You know it's funny how Market works because you know when a lot of people buy at a particular level and they think the level will work and the stock will go up right and then they think they're a genius. But he says you know you're only a genius because you made yourself a genius in the first place because it's your ability to buy at this level that drove the price up in the first place and he says you take every course out there, particularly top ones that are out there in the industry and you break them down and realize that every single person is acting on this particular information because they're trained to act and perform a certain way. I Do find peace in actually going to cemeteries. Actually wait what? Yes, I wasn't expecting that.

Yeah, cemeteries. So I do like going to cemeteries. Okay, because the thing is that when you go to cemeteries, you really find what life really means. Actually, you don't see on someone's Tombstone that he owned a car.

You know he made this much money. You don't see that you see loving wife, best daughter, loving husband you see on the grave. So the greatest impact you can leave on the world is impact on everybody else cuz that's what they remember right? The strategy is as simple as learning a cooking recipe. Do this.

Do that When this happens. Do this stuff like that right? But until you can master your own self, you'll never. Master Trading As many of you already know. I was a losing Trader for over 2 years and one of the most important catalysts for me as a Trader to eventually turn my trading around was meeting my mentor Oren It was through his very simple yet very systematic breakdown of Trader psychology, risk management, and strategy building that I finally found my Edge in trading over time.

I've talked about him several times on this channel before, but today it is my honor to have Oren finally here in person on the Humble Traders Podcast today. This has been a very highly anticipated episode in this video. You're going to learn how he became a millionaire Trader at the age of 22, how he created his own private fund, how he transitioned to becoming a venture capitalist, and of course our friendship and how it developed over time. Remember to hit the like button I Promise you're going to learn so much in this video.

Welcome Oren To the Humble Traders Podcast Finally! Oh My God. I've talked about you so many times on my channel because you're my mentor. you're the reason I eventually became s successful and you helped me out so much when I was struggling with day trading. This we're talking about like seven years ago.

so we've known each other for many years. many years. Yeah, but this is the first time that we're having you on our Uh channel. so I'm very honored to have you here today.

Likewise, yeah, I'm sure a lot of our viewers are very curious about you because you actually you know I meet you in person now. but you actually have experience of someone who is like 40 50 years old? Yeah, so I'm really curious and uh, this is for myself, just as it is for our audience. Um, how did you get into trading? what's your background like? So in fact, I'm actually Finance was actually not my major in high school or college right? In fact, when I was in high school, the only finance exposure I had was to accountant. Oh, and I do remember the year in a country where I grew up.

Jamaica Yeah, there's an exam that's called the CXC I forgot what the entire Um abbreviation actually meant, but it's an exam you have to take. okay for accounting. Um, during uh, ninth grade. Actually, for one, ski those classes.

I never went into accounting classes I just couldn't understand assets, liability or place on a balance sheet was just so confusing. Okay, and when you put them in a correct order, you still got it wrong. So I'm like this is ridiculous, right? And then for the exam. Actually we went in my friend and I we went into the exam, wrote our name on the paper, and walked out.

Oh my. God So no formal background, nothing do with Finance Finance whatsoever. My background was most mostly our architecture and construction. Oh okay, yeah.

so I did that? Um, in high school? Yeah. and during summer I Pretty much work on construction sites all the time. Okay, yeah, so heavy labor carrying cement, lame blocks, stuff like that, and most of the older guys. they would pick on you all the time.

This is back in Jamaica this is back in Jamaica Exactly. Um, then actually mostly doing um, what they call technical drawing which is basically using like what they call like a t-square um, long ruler. Essentially it is with pencil and just drawing blueprints. M Okay, so that's pretty much my background, actually more on the construction and architecture side, so nothing to do with Finance.

Oh so how did you get into trading in the first place and what age were you? So when I got into trading I was probably around 19 or 20 years old. Okay, and this was during college. Oh okay, so when I was in college actually? um, I was in this, uh, computer lab and there was a guy who walked in. I was designing my uncle's um house and he noticed on a computer.

He came over to me and he said do you know there's no one actually in this University that actually does this I said what do you mean the architecture department is actually down the block from here He says yes, but they use pencils and and t-squares those long rulers they said so they don't use computers He says no and then he asked me a very, very powerful question which I would actually ask the viewers to actually ask them. He said do you see yourself doing this in the next 20 or 30 years from now and I said absolutely he says no no no no think about it. do you see yourself doing this next 20 or 30 years from now when you're 40 50 years old I said I don't know He said you should know and he says he gave me his card and he said there's a Meetup going on with all the other the aspiring entrepreneurs you should come So we went there on a Sunday afternoon and there was this like 22 23 years old I think the guy was who actually hosted the conference group of people there and he started off by being lack a bit word a dick okay he said uh how many people go to the restaurants in the city and obviously everyone does and he's like congratulations, you've all made me richer I serve all the drinks on the actual menu. So he was the distributor of all the drinks in the city right? So he started talking about investing your money and you know insurance policies and stocks and bonds.

At the time those were pretty much like foreign languages to me. Yeah I never knew what even a stock was. Yeah! So I went home and I started Googling and I came across Waren Buffett and back in the time there was not much regulation around. Uh, binary options, binary options, binary options.

Okay, that was my first introduction to something referred to as what I know today, call trading. Oh so buying options you're like just buy put or call options on currency. Pairs and they're super volatile. So silly me.

open a brokerage account I put like $100 in there. the broker gave you a robot. Essentially it will trade for you. Okay and it ran from $100 to $130 So I'm like I'm a genius Yeah what? I'm a genius and then the next day it went from $130 to like $20 Oh okay, yeah.

and then I called the broker be like I want to put my $20 in and he said well, you open up a bonus account So until you satisfy the bonus account, get your money back and I was the end of that Oh my God. Oh yeah, so that was my entry into trading. Actually binary options, binary options. Oh wow.

