All right. so we're going to go over the trades from today: starting the week in the green which is great. Finished last week Friday with a red day I actually had two red days last week. three green days, Two red days finished the the week in the green certainly.

but you know I did have two red days so I felt like last week was a little bit slow. in fact. uh, I was taking a little scoreboard. um of my rating for each of the days last.

Monday I rated as a four Tuesday is a two. This is on scale of 1 to 10 zero. Well, technically I don't know if it's 1 to 10 or 0 to 10. Anyways, Wednesday was a two or a three.

uh, tues, Thursday was a two, Friday was a one Friday the leading gapper was less than 30% that was terrible and Thursday the leading gapper was also only 33% So as we sit right now, the leading gainer in the whole Market is dats which is up 50% It just squeezed up here and then rejected pretty hard. Pretty heavy selling volume here, not surprising since that's right underneath the 200 moving average, but nonetheless a ection on that. Today when I sat down and when I pulled up my phone early, we did have a couple of gappers that were that were nice in percentage Gap but they were a little too cheap and they were just like trading sideways. You know they had popped up and then they were just they weren't moving so there was nothing to trade there.

One of the things that we've seen quite a bit of is this sort of jack knife whipsaw where something will be in consolidation and then it breaks out and then it flushes right back down. Or it flushes down and then rips right back up and it almost It Feels Like These are traps? Bull traps and bear traps? Um, you know that I don't know. Market makers or big big players out there are somehow kind of instigating and it creates a burst of liquidity. All of a sudden a lot of volume comes in Traders get shaken out.

People buy and sell, but it's not easy to trade at all. The easier places is at the front side of the move When something is really opening up or you know we have a move up. it pulls back, goes sideways and then goes for a true second leg higher. but I can't remember the last time we really had a stock that went crazy.

It's been several weeks since before the holidays. You know everything we've had since the holidays has been kind of slow. you know, a little bit this and that, but nothing big. So today I did get green and I would give today Initially when I sat down I was like again, it's like a one or a two.

You know there's nothing. these Gap scanners. the stocks that are on them just aren't that great. You know we? Yes, we have stocks that are gapping up, but they're going sideways.

there's nothing to trade. So upon initially looking at the Gap scanner, I was like oh, we've got a 70% gapper. That's good. But then once I looked at the chart I was like, well, there's nothing to trade on it So around 7:30 8 a.m.

I was like yeah, today's like a one or a two and that changed pretty quickly. um, with a couple of different trades. So I traded two stocks this morning, I traded bets again and I traded EAB So we'll look at bets first since that was my first trade of the day. This one, uh, hit the highay Momo scanner and you know I actually had pulled it up it was.

it's on my continuation scanner so I took a look at it this morning and I was just glancing through continuation stocks I was like oh yeah, there's bets there. Um, so I was like I'll take a look at that So I did look at it this morning and then I you know I sort of I was like, well, there's nothing to trade there, there's no volume Anyways, right at about 810, it starts squee, squeezing up from 450 to 5, 550 to 6 or well actually, not quite to six had a high of 560. In any case, it made a pretty big move and I jumped in this on a micro pullback. Uh, I'll actually show you on a 10-second chart where I got in this one made about 900 and then gave back 200 off the top up $757 on it.

So you'll see this yellow arrow right here. Uh, this was my entry right there so that's where I bought. So basically it Springs up pops up quickly and it goes sideways and I bought that micro pullback. All right.

So that's fine. Micro Pullback: I'm in right there. it goes up to a high of 45 I Booked $1,000 of profit basically in that candle. Uh, it drops back down and then it makes its way back up.

As you could see here, it comes all the way back up to a high of 560, but topping tail couldn't hold that level. so you know. Unfortunately, top tales on this too. It was like hitting 545 548 on the ask, but then it was like 530 on the bid.

so a little bit of a spread not easy to trade ended up retracing. Not shocked I didn't go big on it I was just I didn't think it was I wasn't sure I was really going to hold up too Well anyways, so that was my first trade so broke the ice, put myself in the green on bets which is great. Okay, so $757 but of course if you recall I was readed on Friday so you know, digging myself out of the hole a little bit. So then I'm sitting here and we had laes by the way that that hit the scans, it popped up earlier, really choppy.

