or form because it's changing.

Always changing. always changing. and no matter how much you think you know somebody comes along with something comes along or an event comes along to make you go. No, Nope, Nope.

That's why you're humbled, right? Yes, right? Would you call yourself a Djen? Oh, I have the DJ Tendencies for sure I Feel like we can't I Mean people that are interested in making money from Trading or any other kind of pursuit like poker or any kind of other online activities tend to have a little bit of a gambling I wouldn't say addiction, but at least interest, right? interest in making money from not direct work. Uh, that definitely is something that's in me and for sure is in a lot of people. whether or not you embrace the G-gen and that's all you do that comes down to your control, your emotions and your studying work, right? Um, I've always talked to Traders another no no slag on the small communities, but communities are so supportive in the trading communities. But sometimes if you're gonna make a change like if you keep losing and coming to the community saying I lost it again everybody's very supportive.

Like we're going to review your chart. we're going to help you out. We're gonna. We're gonna get you back on the horse.

but they keep doing that over and over again and then they're just getting a dopamine hit from losing, right? And if you ever study people who have gambling problems they usually have, you know, have one first big win and then they're not really chasing the win anymore. It's that moment before they win or lose. That's the excitement for them. So and so if you are getting into that downward spiral of degeneracy where you're just getting in to see if you're going to go up and really that the anticipation of where it's going to go is is the driver, then you should take a step back and reevaluate what you're doing.

But you do need a little bit of risk tolerance because I've seen people on the other side who are very risk adverse and they just won't pull the trigger because they'll sit there and watch it. Yeah, so so there is a balancing there. obviously too much djen bad you're going to lose all your money uh but not be able to get in is also a negative. So I've most people I've met have the D gen in them and I've learned to control it.

Yeah? I like that? Yeah yeah yeah, that makes most sense. Actually everyone has some sort level of Degen Yeah Do you think having I know we have three kids now? do you think having kids kind of change the way you trade or how you see trading? Yeah, Well, it helped me emotionally right? because uh I have a good, really good story about this. So kids have very, very emotional control they have Tantrums Yes I remember with my first one Andrew uh, forget when he's probably four, three, or four and he was taken to daycare and he had a huge, huge, huge meltdown, a tantrum and I remember it was emotionally exhausting for me and then I got into daycare and I fast forward about two hours in a trade I lose I lose my mind I start and I start having emotional meltdown. That was pretty much a carbon copy of my sons.

Oh I remember stopping to myself and going oh sorry, buddy, you got it for me. So you're the problem. Yeah, so it definitely it helped because the things that you may not see in yourself you now see in another person and then you can identify and help correct. So it definitely helped me.

Identify Some of my emotional frustrations. Uh, if you talk to my assistant, why have mechanical keyboards? There's a reason for that. There's a lot of Smashing So definitely it definitely helped me identify myself better, right? because a they're their own stress case and they also exhibit behaviors that they got from you right? Either they learned them from you or they inherited them from you. But either way, they tend to copy you and that's helpful to see what you really like.

Oh, that's so interesting. That's the first time I've heard that from any trade. I Guess that a lot of Traders I talk to don't have kids Yeah? I mean if you other I know people that started with once, they had kids. but because I was a Trader before kids, then I had children.

That was the change, right? Because when you're when you're by yourself and you're analyzing yourself, no matter how honest you are here, you tend to lie to yourself. At least that's my opinion, right? Tell yourself what you want to hear. Yeah, like I'm not that bad I'm doing hard I'm working trying hard I am reading I'm putting in the hours I'm trading I'm an analyzing. But when you see yourself with children a things happen to children outside of your control.

no matter how good you are, how bad you are, it's going to happen so you're doing the best you can. and then you see. like I said, either your behaviors because they copy you so that's good or bad and then also their personality tends to mimic one of the parents. and when you start seeing those things, uh, that's when you realize oh, okay, and then that's real I I Can't lie to myself, this is happening so that's that's probably giving me the most.

Advantage Emotionally in the last decade was just seeing my kids react understanding three things that a I also react that way. So try to control a B When you're frustrated like a child, stop right? So that's a big thing because that's what we do with children that they're frustrated. We let them stop. Maybe we hug them out.

We give them some time out time in a room. I've applied a lot of the same rules to trading, right? Hey, I had a bad trade. Don't give another trade right away. Take five minutes, hav