Okay I didn't even know that I thought it was Forex Forex because we were doing binary options on um Forex pair. Yeah, it kind of fueled me to learn about Forex Oh so you did eventually eventually for so I was like doing like computer labs late at night, skipping classes, going and trying to learn this thing. So IID put like it did paper trading at first. Yeah so you put like money on the night before cuz the guy would usually secur the circum be like we have to close.

You have to leave now Yeah right. So you put them on in the afternoon, you go to bed, then before your class. in the morning you go and you check in. Come to lab and see if they're actually doing well.

Oh okay, my computer was broken. it was in the shop so I didn't have one. Oh wow so that's why I had to do that for a while and then eventually I did actually learn Forex To the point where I was teaching probably like two guys in college how to do it and they were doing pretty good actually. Yeah, so you did you actually make money from Forex yeah we did make money from Forex So at the time I was very responsible financially.

so any money I made I would just blow down parties clothes, shoes, you know, jewelry, whatever. and this is the 19yearold or in literally egotistic, ignorant, cocky everything. Oh wow yeah cuz like I know a lot of stock Traders options Traders crypto even. but I actually don't know any profitable Forex Traders present Day present day? Yeah.

I do know a lot of them actually. Okay yeah. oh so Forex is not a scam. No Forex is actually not not a scam and then the fact is that many people do.

Forex Trading Unintentionally like if you go from let's say travel to one country or another different currency pair that swap that you do is actually a currency trade. Yeah, it is. There's even like investors out there who basically have different accounts in different countries. not because they're trying to hide money from the IRS but because it's actually you know, a hedge against their currency and they're doing a trade.

Okay, then they'll move that money back to another currency and so on so forth. So why did you eventually move away from Forex Trading into trading stocks? So I have a habit I've never been satisfied. Okay, so the thing is that when I actually learned Forex Trading I actually started to venture around and see what else type of trading there was and I never knew anything about um, stocks. So stocks actually was the thing that actually came second to me.

And that was mostly swing trading I never knew something like day trading existed. Oh okay, so swing trading came um, second for me. Okay, and the thing about swing trading for me was that it was very easy for me to learn, learn, grasp the concept from a fundamental standpoint because in my family my my dad was an entrepreneur. my mom was a businesswoman at the time as well, so fundamentally realized it was just business.

So I could easily grasp the fundamental analysis right away. Did you learn those fundamental analysis on your own or from your parents parents? Oh, like they taught you while they were working? Yeah, you kind of learn. Watch my dad, you know, does business and you kind of sit up late at night, watch him do orders on inventory and he'll give you like a stamp to stamp all the brochures at night and then you come and check if they're all properly aligned. I See, and then the day when your mom goes out to do sales, you'd go with her and watch her do sales.

You understand supply, demand, and basic business Concepts right? Okay, so you started stock trading with swing Trading with swing trading and how did how did you do on that and I did pretty good because I essentially I started out just doing swing training by picking companies I pretty much understood understand the business fundamentals and I could see where they're going wrong and see where they're going right and the ones that are doing well I just long those I never knew Schwitz existed that time either and this is back then you you were doing Forex at age 19. So what age were you when you started swing trading stocks and that was literally just a a year later at age 20. Okay, I literally started to like, move through the things a lot faster than I actually wanted to or is now a very seasoned Trader Who knows how to analyze news Catalyst and find the stocks that fit his criteria to trade. I Also want to show you my personal method of finding profit ible stocks to trade as well using Benzinga.

Pro So before the Market opens I always check Benzinga Pro and scam for pre-market movers that fit my personal trading criteria. So on screen over here you're looking at my Benzinga scanner to filter out the small cap stocks I'm looking for I go to filter tab price and volume $1 to $20 That's the kind of stocks I'm looking for because you guys know I don't mess with penny stocks and since I want to look for stocks that gapped up from from prior days close I want to make sure I'm selecting change percentage to up over here. Volume is also a very important criteria for scanning for these stocks to trade. So I want to make sure I'm selecting volume of stocks over 500k.

and last but not least is the market cap criteria. I'll go to fundamental over here and select stocks ranging from0 to1 billion market cap and when all of that set and done you go back to your scanner and select the Gap percent is sorted by the highest gapper and voila, you have your pre-market Gap scanner. You just need to set up this scanner one time and you're good to go every single morning with selecting the highest volume and the best gappers to trade. Now here's my favorite feature on Benzing: Gap Pro Once I spot a gapper stock on the scanner I can click on the ticker and immediately know what's up and I can see the news over here of the positive or the negative Catalyst of the stock on the day.

And besides just seeing the news, you can also go to the overview and see a lot of key data quotes and even the price of the stock. This really quick research will help me decide whether I should use long or short strategies to trade the stock. So what you just saw on the screen is an example of my day trading workspace, but you can select from even more powerful workspaces on Benzinga that'll fit your trading style. Don't miss out on a huge 50% off discount on Benzinga! Pro Using my link down below, Thank you Benzinga for this exclusive offer for all humble Trader viewers and for sponsoring this portion of the video.

Oh what about day trading stocks? Day trading was an accident actually for me. I was just on YouTube trying to learn more about swing trading and then I saw an ad with some guy you know and tell us about the ad. the tell So the ad was like this guy you know had a Lamborghini with a girl in the back of it. you know, showing champagne bragging about how much tens of he's making per day day trading.

and I'm like what is this day trading thing? You know it's funny, that's an ageold uh ad that everyone saw. Yeah, we got you and I and many other people into trading. Yeah, Okay, so you saw the ad yeah I saw the ad and I clicked on it and I was honestly I was intrigued I was interested. Okay, had to say look this.

Probably sounds better than what I'm doing better than swing trading? Yeah, way better. Okay, you know. so I dove into that, started studying it and for the life of me it was complicated. It was very complicated.

It was fast moving I never really understood anything I was trying to apply the same Concepts from swing trading to day trading and it just didn't work because because I would analyze the company the same way I would. Yeah, but it wasn't the same. So when I would get into a day trade, I would get married to it thinking oh, it's going to go up today but that's not really the reality for day trading. So I end up actually becoming quite a bleer of many things.