You know it kind of popped up, sold off, came back up. It's sort of grinding higher, but you know it, it is holding up relatively well. all things considered. the longer it holds up going into the close in the rest of the day, Maybe we see a move higher the way we did on Friday on Auvi, but um, Rvsn, this was the one that was up 70% pre-market sort of had this ascending support level right in here, but uh, it broke, it broke down and it sold hard.

right through here. pops up to Vwap, Fades up to Vwap and Fades again. so this just was not strong at all. It was very weak.

a lot more opportunity to the sell side than to the long side. So so that was Rvsn, no trades on that and then elab elab comes up and I had to make a decision on this pretty quickly. Do I trade it in the small account or the big account I've still got my small account challenge going and when it first popped up I saw it at about 250 as I hit my scans right around here and I was like, well, all right, uh, you know it's below $5 so I don't have leverage in the small account, but it's pretty cheap I I could buy it so I sort of debated that while I'm debating that it goes to 280 290 to three and now I'm like, well, now it's getting a little on Now on the one hand, it's definitely moving so it's like I it's the type I want to trade in the small account but now I've also missed a good entry and so now I'm switching over to my big account and I'm like, uh, where do I where do I break the ice on this thing and anyways, um I ended up taking a trade on this one I'll pull this up on a 10-second chart as well. Started watching the level two started getting dialed in and we had a micro pullback that I bought and I got some profit on that.

So I'll show you that trade All right? So that was this yellow arrow right here. micro pullback so you can see how this is a this is a proper micro pullback. squeezes up, pulls back for a minute, under 350. got long for the break of 350, it goes up to 399, 396 pulls back, goes up over four to 410, pulls back goes up to 427.

not bad. Couple topping tails up here having a hard time holding this level and this is relevant because if we looked at the daily chart, what you would see was that blue sky on this stock. meaning all-time highs is right up here. Um at about 424 high this candle 424 so we had some resistance up there.

But man, look at this candle today. a huge red candle so you know I don't really know what to think it. This looked like a nice ABCD pattern I took a trade right in there I lost on it. was a little annoyed about that because it was like this is a this is a good pattern I The only thing I would say is maybe the nine moving average was still a little bit too far away, but it wasn't bad.

and then this nasty rejection right here. So if we look at that on the one minute chart, you'll see it drop below Vwap which is bearish, not great. Um, comes back up, makes a new high and then dumps from here, goes to 38 and then drops all the way down to 350. So like an 80 C drop in 3 minutes and it happened I Mean it was fast and then that was it.

It was over. You know at that point it was like this candle sort of ruined it. Uh, unfortunately. and you know.

So I didn't take any more trades on it, tried to come up a little bit, wasn't confident, didn't think it would be able to reclaim the high of that candle. and then it sort of broke Vwb and began this really steady, strong selloff. Here's one thing that was interesting about this: when the move began pre-market Uh, one of the things that made me cautious about it was that that immediately there were big sell orders out. Um, immediately.

Literally. So like 20,000 shares at 50, 20,000 shares at 75, 20,000 shares at 3, 20,000 shares at 350, 20,000 shares at 380, 20,000 shares at 4, 50,000 shares at 425 And and I was like thinking to myself I'm like who you know for what it's worth if I put an order out right now. you know if I put an order on a stock like you know La whatever. So so number one, if I put an order out on this, uh, I'll just do like 150 shares just to show you, um, that order is going to be canceled by the end of the day unless I set it as good till cancel.

Okay, so if I set it as a good till cancel order right down there, that order is only going to work during regular trading hours from 9:30 until 4 p.m. So this is super obnoxious. But what it means is that the stock could rip or could could go well below my buy order and my order will not fill because these orders are not premarket or after hours yet. Somebody before the news came out or basically I don't know because I wasn't watching it before the news came out.

someone already had hundreds of thousands of shares of sell orders already lined up and I thought that that seemed quite suspicious and I was curious where those are coming from. You know, uh, maybe a regulator will look at that and wonder the same thing? Maybe not I don't know, but someone was just selling selling, selling selling into this move. So yeah we. but even in spite of that, it kept going higher.

which I was also like. All right I mean it's going higher this is I guess it's going higher but it gave me a little bit of pause as I was first looking to get in. and you know. but then the thing is, these cells were just coming back and it's like they were just holding it down.

