024: Ivaylo Ivanhoff – Riding Industry Momentum & Using High Probability Swing Setups to Capitalize on Short-Term Gainers

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chat for more information. Tasty Trade Inc. is a registered broker dealer and member of Finra, NFA and SIPC. The biggest secret of the best traders in the world is that they're just like everyone else. However, they've worked hard to learn the markets and discover what works and what doesn't. How can you hear about these? Here's your host.

Hey guys, what's the Welcome back to episode 24 of the Chat with Traders podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in, it's great to have you here. So On the show this week, my guest is Ivan Hoff, an equities trader of ten years who tackles the market with a swing trading approach to capture powerful short term gainers that may run anywhere between three to ten days.

While spring trading is his bread and butter, Ivan also allocates a portion of his capital to position trading when he has a reason to believe that the trend will continue for the longer term. He's also written several books, including The Five Secrets to Highly Profitable Swing Trading and The Next Apple, which was a collaboration with Howard Lindzen, who is the co-founder and CEO of StockTwits.

Ivan is regularly featured in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance, Traders Magazine, and he's also a familiar face amongst the stock twits community. Now continue listening to learn about Ivan's trading methodology, one of his high probability swing setups, the importance of following industry momentum, and a whole lot more.

Hey Ivan, what's up man? How's your week been? Oh, it's been very well. Uh how are you, Aaron? I am very well. Ivan, thanks so much for coming on the show, man. It's a pleasure to be speaking with you. I'm thrilled to have you on and um yeah, again, thank you very much.

Hey, thanks so much for having me. My pleasure. So Ivan, if you could, give us the rundown on where you've come from, sort of how you got into trading, and what was it about trading that really appealed to you? Okay, uh so I was born in Bulgaria, that's uh Southeast Europe, just north of Greece and Turkey.

And uh I mean people there and just in Europe in general, uh don't really have that stock market culture ingrained in them. Like most people there invest their money in real estate, their own business. or just uh keep their money at the bank where you know they pay you know three, four percent. So uh no one really invests their money or trades in the stock market. there um so I pretty much I entered the stock market during one of the the biggest

uh bull markets in financial history for emerging markets. So whatever happened to uh Nasdaq in the later nineties. uh pretty much happened to emerging markets in uh the early to mid two thousands, percentage wise uh percentage wise of course. Uh like I will give you a quick example. Uh like the Bulgarian stock market went up like more than two thousand percent between two thousand and two and two thousand and seven. So uh I opened

open an account there with my savings and pretty much at the beginning I I wasn't really trading, it was more of a buy and hold approach and just watch my account grow. Uh and then in uh 2000 and uh late 2005 I moved to the States to study. And this is when I opened my first uh trading account and started to double into trading more. Pretty much that's how I started. And at the beginning, of course, the the the state market was very different than uh the Bulgarian market.

Because of liquidity, of course. Uh the Bulgarian market wasn't liquid at all. It was it's a really small market and you can really trade. The US market it's you know is the biggest market in the world. So pretty much anyone that Anyone who trades for a living anywhere in the world, uh, you know, you trade the US market, pretty much the US stock market.

Yeah, absolutely. So what were your early experiences like? I mean, did you hit kinda like a uh kind of like some beginner's luck to start off with or did you, you know, blow up multiple accounts? What were the first couple of years of trading like for you?

Well I would say that I was really lucky, you know, of first make making uh First growing my account really, really uh fast uh on the Bulgarian stock market and then moving in the States in two thousand and five, two thousand and six when it was a really good bull market uh here too, by the time I moved. Uh and of course at the beginning I made all the mistakes that all beginning traders do several times over. Uh like at the beginning, for example, I I did not have an edge.

Uh luckily I I found a few very good uh finan financial blocks at the time and I learned a lot from them. Uh I uh found IBD Investors Business Daily, I was reading uh the Kirk Report, I was reading Stock Beep. And out of there I actually developed uh one of my major setups that I use uh even today. Uh it's based on post earnings announcement drift.

So pretty much um it means that any company that receives favorable market reaction to its earnings reports tend to continue to trend in the same direction for at least several weeks. after that, after that gap, up or down. So based on that, I uh I developed my my first major setup. Okay, that's excellent. We might get into that a little bit more um a bit later in the interview. But um just sort of looking back on that time.