Oh yeah, is that before? at that point did you learn technical analysis yet? I had learned technical analysis at its say simplest form just like basic identifying support and resistances but not really how to identify like patterns and Trends and stuff like that. Yeah, Oh okay, so what what's your da trading Journey like I know you struggled. Uh, did you blow up a couple accounts Or many accounts? Oh okay. many accounts.

Yes they BW up a lot of accounts I would say the thing for me that actually, um, allowed me to eventually like the process to learn day trading was basically first understanding the rules about it. Okay, right. So the basic rules about day training like don't backhole the stock, yeah, how to scan for them Stuff like that. Um, how to basically understand markets like understand like markets are basically people.

Yeah, right. So that was my core. Concept In First Learning trading and I would say learning day trading I took a different route than most people would. So for most people, they went out for day trading.

they would try and learn a course or strategy. whatever that is. I never took that route actually. in fact I took a more weirder route.

I actually studied psychology, marketing and philosophy actually. oh, what did you? how did you study that? So there was, uh, they're still around. There was like a lot of free courses. um, online.

Me: psychology about psychology I took those courses, I took courses on philosophy and I also took courses on marketing and sales. Okay, and those actually taught me a lot about how to actually analyze like news articles and and also taught me a lot about like natural human behavior. Interesting. Okay, so you kind of took that psychological aspect of Traders and how Market participants think and apply that to your own day trading.

Day trading? Exactly okay and it started to click and made sense. Yeah, right. So um, on my own it made sense. Yeah, right.

And I would say for the first year while learning I would say the technical analysis SP was very, very hard because you were basically like trying to basically figure out what's a breakout what's a breakdown and you try a bunch of different indicators as well I Went through Macds RSI Super Trends Vws you know, mer um uh, moving averages EMAs You know, just trying to like put them all together, see what? they made sense Binger Bands you know went through all of them okay and none of them worked I see and when you think you get a grasp and say oh, when the Macd does this and the price does this you would buy and you're like oh you get a little rhythm going and then something bad happens and your back to screen I'm like this makes no sense. So technical analysis sorry. So so indicators you know the more you put on your chart doesn't make more money, make a difference, make any difference. So I know you struggled.

How many years were you struggling with day trading? Uh, about two and a half years? Okay, and how did you eventually become profitable? Okay, weirdly, um I was it was late at night and every night before I Go to bed I Run run the Date trading podcast and not the Traders Right now this one one particular podcast it wasn't a Traer that was actually on the actual podcast. okay, he actually was a psychologist. Oh and I don't know how I overheard what was going on because it was like laying on the couch the the coffee table is in front of me, the laptop is there fliptop and he's talking and he said you know it's funny how Market works because you know when a lot of people buy at a particular level and they think the level will work and the stock will go up right and then they think they're a genius. Okay, but he says you know you're only a genius because you made yourself a genius in the first place because it's your ability to buy at this level that drove the price up in the first place.

Okay, so you're just basically not necessarily genius. It's the buying activity that forc the price up. Yeah, then a guy would actually short sell at a particular level. it goes down.

He's like see I told you I was right. You know I told you would exponentially go down but it only went down because the the sellers chose to act on this particular level. Yeah, and he says if you take every course out there particularly top ones that are out there in industry and you break them down and realize that every single person is acting on this particular information, yeah, because they're trained to act and perform a certain way. It's almost like if you have a kid he says, look, when you see a car pulls up, you don't don't know how it is, you don't jump in the car right? Okay, so Traders they take these courses and whatever it is, they take strategy to learn it and they go in the market and they act on these things and that acting on that activity drives the price.

You know whether up or down. So you're saying it's a self-fulfilling prop. fulfilling prophecy Exactly because Technical analysis that sounds like it's what you're talking about, it's so widely taught that became like a self-fulfilling prophecy, it's become s prophecy. Interesting.

So with my part-time studies in Psychology and philosophy, I started studying. not the strategies itself. in terms of like what strategy I want to trade, but study like how these people understand the strategy and how they apply it right. So study how they actually look at.

So for example, if a stock gaps up and it holds a particular level, there's a lot of Gap up and Gap and whole Gap and go strategies out there. so particularly something gas and holes they buy. So I could buy to the idea that they're going to see this and act on that information they've been trained to do and that will drive the price up. I Remember that's one of the First videos I saw you making about trader psychology and how that relates to technical analysis, support and resistance.

and I was just like wow this this makes so much sense. Like no one has ever explained to me the price levels in terms of human psychology before. Yeah yeah. so do you remember how we met and how I found you? um I remember how we met but if I slip, correct me.

Okay okay okay so we met on a penny stock? Forum yeah and I remember I was like posting all these free stuff and information cuz I just wanted to like help other people and Enlighten them. you know that's what was going on. um particularly I would say I have a little bit of my mother's personality where we don't like to see suffering cuz even if even if I see a guy on the street you know I feel like I it breaks my heart like hey you know So started helping people and you actually messaged me for the first time. Yeah and actually it was a comment you made actually on one of my stuff.

okay and then I replied to the comment, then you messaged me and I messaged you back and then you never spoke after that. Yeah, so this forum essentially um is the penny stock Forum from that ad that you saw that we both saw that's how we got into trading. Yeah and uh it's funny because I was talking to a lot of other Trader friends and they all know of this forum and they if people were trading in like from the years 2015 2016 then they remember you CU I don't you probably didn't like? Give yourself enough credit but I'm talking about you this dude over here you are posting video after video day after day. not just to recap your trades the successful ones but also the losing ones but you also post posted a lot of General tutorials um Trader Psychology ology.

that's the one I saw and how you apply it and how you think about trading, how do you? how do you make it make sense. So it's not just numbers right? Yeah so that really helped me out so much. Yeah and that's the reason I reached out to you just to say thank you and I probably had like some of the questions. yes you did have some questions.

he did have some questions yeah um so why did you do it cuz I remember it wasn't just posting videos, you got so much question and you got a huge following on the Forum that eventually you were basically teaching people for free. So why were you doing that? So for one I actually didn't like the idea that people were just being misled because most of the uh sales tactics I would say in this industry revolves around just keeping you on a on a wheel. Yeah right. And you pay.