So who's I don't know who's selling, somebody's selling, someone's selling a lot of shares. Maybe we'll see later today or tomorrow. Um, you know, who knows. Maybe we'll see that there was a um, an offering you know, priced right at the market and the company sold shares into this move.

Maybe we'll and if they had a shelf registration and that's perfectly. Um, you know, within the um, you know within the rules to do that because if the Shelf well we can go ahead and check. Um so so let's see. elab, it's a new it's see.

The thing is, it's a this is a new company because it's an IPO amended yeah this is going to be a little confusing so it's going to be a little different because it's you know, a company that's been around for a long time. Um, these type of companies will often have a shelf registration, right? Okay, um, recent sales of unregistered Securities So I'm not going to go through this whole thing right now, but we'll keep an eye on the headlines on this uh in the coming days to see if there's um, see if we get any news. That sort of confirms my suspicion about this stock. But no doubt there was a lot selling pressure.

I Mean that's the. That's the only way you have a stock that gaps up 120% But then it's the selling imbalance. There's more sellers than there are buyers. Now this could be hot Market Cold Market Stuff you know, in a hot Market We might see.

you know this kind of move and it just go bananas. up to 15 or $20 a share. And maybe right now buyers are just a little bit more cautious and conservative. but I don't think that explains it entirely.

I Think they're uh, some stocks just have that strong imbalance to the sell side because there's either Insider selling or the company's selling or somebody is selling selling selling. Now some of these companies get, um, you know, really bent out of shape about. um, so see. look at this.

this is this is going to be red on the day. At this rate, there's a 30,000 share seller up there, so it's only up 1% Now it's retracing the entire move. Uh, so some of these companies get really Ben shape about um n what they think is illegal Naked Short Selling We know from the Wall Street um what what was the name of the documentary about GameStop I Can't remember. but um, you know the confession from one of these guys on the inside that they were doing naked Short Selling every day of the week for years And years and years.

That's what they do like. Yeah, of course it happens. This is he's like this is literally what we do. We have a button to override so it just give people the shares to borrow.

We'll figure it out later and you know it's in the interest of making money making money. So that, um, the fact is, if you give someone the ability to sell, let's say you know 500,000 shares and they're able to just keep putting the sell order, sell order, sell, order, sell or sell sell out there. What's crazy about this, at least you know to me is the fact that they're rather than actually getting shares and borrowing them from someone who owns them, they're just like almost printing. sell button, sell sell orders.

They're just like yeah, oh, you want to just press the sell button 100 times for 50,000 shares? No problem. And you could just bury a stock like that by just continuing to sell. sell sell sell sell. Now the thing is, you would figure.

Well, okay, what happens when you have to buy buy buy buy buy right? Are you going to jam it right back up? Well, you know with this in the in the case of this stock, this now has at this point in the day, 42 million shares of volume so it continues to grind right. it's continuing to generate volume. People are actively trading it I don't know why I'm not touching it, but people are. um I've seen some people in chat saying they're just trading it, scalping it.

You know, with thinker swim for two cents here. two cents there and 10,000 shares. so people are actively trading it. So now there's liquidity.

So with this liquidity, you know I guess they might be able to start to unwind some of that position in the same day. even which is kind of wild if they were really short. Um, you know. The alternative is that they really think the stock is going to go bankrupt and they are never going to have to cover.

which this is kind of where it seems like it's sort of cheating the system. But if you are allowed to borrow an infinite number of shares and you can Hammer a stock down lower and lower and lower and lower and it goes bankrupt, then you know, yeah, wouldn't you just sort of never have to cover? like I don't know, it just seems, uh, it's It's not fair, it's not right, but we know what happens and so you know in this one you could say oh, why didn't you join the Um, join the winning team and just trade to the short side? Well, of course you know there's a number of reasons for that. Um ZJ Y What was it? um ZJ Yl was probably the biggest wakeup call uh to short sellers to have a stock that halted up at $25 a share then resumed to 500. You could lose your house on a trade like that I never, ever, ever want to empower one trade to ruin my career.