You mentioned you made sort of a number of mistakes over again. What were sort of some of those big mistakes that kind of stood out and you found sort of the most challenging to overcome? Well I think one of the biggest one was um was position sizing. I was I was uh I was taking two big positions uh without really uh taking into account the capital at risk.

You know, this might be really suit suitable occasionally for someone with a lot of a lot more experience, but not for someone that is, you know, just starting out. Trading too big could mean making a lot of money in a sometimes in a crappy market environment if you pick the right stocks or it or it could mean losing a lot of money in an excellent market environment because you happen to pick the one or two stocks that did not move.

I was I y I used to grow my account like a thirty, fifty percent in a more in a month or two during strong uptrends, and then I give uh gave back most of it uh when the inevitable correction uh came. So I know a everyone everyone makes money in uh in an up trading market, but not everyone uh keeps that money when when the correction comes. So that was that was a big struggle for me initially, just to learn how to time the market properly because there is No trading approach or no trading setup.

He has a a hundred percent success rate. Oh so you you really have to take into account the right market environment when you ni when you need to bounce and uh and make all all of your money and and to know when just to step aside or just to use a different setup for that specific market environment. Yeah, for sure. And I mean you mentioned their position sizing. So

That was sort of one of the biggest things that, you know, you were challenged with. How did you sort of overcome that? I mean, that were you just sort of Were you maybe taking less trades or were you just sort of, you know, risking less on per trade or you know, like how did you how did you overcome that? Well what I found a much more scientific way to approach position sizing based on capital at risk. So nowadays a risk uh

Anywhere between uh 25 basis points and a hundred basis points, which is one percent of my capital per uh per trade, depending on the on the setup and on the market environment. So I know exactly how much I have. at risk every time.

Okay, that's really good. So let's get into a little bit about sort of your actual trading approach that you've sort of adapted and that you're trading today. So if you could just give us an overview of your approach to the market. Sure, uh so Pretty much uh I'm a swing trader. Uh my calling period is uh anywhere between uh three to ten trading days.

Uh so why why a swing trader? Because uh like I believe there is a there is the eighty twenty rule that's uh that exists in the market. But uh most stocks spent in a in a range, about eighty eighty percent of their time they spent in a range. And the majority of their move happens in only fifteen, twenty percent of the trading days. So the purpose of swing trading is just to capture that fifteen, twenty percent of the time when the stocks is are actually moving.

So I uh so I I buy on strength and I sell on strength. Okay, and would you say that you've sort of been a swing trader since day one or is this sort of something you've slowly you sort of gravitated towards and it's now kind of stuck with you? No, uh at the beginning the first couple of years that I was struggling to find uh an actual edge, uh so th the first few years I was actually trading only only one setup.

uh that that was based on uh post earning post earnings announcement drift. It was an pretty much anticipation setup. when I was uh looking for stocks that gapped and then consolidated through time and pretty much I bought that consolidation in expectation uh of a continuation of that move and then over time I added more setups uh to my portfolio of setups. You know, I started trading uh breakouts and pullbacks and um I started taking into account um factors like industry momentum

uh floats, individual stock momentum. Okay, sure. And you sort of brought up an interesting point there. It was sort of how you just um you just sort of focused on one particular setup for the first couple of years. Do you think that's sort of contributed to the success or the level of success you've been able to reach today by just focusing on one sort of setup while you were sort of learning the ropes?

Uh absolutely. I think at the beginning, and not only at the beginning, less is more. Uh the peop people have to I think we have to find just one great setup. uh and learn absolutely everything about it and when to trade it. And then and then over time as you really become really good at it. you can start adding, you know, new setups because

You know, that's particular setup that I trade is not is not good for uh all market environments. So for example, it's not good for uh during market corrections. So over time you start to add As you get better and better you start to add new setups for the different market environments. Yeah, that's great. That's really excellent. So just before we go any further, what markets are you sort of most active in and what are you trading? Are you trading sort of stocks, options, ETFs, like

Just tell us a little bit about that. Uh U US equities, that's it. Nowadays I only trade US stocks. Okay, sure, sure.