And you pay. And you pay. And you hopefully you learn. but they just never keep you.

they keeping the hamster on the wheel essentially. Yeah. so I Want to like, just cut through the noise and just say look, this is what you're really doing and just help other people actually get get there I Never had an intention of like starting a company or anything of that sort I Just like generally just wanted to help them. Yeah I remember and then eventually it was a very sad day when you disappeared.

Can you tell us why you eventually left the Forum briefly? So essentially um, from my understanding was that which I never read the terms and agreement of the actual forum and essentially I I, I breached it by just giving out all this information that was for free Essentially right? So with that you know I I got I wasn't on there anymore? Yeah, you you essentially you got deleted from there. Yeah, but I think you had quite a couple hundred followers who found you also on Twitter after that, that's how I found you I'm like dude, where did this guy go yeah that's why I went to find you on Twitter Yeah so I eventually found on Twitter um everyone found me on Twitter Yeah and if I'm not mistaken I actually had like a free Google webinar one time. Yeah yeah, that's the one Adam found you was there. he did all the Talking Actually he did a lot of talking and questions that day.

yeah oh man, good times I just talking about this. This is 201 16, 2017 or something or even earlier. This brings back uh Adam was probably like 16 or 18 years old at the time God so young and I was also a lot younger. Yeah and you you yeah? I mean yeah I'm actually a year older than you.

Yes we are which is surprising but because he know so much more than me. Yeah okay going back to day trading I know you day you were day trading. uh your own money and you were helping people online. So what was your after you figure out about you know combining psychology to analyzing your trades and the setups.

you know what was your performance like in terms of trading? Funny story. We blew up, you blew up. yeah what do you mean I would say we actually account just blew up. actually blew.

So we blew the account like you lost it lost it all. Oh which tra which? uh which do you know which trade it was A It wasn't just one trade, particularly, it was just a series of multiple trades. Oh what happened there cuz I would say for the most part you can learn the strategy if you want. yeah and you can master in the learning.

But the hardest part of trading that makes it so hard for most people, it's not learning the strategy you see like most people would say. 99.99% of Traders actually lose money. but they don't lose. just random like that.

M The fun fact is that they all lose for two reasons and two reasons only. they just came Master themselves. right? The strategy is as simple as learning a cooking recipe. Yeah, right.

Do this. Do that When this happens. Do this stuff like that right? But until you can master your own self, you'll never Master Trad him. And that's what happened to us.

We never knew who we were. Okay, so risk management wise, we had none. Oh, but who's we? So my best friend and I we were actually learning this together. actually.

Oh, so we're trading together. Yeah, we're learning it together as one. So I would learn something I'll share with him. he would learn something to share with me.

Yeah, yeah, so that actually kind of. And event we started competing against each other. Okay, who knows more than the other? Yeah, so yeah, that account blew up because we never really understood risk management at all and we never understood ourselves. Okay, so what happened after that? We actually took a year to learn risk management actually.

So we started like going through Excel and running different scenarios from profit losses, position sizing, upside, targets, downsides. and we actually found a lot of Discovery actually about how risk management actually does work in trading. Okay, right. Which led to us creating something like like a risk management calculator.

where could remember that exactly? It was all that continually number crunching that led to us realizing that, such as Stoploss placement, um, account size? um, as well, sheer size management stuff like that. And it also led to just us learning more about ourselves. As a person you know, such as you know, if you know you're someone who actually struggles with losing, it might be helpful to have someone who is actually don't really care. Oh, having someone who keep you accountable who keep you accountable I See I See Yeah.

So I would say I was the more of the aggressive one. He was more on the uh, safety side of things. Oh so I would plan the trade. He does.

He would do the execution so you compliment each other. We complimented each other. Oh I See, was there a particular strategy? Um, after you recouped your losses from the first blowup, Is there a particular strategy that spoke to you guys that you guys were using consistently to day trade? Yeah. the breakout strategy.

we're using consistently. Yeah. So we did the breakout strategy. pretty much on every penny stock we get our hands on.

Yeah sh. Selling for us was good back in the day as well, so it was probably account for just a small portion of the trades we did. I See, so those were the stocks that run up. you know, huge, like 100 200% then the next day once theyve actually gap down, you know, and bounce once more.

Again, like a weak bounce, You short into those and they'll just fade all day. Oh okay, but but you were predominant longas. I Remember most of your recap videos back then. Breakout.

Interestingly enough, that strategy still works today. It does. You have to be more selective, but still works. Still works.

Yeah, and you still trade. that strategy still use the same one. Yeah, so I find it very impressive. but basically that's all you trade now.

Yeah. so I've kind of like just cut out all the other excess uh strategies as well and just focus on one thing and one thing only. and only when that particular opportunity comes around. I hit it if it doesn't I just don't do anything.

Yeah, Good for you. Very selective. Yeah, yeah. so at that time you're helping people for free.

You're trading a breakout loan strategy. Um, with your partner. Um, eventually. I Remember I Just you know, followed you.

we chatted. eventually. you started like a paid membership program, right? Yeah, what got you to start with doing that? So we had one too many emails. I See, Yeah, and you know I'm not.

I I know for a fact that you know you know as you know, um, a lot of trading. You know coaches out there. They get HED on for charging for services because they're like, hey, why would you charge for you order to make so much money from Trading You see the hindsight is this: if I have to spend all my time replying to your emails and helping you, it's taken away from opportunity that I should be doing. so.

it's a cost of opportunity that you're paying for essentially. So that's why we started to charge for it so we couldn't. We got so many emails we were on emails all day from pre-market to Market open to midday you get more DMs in the afternoon you literally had no time to do any form of trading. Yeah, so the cost of our opportunity was huge.

like look we have to charge for this stuff just can't be free anymore I remember cuz I would send you like 10 emails a day. well like 10 DMS a day. So I we get L DM from you. and also another thing that I think you didn't mention is that I think I'm sure me and Adam and a couple others were one of the few people.

even though you didn't charge us, we still took it very seriously. like we still do the homework you assigned to us. but when you give people stuff for free when you help them for free, most people not all, they don't appreciate your effort. Let's get in the game man.