Unfortunately, that can happen when you're trading to the short side because of even. this is a Black Swan anomaly event. It's an anomaly that could have taken millions of dollars away from you if you were short 10,000 shares, you know, or any reasonable position which I pretty much am always in. It'd be devastating.

So that's number one. That and this is just sort of the latest. I haven't been shorting for a long time and it's not because this. You know this wasn't the reason until I Just saw it happen with my own eyes and I was like whoa I I just watched people lose millions of dollars as that opened at 500.

so that was not. That's that's one thing that's just most recent. Um, as you know I trade in retire account. Which means these gains right here: $3,400 no tax that is taxfree.

Uh, the retirement account that I use I've had retirement accounts um at interactive Brokers think or Swim and light speed. These three Brokers all offer what's called settlement margin. It's you don't get any leverage with a retirement account and the reason you don't get Leverage is because you are prohibited from contributing more than the limit to your retirement account each year. So if you got a margin call to meet the margin call, you would have to contribute more money which would nullify the structure of that retirement account.

So to make it so, you could never, ever get a margin call in retirement account, they do not let you use leverage and they do not let you short stocks and they don't let let you write naked options. Uh, which is good? Um, it has to be like cash secured. Um all cash secured or spreads so in a retirement account I simply cannot trade to the short side Now I could buy puts. Um, if I really want you know, want to trade something to the short side I suppose.

but that wouldn't be an option for most of the small caps anyways. Um, so so I So of course I don't do that. So so that's the second reason that I'm not shorting. uh now in the small account, it's not tax-free account.

So in the small account, if I wanted to short, I could short but I would remain with the issue that unlimited loss, big risk. And then uh, number two is both the availability of shares to borrow and the cost to borrow shares. Because essentially, especially with a small account, I'm already paying a lot in fees and those fees go even higher once you have to pay additional fees to reserve shares for every trade you take. So you know, uh, right now, we're definitely in a market where there's been some great reward trading to the short side and you know it's it's tempting and right before I saw ZJ yl I was like, you know I don't know maybe I should just take some trace a short side and just you know, just you know why fight it right? Um, and but that's kind of.

The thing is I'm a I'm a late adopt I'm like a late adopter of things. so by the time I'm adopting something it is like it's It's probably like the trend's almost over. Um, so I you know I I I'm just like by the time I'm going to short like the next day, you're going to have a stock that blows up every short seller when when your grandparents are shorting stocks you know and I that's when I'm joining them too. That's when it's time to stop shorting stocks.

So I think that I'm just a little late on it. Look, if I didn't short stocks during the entire bare Market of 2022 or 2023, why would I start now right when the Market's getting ready to well, you know it's kind of right at the all-time highs. So anyways, it's fine I think most Traders do view the market um, with a bias either to the long side or the short side. I certainly have a long bias and you know I make good money with that.

So I don't know I don't need to fix what's not broken. but uh, no doubt. Elab was a big fade today. Um, so some kind of kind of weird stuff there.

probably never really know exactly who those sellers were. but um, yeah, kind of funny. and yeah, dats it's up 82% So that right now is our leading. Gainer The thing is I looked at it earlier.

um, it's on short sale restriction but I just kept seeing that 200 moving average and I was like, well, it needs to get over that. So listen, the 200 is at 22 approximately 422. If we could get over that and hold over that, then you know maybe you do have more room. It's got a pretty low float.

it's obviously moving, it's holding up so that's that's what you need to see in order for things to get interesting going into the afternoon. But I Also, don't feel the need to overstay my welcome Hey Look, $3,400 is that enough? Is that a good day? I'd say it's a pretty great day, so that's where I'm going to finish today. and um I'll have a new episode of uh for of the Small Account Challenge series coming soon so you guys will, um, be able to tune in for that. Thank you for those of you guys who have already watched those episodes who have hit the thumbs up who are helping me unlock my new piece of inventory cuz this monitor that I've been using here is just I'm so ready to to not be using it as my main trading screen when I sat down this morning I was like ah, not again so I'm really looking forward to that.

so thank you guys for tuning in and I'll remind you as always that trading is risky, my results are not typical and there's no guarantee you'll find success whether you trade on your own or you learn from me. So really, take it slow, the market will be here for you. All right? I'll see you back at it first thing tomorrow morning.