As a swing trader, like, what would you say is your primary aim? Like what opportunities are you aiming to exploit in the market? or opportunities. Uh so as as I say, stocks move in cycles. they spend the majority of their time in a range and I'm looking to win those stocks when they're out of that range. So I capitalize on their on their move. So opportunity cost is a really big big thing for me. I w uh

Any any capital that I allocate to one stock I cannot allocate to another. So it's for me it's really important to be in stocks that are actually moving at the time. So I maximize my uh capital allocation. Okay, sure. That's that's really good. So again, just as a swing trader How connected to the market are you during actual trading hours? Like do you watch the intraday action or are you mostly analysing data after the close each day? Well I I do both. Um so some some of my signals uh

trigger intraday. So I take them intraday. So dur so during the day I mean I I don't watch every tick, of course. I j I run a bunch of screens. uh that show up certain results and if I like the setup, you know I'll take it in today. Okay, excellent. So what are some of the things that you that you really look for to identify big short term gainers like before they actually move? Like what is it that often drives these powerful short-term market moves?

So the single uh most influential factor for short term moves is uh industry momentum. If you're in the right industry you're very likely to capture a stock that is likely to move a lot. Being in the right industry could be the the difference between, you know, getting a breakout that will get an immediate follow through.

or getting a black uh breakout that is going to uh fade uh very quickly. You know, it could be the difference between uh getting a stock getting into stock that is going to move twenty percent in a couple of weeks or getting in a stock that is going to move you know five percent. So being in the right industry is the single most important thing, you know. Uh

a trader could do. So I'm really paying attention to the to the hot industries of the month. Like recently we've seen huge moves in um cybersecurity, in uh semiconductors, in biotech. So those are the industries that I uh I've been focusing my on my capital and attention. And you know those industries change.

uh pretty much every few weeks. So you really uh need to pay attention to that, to industry momentum. Okay. So once you identify an industry that's picking up some momentum How do you sort of um drill down on which stocks you're actually gonna place trades on? So the first you know, the uh from my perspective, the best way to figure out which industries are hot is just to no, I run a a few screeners that are based on uh uh on various criteria on uh

differ on uh momentum on various uh timescales. And based on the if and if certain industry has a large number of setups that are showing up, this is the industry that I need to focus. And um and of course I'll give a priority to uh to recent IPOs because uh recent IPOs uh they they have a very small float. Like most companies um

initially sell only between seven and fifteen percent of their shares outstanding to the market. So during the first uh six months, uh they could move a lot because of their small float. I mean i if you look at some of the biggest movers on uh on a month to six months uh time frame, you see that so many of them are are actually recent IPOs. And that's exactly because of two reasons.

I know, because they're a small float and because they belong to a currently hot industry. You know, those are the those are the two factor the two uh most defining factors for their outperformance.

Right, okay, that's really interesting. So you kind of touched on this before, but if we could just go into it a little deeper, would you be able to run us through your ideal setup for a high probability swing trade like on an individual stock? And at what point you might enter into that as well. Sure, um so Uh it belongs to a let's say to a hot industry, let's say currently to you know, biotech or or uh or semiconductor.

Um and it's um it had it has an i an initial lack up, so it it it it has an already established momentum and then it has spent some time consolidating. uh usually through time or through uh th or through price, so there is a slight pullback. Uh so I'm looking for uh for the five day moving average to be trading above the twenty day moving average. And then I'm looking for uh something I called um a build move.

So I'm not just looking for a pivot level that has to be uh taken out to enter. I'm looking for a pivot for a pivot move. I'm looking for a certain size of a move, for example, a two percent break out to new uh twenty day high in o in order to enter And that's it pretty much. Okay, so when you said you look for the first leg.

How what sort of time frame are you looking at there? Like h how long would a would a leg typically take to form? Like what sort of size we are we talking about here? Uh it it could be anywhere between one week in uh in three months. Or or even six months. Okay, right, okay, sure. So for argument's sake, let's just say you identify, I don't know, maybe like twenty of these setups or maybe other setups that look equally appealing.

How do you go about filtering out which trades you will and won't take? I guess another way of asking this is Um when you have more signals than capital, so how do you decide which trades to act on? Because you can't take every trade obviously. Of course I mean I I'll just let some go. Uh and I'll I'll give a priority to uh stocks that belong to a currently hot industry and to recent IPOs just because they tend to move a lot faster. If you study You know, the best performing stocks.

on a one to four week time frame, you would you know, you'll figure out, you know, as I s as I already uh repeated several times I guess, that uh, you know, there either is an IPOs or or they belong to a health industry. So of course I'll give prior priority to to those two. Yeah and then if uh by the time I'm uh I'm in in in seven to eight stocks uh are pr uh um pretty much already fully invested.