Yeah so I think you know when you started charging people for it I was like sign me up like I'm I'm glad you were charging because that means you you're going to weed out a lot of people who you know are not willing to pay and that's fine, but that means you have more time for the people who are willing to to invest in themselves exactly and will take it all very seriously. Yeah, so you eventually did start like a Discord and we all paid for it and I still continue learning with you a lot. So I appreciate that of course. now.

so that was all good and we traded together every day. you provided like a watch list and they eventually shut it down. Like why so this actually was in Um, there was probably like two Discord rooms I Remember correctly, we had one first that had a lot of members and one that had very very few members. So in the first one we were starting to weed out like the people between paid and free.

Yeah, and to be honest with you, just like you said, it weeded out. A lot of people got weeded out. Yeah, right. So you eventually had to create a separate Discord to separate the free guys from the actual Um from the actual paid guys.

Yeah, so when we separate them out, we actually started to basically reduce the level of services we would offer to the free ones. Yeah, and so I basically offered more of those Services towards the paid ones, right? Of course, that didn't really go so well well with our customers. So Eventually we just started focus more on the uh, the the paid ones and we kind of just neglected them. Yeah, right.

Which never went over so well with them and it's probably probably a regret of mine. We we probably could have done better with them honestly right now we did that for a long period of time and then we had partners that got involved. Yeah, but eventually we never really could agree on direction of the company. Right for one, I was more of the trader and I understood the industry very very well.

Yeah, they had a different background than I did. so they're the the road that they would want to take. essentially led to us not really agreeing too much. So Eventually I left the company and then they couldn't manage it so they just shut it down.

Oh, I See, Okay, so where did you go after that after you left this trading education sector? where'd you go? So after this particular uh moment after I left, I pretty much like just stayed lowy. actually I started like reading more on you know, merge and Acquisitions stuff like that. So I started to study a lot more on that particular topic because during trading, one of the thing I did enjoy seeing was when a company got Acquired and the stock would just jump like you know, thousands of percent. Yeah! so I want to be a part of that game I see Yeah Okay so intrigued me and this is back in Jamaica right when you started the fund.

So we started a uh, friends and family um actually never the intention was not to let it be a fund when we started. Oh in fact it was just a pull of capital to begin with. Okay so it was just like I remember when I started my training journey and I needed money to get funded I had two options. Yeah so my mom was like listen there's a job in a hardware store you can take it if you want it right I think you should have something and I'm like no I think I'm really good at this stuff and I think I'm going to pursue this but she says is there anything else and I said I'm think going open up you know a bread and breakfast you know in town as well but we're having a lack of funding to get the place and everything and she's like oh okay well guess what I owe you some money I'm going to pay you back and if you lose it all, well that's it.

You're on your own. Yeah okay so it was literally $500 Oh you started with 500 for the for the fund No, just like just for me to trade with I see but here's how that that actually came into place. So we started $500 and then once we actually I turned the $500 into maybe 1,600 I think okay yeah6 17 somewhere there about and my friend was impressed by it. he's like wow yeah yeah it's a small amount and you look at you're like you're like oh my god.

Seriously Yeah. so he put some money in and then his father father was actually watching him like you know we were trading, we were talking and he wanted to be like what are these guys doing you know. Okay, then he put some money in and then we needed more money and then he's on. I would say put in more money again right? So essentially it was just a pool for just friends and family to just take part in it essentially.

But eventually what we noticed was that we had to basically like we were managing that much money. Yeah, so we had to basically like deploy like a lot of different strategies. Essentially, some of it actually went to Forex Yeah, some went the stocks. Oh right, some of it was in swing trading, some of it was in day trading.

Okay, and how big was the asset under management at that point I would say in terms of like, you know, conversion, probably just over a million honestly. And then when you apply leverage and you're managing like four or five times that, yeah, yeah and this is still trading. Yeah, Oh okay, and why did you stop doing that? So I Know everyone idolized the JP Morgans and the Goldman of the world essentially. But but and everyone's like in universities right now getting their MBA like oh I Want to be a hedge fund manager? especially after watching billions, billions, right? Yeah, we both we both watch that show.

Yeah, I Want to be a headed manager, right? Okay, great. let me give you some advice. Don't don't really. It looks so flashy.

the LIF style. the Wall Street You know when you become when you're managing people's money and especially if you're managing friends and family money. And even if you're just managing clients money, the people you hang out with are essentially your same clients and you can't have normal conversations anymore. Like hey man, what did you do last night and a situation it's more like hey, how's how's my money doing So you're going out, you're leaving work, going out with people you think you have a good time with.

Yeah, who you going on talking about work again So you're always at work right? So Eventually I'm like, you know what? Forget it so we close it down. Get one your money back to be honest with you I have no regrets. It was a piece of mind. It makes sense because while having more Capital to trade with um, up to a mill at that point was appealing you.

You started trading to work for yourself. Right to have no boss, Exactly. But once you start a fund, your clients are your bosses. Are your bosses exactly? Yeah, yeah.

so I can see why. You know for most Traders some may start a fund but most I think start it and decide to shut it down. Yeah most funds today. even now that are being started, they have um a renewal date like between five and 10 years.

so usually most fun Last last. now in today's time between three and 5 years and what happens that Traders use that as a tool to get ahead. Yeah then after 5 years this closed down they have this bulk of M they canot trade for themselves. they give all investors their money back.

it's like they use as let's say like a Skyrocket you know themselves forward and then they just depart. Oh and how did your fund do during the couple years that you had it? um I would say we did I'm not going to say we were rock stars. Okay CU we did have ups and downs as well. We had times when we literally held positions that we were crying about.

Okay, yeah right. but I would say we did Prett Very very decent. I Said we probably did like anywhere from three, three to four times what s SMP would give you oh a year? Okay, that's actually really good, which is way more than you probably get anywhere. Yeah, even though today's time, there's rock stars that you can do that now.

Oh and how old were you when you were managing the fund? I think I like 22 years old? 23 oh my God yeah so young. what was I doing when I was 22? okay So eventually you shut down the fund. um and what did you do after that? when did you move to the United States So I was like 25 years old? Okay yeah, why did you move here? So moving was actually not. It wasn't an intention to move actually.

Okay, the intention was supposed to be a business trip. Oh yeah. so we took a business trip saying want to expand the education company and then while we were in uh Florida we still had the same riffle and back and forth all the time and I was tell my mom about how I'm stressed out all the time. you know I'm not really feeling great and with open arms she was like you can just come so left Florida went to New Jersey with her.

okay yeah and that was pretty much the end of that. So while I was there she was like okay, so what are you going to do now you know yeah, what are you going to do now Yeah at the time I was tinkering a lot of ideas actually I think to either like buy companies or do real estate. Yeah eventually I landed into just buying. Started to like buy companies actually.

But first I wanted to educate myself on all the stuff I should have learned during the the negotiation of a partnership. Okay, so for a year I took a lot of courses on law actually. like cont. oh yeah, Law law.

Like corporate law? Oh wow, yeah, Is there anything you don't know? I'm sure they are. Yeah, Okay, sure they are. We know now it's singing. You can't sing No I can't sing yeah.

Is there anything you cannot do? Can't sing? Okay, nobody asked and what were you trying to do with the law education that you were learning? So when we formed a partnership with Education Company actually? um, there's a lot of legal jargons that I pretty much didn't understand. Yeah, But so they were. They were able to like, sold us on a huge big dream that I I believe then essentially okay and I'm like I just like signed the contract essentially just like that. just like that, signed it, they send, they gave it to me one night I signed it the same night.

Okay, right thinking I I understood what it meant. Okay, but essentially what happened was that our main company got restructured. actually the entire cap table which I know now got restructured into us becoming like a minority shareh holder. Okay, so between my friend and I we own 33% so if you divide it by two, we're about 177 and a half.

Something like that. So basically we had no voting power. so when we want the to be made that would actually help the company would actually always get out voted by majority. Yeah so I never understood corporate law and legal contract.

so I wanted to like fill in the Gap ter of what I missed. So I studied corporate law for a year is that when you became a VC no at the time actually I was doing more um more M&a stuff. So like calling business brokers trying to get them to like you so you can buy the company. Okay yeah and uh, talking to investors trying to get them to like you so they'll help you with the financing you to say and it never went went well.

So we end up had to basically stick to the I would say more of a the old old wild west of going to like that Shopify website that had like businesses listed for sale and talking to the owners. Yeah okay so we did eventually buy one company actually. yeah um for like six grand or something like that. okay um called Solid Charmer if it's not around anymore.

we blew up. We blew it up. oh my. God at least it's only $6,000 Yeah so we thought we were going to come in and turn this thing around.

First thing we we happened was when we got in was that the marketing team left. I See second thing that happened the supplier went bankrupt because it was doing it was during coid. Oh this is an Ecom company Ecom company. Okay and then after that what happened was eventually we try to then convert the company into a subscription box essentially and we ran out of money.

Oh I see So eventually just went bankrupt. So after blowing up that company, good thing it was only $6,000 Yeah not a lot of money did you try again? Like how how did it go after that? So we were looking for another company to buy in the financial space. Yeah and we came across this guy that was selling his entire portfolio for like $400 million actually? Okay now obviously I can't buy it. Yeah But interestingly enough is that he had like a course for like 10 grand where you become his is uh mentee.

Oh and he basically would Mentor you on exactly how to do turnaround situations. Okay right. So we did a lot of turnarounds with him. like for digital marketing companies for healthc care companies.

um we never touched Tech because he hated Tech I see right? but it's mostly in the healthcare space and digital marketing space essentially. So with him we actually would just call Brokers you know, business brokers. We talk to them until want to buy the company being that he had something that we didn't have which is essentially credibil right. Because he was doing this, he's like 84 years old so been doing it for many many years.

What's his name? So this guy name was like John Parker Actually okay yeah so we did. We worked with him for I would say probably like a year and a half could be less. Not really sure it was. we were just going.

Most of these deals take like 3 to 6 months to close. sometimes you know, but we had like multiple of them going. Yeah, but he was like a very aggressive guy in the sense that you know when you would literally like have one deal going we like oh we're going to work on this one. he's like no, we got to get get at least 10 more going and I'm like why he's like it's a numbers game.

you got to get 10 going, maybe one will close. You know if you get 50 going, maybe like three of them might close. I See Yeah so there a numbers game. so once those deal close, essentially they'll put like operators in the company especially like a CEO and they actually run the company and execute the business plan that we designed.

Oh so you take over these companies and you try to turn around to become more profitable, more profitable and sell them for more than they were once worth. So essentially he's your Mentor He was my mentor. Yeah, Yeah, okay okay so how did you get eventually? How do you get into VC after that? So after VC um I was I got contacted by a good friend of mine we're still have friends today. uh Jack Cooney and um he was sent me a message on LinkedIn saying that you know you know we have synergies and we should talk.

You know that if anyone ever reach out to you on LinkedIn is always like the same message like hey I came across your profile it looks like you're lot in coming your synergist when you free yeah it's always that generic message that generic message but I don't mind it. you know if your profile looks good I'll answer right? So I replied to him and we got on this Zoom call maybe like a week later and I thought I was going to speak to jack it was an intervent it almost like it was an intervention. So when it Happ on the zoom call I had like a a spill I says is this an intervention oh cuz there was like six other guys on the car. oh okay that surprised you exactly so that's how I after we were done we spoke to one guy name is James we spoke to a a couple of guys which was his friends and then after we got off the call James was like Hey I want to keep talking to you I think you're brilliant I think we could do something together So when I started talking to um James after we kind of like liked each other, we had a lot in common right? He was a very successful Tech entrepreneur right? and he was basically a vure capitalist essentially right.