So I I'll um I'll hold them, you know, anywhere between three to ten days, depending on the price action. You know, if if a better opportunity shows up. Uh I'll sell those that are not acting as well and I'll just uh reallocate money. Okay. Right. So you mentioned the three to ten days a couple of times. Like how did you discover this was an effective holding time for your approach?

Based on studying past winners. So I meticulously study Past winners on several different time frames on a week, two week, a month, a quarter, six months. So every day I I study the best performers. You know, stocks that they were that were up more than ten percent uh for the week, more than uh twenty percent for the month. And I'm studying their charts and I've been doing that for years. And I figure out that most swing Like

you know, last anywhere between three to ten days and then there is another consolidation. And, you know, then the same stock uh could spend, you know, a few days to a few weeks consolidating. through time or price and then it it'll break out again and you know you can enter again. Okay. So

Let's say a stock you've been in a you've been holding a position for ten days and it's still moving in your favour, it's not really showing too much of a sign of weakness. Are you likely to still cut that or maybe you're gonna hold on to that? This is very unusual and and uh you know most of 80% of my trades are swing trades, but I also have some uh you know longer term positions that I hold for multiple weeks. And um

You know, I I for my longer term positions I pay attention to uh weekly charts. So if a stock has a really good weekly charts and has a story that I really understand uh and it's acting price wise. uh properly. I I might uh you know hold it for multiple weeks, even multiple months. But that's that's a relatively smaller portion of my capital that I allocate to that uh You know, we can call that uh I guess position trading.

It's a little bit different than swing training. Swing training is is three to three to ten days uh Yeah. And you're looking you're looking to capture, you know, five to uh thirty percent quick moves. Yeah, exactly. Um I've got a few questions around your sort of longer term approach that I'm keen to ask you as well. But just still on the topic of swing trading.

Uh so you've written a book titled The Five Secrets to Highly Profitable Spring. I know we can't go into huge depth on each of those five topics, obviously, um, but would you be able to briefly touch on each one of you know, the the five secrets and if anyone is listening, I mean they can obviously dig deeper and grab the Kindle from Amazon. But would you be able to give us just an overview of what the five

secrets to highly profitable swing trading might be. Sure, sure. I mean, uh it it it's a really simple book. Uh I think it's uh It it's simple for a reason. So even people without any trading experience could get it real quick. So pretty much in chapter one I talk about when to buy. uh and I describe my perfect uh

my perfect swing setup and uh and I've already talked about it here. Looking for an initial uh leg up, then some form of consolidation. Uh we have the five day the price of trading above the five day moving average and then the five day above the twenty-day and then You could either buy a breakout at two a at least two percent move to new twenty day high.

or you could buy in anticipation of a breakout is that if that particular s uh setup meets certain criteria. For example, if that particular stock has recently had uh like a really good earnings surprise and a favorable market reaction.

And if the market environment is right, you can buy in anticipation before the breakout. Like this is really uh an approach that as your account grows in size, uh you could take uh You know, uh you you pretty much you have to buy in anticipation of a breakout because there's not enough liquidity to chase after after most breakouts.

Um so in chapter in in chapter two I talk about um when to sell and pretty much in swing trading uh it's good to sell on strength because we we are only looking to capture uh uh that quick three to ten three to ten day uh like up or down and just to avoid the the debt periods when uh the stock stocks consolidate through time or through price. Then in chapter three I talk about how to improve uh the odds in your favor, uh how to

how to capture uh bigger bigger winners pretty much. And there I talk about industry momentum. Why is it so important? I talk about uh IPOs and I talk about individual uh stock momentum. In chapter four I talk about uh The so called Ford Secret I talk about um risk management about or talk about position sizing and how important it is and um in chapter five I talk about market timing uh why and and how to time the market.

and uh w when to risk one percent of your capital and when to risk you know a quarter percent and when when to sit uh pretty much on the sidelines. So it's it's really, really sweet, really short book. You can pretty much read it in probably an hour. Okay, awesome. Yeah, well I'll put a link to that in the show notes so if anyone's keen to check it out.

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Going moving along to sort of what you touched on before, like your position trading approach. So uh separate from swing trading. From your experience, like what do the big winners have in common? How do you identify stocks that are likely to rally longer than sort of your three to ten days that you look for when you're swing trading?