So his firm was more at the time more in U What would call um Merchant Banking Okay, right. essentially they used their own. They I mean I don't know why Finance use fancy term but essentially The Firm uses their own money to invest. that's it's called Merchant Banking? Yeah, yeah.

Oh okay. all right, yeah. so with him we actually that's why I got into VC so he was looking for tech companies to invest into right? I had a lot of connections with Um Accelerators. yeah and accelerators are basically people that entrepreneurs go to to say had this idea can you find investor like why Combinator? essentially Yeah.

Okay, so that's how I got into the VC space Honestly by work with him, finding him deals to look at for make investments or finding deals for his investors to make investments. Oh so I got into that side of the business. Yeah D you you went really far from Trading Forex to day trading stocks to you know education, then to you know family fund, then to VC and like all the stuff in between as well. Yeah, a lot of lot of a lot of nitty-gritties in between.

You know, like um, you know, trying tring to go online to these different websites that had like private deals you can invest in. Oh okay yeah and I would say for the most part we never invested in any of them. But I would say one particular sad story would be I would regret not investing in Atom Finance Actually, Oh Atom Finance Okay, we we actually use a website. Yeah, you use a website Exactly.

So Atom Finance did their series a many, um many many years ago on uh we funder. Actually okay and they were like worth. probably like a million or $2 million. they wor worth.

And what threw me off was that they said they were going to become the Bloomberg terminal for retail and I just laughed at it. Oh no, how many years ago was that? um maybe maybe four four years ago? Yeah, it's not that long. they are a lot bigger now back. they're worth billions now and the minimum investment was $1,000 You messed up.

I Think that's the worst trade you've ever done. The worst trade I ever done. Seriously, sit and watch the stock go up and do nothing. Oh I think the the Sto.

The The lessons from your story today is that you tried so many different things and you obviously failed a lot. Yes, but you never gave up. Whether it's trading or starting a business or getting into VC or buying companies, you never gave up. No, never yeah you.

But then you also lost a lot of money. Well made a lot a lot of money after that. But you lost a lot of money. You lost a lot of money in in time as well.

Yeah, nowadays do you still trade if something fits my particular strategy? Yes, yeah. So my trading are pretty much like not as frequent as most Traders are Mhm like I would say if I look at the average per month, it's probably one or three. Yeah, yeah pretty much except for that one week where the same stock keep on breaking out. So I was very active for that entire week.

Yeah, you were trading every day, every day. that one stock. yeah, that that that. Um Vfss Yeah yeah, good times.

Yeah. so do you still day trade more or swing trade? or like both? I would say it's a mix and I tend to just inad. I mean most Traders you know, um, trade more frequently than they should. Yeah and I try to encourage traders to not think of trading as something to do, but it's hard to break out of that corporate mindset.

Yeah where you have to get up a certain time you go to work, you have something to do so as Traders they bring the same oh this is my thing now. I got to get up and do this. but that's not really how to look at it. How to look at it is that you have a specific criteria of things you're looking for on a particular trade and your every day is get up and look for a stock that fits those particular criteria and only when that happens you make a trade.

Yeah! so if you working hours or pretty much let's say between like say 9 and 11: in the morning and all you're doing is scanning for that Yeah and if nothing shows up then you take the day off. Yeah I Remember cuz we trade together I Remember there are days where I'm like where's Oren like he's he's not here. it's because nothing's Nothing fits Nothing fits yeah. Could you share with the audience what your biggest winner ever from a trade and the biggest loser I would say the Biggest Loser um was probably many, many years ago actually from a a Chinese IPO company.

Actually I think they were like a phone company. they were okay and they they went I read about them so much where I fell in love with the company. oh no. okay and when it actually went public literally once once he went public the first day I bought it like you know, like when an IPO comes up on the first green candle pops up I bought right on that candle.

oh my. God Okay and the candle was in finished form yet when it was done it turned into a huge R candle. Oh I Sold off the minute minute it opened. Exactly.

Was it supposed to be a day trade or swing trade? This was actually be a day trade. It turn like a $40,000 something like that. Oh my. God Okay so that's your biggest loss ever.

That's the biggest loss recorded for me. Oh what about? uh, biggest win ever? Um I would say the biggest win will probably be about probably like six figures, like over 200, but that was like that's from multiple of different trades. Honestly, yeah and that would have to be VFS Yeah I would say I tend to be bad at taking my advice after recording the actual trades. Oh okay, so like I'm sure there's like a big winner somewhere in between that and then yeah.

but I don't record anything really. It's interesting because as Traders we tend to remember the losers a lot more clearly at least in detail than the winners. Yes, I would say the losers actually stick around longer yeah in my mind than than winners. Yeah, you probably have like PTSD now from the IPO um I do that's why I'm so cautious with them now.

PTSD Exactly I Don't like trading IPOs either. I Kind of wait till the second secondary second day. Yeah. I I learn.

Kind of learned some general rules about them for doing on the first day. you know, ever since that one like you got to wait for it like give a couple minutes like establish all its levels first before you actually make any moves. Yeah okay so what are you to present day like? what are you involved in now? what are you working on? What are you trading? Know just what keeps you busy nowaday? um I would say for the most part what keeps me busy now is just like you know, working in M&a Okay right. they helping companies.

Um, find financing through my previous connections I'm helping companies find um you know, deals to connections that I Know that's pretty much what keeps me busy, but it's not. It's not like overwhelming unless you have like a bunch of people calling you. Yeah, but the beauty is that you know. So I'm looking.

we're I'm looking for something specific. Yeah, so it doesn't really align. then we're not having a phone call. Okay, what about trading now? Where are you trading now? in the SO trading pretty much I'm just focusing on formal higher day and just focusing on the earning strategy and just constantly scanning and researching for things to come up Mhm and just actually executing those when the time time comes around.

Pretty much Yeah, yeah, so it's pretty much I would say pretty much chill now before back in the day I was always busy CU even back then I would trade a lot I would trade all the markets too. Actually, back in the day I would trade bonds, stocks Futures options everything we trade Asian market Australian London us all together it very very busy. Yeah. but now I've actually like just have some more structure in my life and just knowing that what I'm good at and what I'm not good at and just stick with that.

Do you still enjoy helping Traders succeed. Especially the a lot of beginners were like struggling. Yeah. I do enjoy helping beginners, especially like seeing them go from like you know, um, start to finish.

Yeah, right. That brings me I would say from everything I do That probably brings me the most Joy Honestly yeah, simply because you know there's no greater impact you can leave on this world yeah than the impact you leave on somebody else. Yeah, you know I mean I like Denzel Washington says I've never seen a U-Haul behind a hearse before, you know but the people I and when you go I'm not really sure, but you probably know this I'm a pretty weird guy sometimes. Yeah.

and I I do find peace in actually going to cemeteries. Actually wait, what? Yes. I Wasn't expecting that. Yeah, cemeteries.

So I do like going to cemeteries. Okay, because the thing is that when you go to cemeteries, you really find what life really means. Actually, you don't see on someone's Tombstone that he owned a car. You know he made this much money.

You don't see that you see loving wife, best daughter, loving husband you see on the grave. So the greatest impact you can leave on the world is impact on everybody else cuz that's what they remember. Oh wow I never thought of it that way. Yeah as far as cemeteries but I I can see why you find peace there specifically from Reading uh what's written on tombstones? Yeah people who are passed away exactly if the the death gives gives meaning to life I say I guess that's why you enjoy helping Traders nowadays like you, you do create an impact I know um now day in your community.

people really enjoy uh, learning from you sometimes even more than learning from me I get jealous of you sometimes I'm like what these people like more than me. but but I'm okay with that cuz you and I nowadays we have very different strategies. You just focus on the one breakout strategy for day trades and that's fine. I have a couple different ones and I try to be able to trade every day.

but um, yeah, that's that's what trading is all about. We have our own strategies. um and we focus only on just that. Yeah, pretty much much yeah.

So funnily enough you and I met in a penny stock trading. Community Yeah you later started your own community that I joined. Yeah and now you are in my community. The Humble Trader Community What do you think is the reason? Like these communities you know trading a group, making friends like what? what? What do you think it's is it about these trading communities that keep drawing you in? I Would say the one thing that actually keeps drawing me in community is is just that you get to meet people from like all walks of life.

Yeah, that's first and foremost. yeah. and when you sit and you talk to these people and hear their stories, you know you just feel some of some of them have very, very sad stories. Yeah, honestly and it kind of breaks your heart and this is what they're trying to do to get there.

Yeah, and you can also relate to them as well, right? So you feel very connected to these people. Yeah. I Also, just generally. Also like generally just love helping people.

yeah and I would say it's a guilty habit because my life I've always tend to place people way ahead of me more than I do for myself. In every single person I've met, there's an aspect of their story that I can relate to. Yeah. I See so what do you enjoy? Daily trading in a trading? Community Like what? How does it benefit you and how are you able to pass it down the the benefits and the teachings? Funny enough, you know, mentoring people? Actually actually not really sure if people realize, but mentoring people actually makes you a better Trader because for one, you, you are held accountable.

Yeah, everybody's watching you. Yeah. and being that the the questions keep coming up more and more frequently, the same questions you find ways to refine, you know your answers more and more and refine your process and your strategy way more more and more. Before you know it, you automatically just Skyrocket to being quite the expert right? So it makes you a better, um, a better.

Trader When you Mentor people um I do relate to that as well, both from teaching on YouTube as well teaching the community. When I say know, don't over trade, you know, be selective about your trading setups I At first I was still sloppy, but eventually I do realize okay, like if I preach that I have to follow this rules right? especially when a lot of times I do recap my trades and that's when people will see. Okay I only traded two trades today and these are the executions. It's very clean and that's it.

So I do have to follow my own rules and it it you're right. It does keep um us accountable. Well yeah. also like when you get asked the same questions over and over again or you get ask a question of something that you've never thought about.

Yeah, you're forced to learn. Yeah, when you're a traitor and you're doing your own thing and no one to answer to, you can get pretty complacent ignorant yeah for sure. But when you have people like asking you, hey, what do you think about this, hey, why do we do this, you're like I actually never thought about that. Let me think about it and then you formulate an answer answer.

Then that also kind of reinforce the thesis and the strategies. So yeah, it's um, it's it's it's I would say trading a community a positive one is much better than trading on your own. It is. You know it's kind of like the old saying, you know, iron sharpens iron? Yeah, yeah yeah.

I think that's also a reason. like when you disappeared from the original Forum I followed you because I knew that I enjoy trading with you I enjoy talking to and learning, learning from you. and you. Even though you were technically my mentor, you never treated me like you always just treated me like a friend and nothing.

It's not like you were like on a high pedestal and had to like look up to you. always just treat me like face to face. So um, and I just want to say it means a lot to me that I found you online years ago, you mentored me and so many years later now I'm able to have you in the community and helping other Traders and Lear from you. It's like a full circle.

Full circle right? Yeah. Any final messages you want to tell our viewers is watching this. um yeah. probably the most powerful thing.

So if you guys are really struggling, you know out there with like trading and you're really having a hard time trying to basically figure it out. I would say trading at its core like we've told members, especially when I do like coaching oneon-one Yeah is that trading is basically betting on History That's all you're doing. So all these strategy strategy that you're learning have a historical Behavior yeah and all you're trying to do is understand that what are the criteria that are in place Place yeah before what do they look like before that move happens and then what? the outcome is right? So if you just look at it that way that all you're doing is B on history repeating itself, trading becomes far more simpler. It's kind of like you know before the rain falls, the the dark clouds, then you hear the thunder, then the lightning and then the rainfalls.

Yeah. so strategy like you're doing a breakout strategy. Okay what criteria are in place before something breaks out, it has no good news. it's over Vwap it's hold higher day.

Okay, what do the pre you know? setup looks like it's usually like broken out and moving sideways a