Is it again sort of momentum within an industry or is there something more to it? Well, th th there's several factors. Um w one of them is um earnings earnings growth, uh Uh, you usually uh the best long-term performers are are the stocks that that consistently reports you know high earnings and and sales growth. Another important factor is uh general uh Price momentum, which pretty much uh is a reflection of of people people's expectations about the future. Uh

You know, there there were so many recent examples, uh like like Tesla Motors or Yelp. Uh those stocks tripled and quadrupled before they reported a single profitable quarter. So the market in this case was forward looking. Um it was it was expecting those stocks to do very well in the future. Of course, in many occasions the market won't be right. In many oc since the market is a discounting mechanism.

in many cases he it will discount future events that will never happen, you know, that happen all the time. And once the market, you know, gets tired of waiting for those uh companies

to actually deliver what it is expecting, uh you see that you see a correction as we saw as we saw in Yelp. You know, it's it's not uncommon to see um a stock that will go up three hundred, four hundred percent in let's say in a period of a year and two and that and then it'll give back fifty to eighty percent of that move in six months. You know, it usually happens to stocks where the market has got very high expectations and you could have ridden those moves just based on on price momentum.

And then at as I said, at some point the market grows tired of waiting for those company to actually deliver what it has already been priced and you know and there is a correction. Um so another way to to capture big uh bigger moves is to um is to wait for a market correction. Uh i i i if you study some of the the best performers uh in uh you know three to to twelve month time frame, you you see that so many of them start their move uh immediately after uh let's say eight to

Or to fifteen percent market correction, which used to happen every year before. We haven't had that in in a few years. Um So the stocks that show relative strength during that correction. The stocks that manage to uh let's say move sideways or even attempt to to break out as the the general market is dropping, you know, six, seven, ten percent. Those are the stocks to pay attention to because as soon as the general market bounces.

those stocks will lead and outperform by a mile. And, you know, the last bigger correction that we had was, you know, last September. And exactly at exactly at that time, I think the S P dropped, like what, seven, eight percent? And exactly at that time There were quite a few biotech stocks that that just didn't move. They just would just they just went sideways. Uh they built new bases.

And as soon as the market bounced, those stocks, pretty much every single one of them, went up between fifty and two hundred percent in the next three months. So I think for most uh for position traders, for longer term investors, the best thing that could happen to you uh is a market correction. Because you know the pretty much the safest Time to enter the market.

is right after those corrections, when's the when the general markets is starting to move up and those stocks are starting to break out on your fifty day highs or new fifty two week highs. And you know, if you if you concentrate all your uh effort

to that specific time, I think you do really well without having to s uh to watch the market every day. And actually, you know, speaking of books, I actually have a He has a recent book that I published exactly on position trading, on longer longer term uh no trend following that exactly deals with that subject, and I co authored that with uh Howard Lindzen.

Uh it's called The Next Apple. It's also on Amazon. I think it's also really, really good read if you have the time. Yeah, for sure. We'll put a link to that one also um in the show notes. Um I'm I'm sure that would be that would be a really good book to get into. Something you sort of brought up at the beginning of that answer there and and thanks for going into so much depth with it. Is you mentioned higher earnings, consistently higher earnings.

For someone who doesn't follow fundamentals too much and and sort of, you know, news like that type of thing, how do they determine whether earnings are higher than sort of what is expected? For example, a company that that used to that used to grow at you know ten, twelve percent quarter over quarter earnings and sales, if that company suddenly suddenly reports a quarter where it has, you know

A two hundred percent earning uh earnings growth and a hundred percent sales growth. You know, something major has just happened. uh apparently with that company. And this company and usually those huge that huge acceleration in earnings is just like a uh a cockroach. You know, there's never there's never only one quarter. Uh there are usually several quarters that follow.

And if you study some of the some of the best performing stocks, you know, on a longer time frame, uh, you know, they they really grew their earnings at you know, triple digits. You know, i it's that's that that's natural, you know, companies that grow their earnings and sales at such pace usually do very well.

Okay. And another thing you sort of touched on in that same answer was um many of these stocks might, you know, run for, you know, two hundred, three hundred percent in the space of a year. What are maybe some giveaways that the trend might be coming to an end? Because obviously you want to pocket as much of your gain as possible. So is there any giveaway that the trend might be starting to turn down?

There there could be several different uh factors that uh you know could give you a clue. Well first of all, you never know. You could never know how far a trend uh could go and how long it'll last. But um just in general if if you see like a huge coun counter trend move, uh let's say uh the stock suddenly drops

eight percent down in a day on on a huge volume. Uh you know, that he has a major distribution day. You know, a day like that, usually wakes people from their dream, all of a sudden um all of a sudden uh the fear of losing becomes bigger than the fear of of missing out. And you know, this this is usually the the beginning of the end and like when you when you have like a couple major distribution days like that.

And and again, uh if you're a position trader or a long term trend follower, uh I think it it also makes sense to to take some profits on strength. Like for example, I'm using uh a weekly uh RSI, when it gets above eighty, I will I will take some partial profits on some of my positions, right?

E every everyone has his own approach and then I and a bunch of people that will never sell sell on strength, that you only sell when on weakness. And they're also uh doing uh really well, so everyone has to build, you know, their own approach. Yeah, that's a good point. Uh you know, thanks for bringing that up. Um So here's a question. I'm interested to hear

your insights on taking trades that have a worthwhile risk to reward. So what is something entry level traders should understand about trades that have a good risk to reward before getting into them? Well uh I mean you I could I could use the phrase tight is good. So look for for uh for a tight range. Uh You know, for for example stock that that normally trades uh

let's say a d a dollar, it's its normal daily trend. It's all of a sudden uh the last few days it it's spent in a much tighter range, let's say thirty cents range, and uh look look for closest for uh for a couple days of where the closing price of each of those days is very close to each other. So di you know, this is this is just another ingredient that you can add. When you look for a for a perfect setup. So f uh first of all, you never know how far a stop.

will we'll uh will travel uh after it triggers. You know, we could travel five percent, it could travel, you know, twenty, thirty percent. Of course, that depends on on the industry, uh it is in on its flow.

uh on the on the general on the market cap of of the company you're trading. Uh it depends on the general market environment. So in a good trading environment, uh you know, of course you get a much bigger move And y y you know, you can risk fifty cents and then you can make five dollars on on those fifty cents. In a choppier market environment, you you might make only fifty cents on your fifty cents risk. I mean you never you never know in advance uh your actual rewards.

trading market environment. Uh your market your your your setup has has an edge. And uh let's say out of out of ten setups probably you make money on seven. And out of those seven you make a lot of money on two and on five you make, you know, a little bit of money on. And and those two that that where they really go in your favor, you know, they'll pretty much account for uh for eighty percent of your of your overall profit.

I read an article uh the other day and I think you wrote it on uh Doctor Brett Steinberger's blog, which I thought was really interesting and I'd like it if you could share uh some of that with the listeners and it was about One of the most practical habits that has helped you as a trader. So, what is that practical habit? Would you mind sharing that with us?

Um are are you talking about studying fast winners? Yeah, it was about going over charts of sort of the best performing stocks on on multiple time frames. Yeah, yeah, I already talked about it uh here. Yeah. Every single day I I go over the the best performing stocks on on on multiple time frames. So I I keep a j I keep a trading journal.

And and on on that trading journal, uh, you know, I I I don't I not only review my my trades, I only review my uh missed opportunities, and the missed opportunities of course of course came from uh studying those past winners. So I'm I'm looking at the same thing.

For those best performing stocks, let's say on a weekly time frame, and I'm asking myself, why didn't I miss that move? Uh because b based on s on studying those past winners that have built several different uh screens that they run throughout the day. Because I have reverse engineered based on the based on my study of past winners.

So I'm looking, why did I miss that move? And uh should I create a should I uh you know change my current screen, should I create a new screen so next time I I don't I don't uh miss it? even even though I I know that's there is no way I could catch them all. But I'm constantly trying to trying to improve. Uh by studying past winners and by keeping a journal and you know constantly t uh trying to tinker my my screens. Okay, yeah, that's really good. So

All right Ivan, well let's start to wind this down. So let me ask you one of my favourite questions and that is What's the top reason you believe why the majority of traders never reach a high level of success? Because often traders sit out with big dreams and plenty of ambition and enthusiasm, but somewhere along the way this sort of fades out and it doesn't get them there. So where is the disconnect? Like why do the majority of traders fail?

Why? Um I d I I think they they they don't concentrate so all their at the beginning first they they don't have an most people don't have an edge. And uh once you find a setup with an edge, most people don't concentrate enough efforts on learning everything about that setup and uh making it profitable for them. You know, m most people just try something

And if they see that it doesn't work, you know, on in a few weeks they'll try something else. They they constantly jump from one thing to another and they never really become masters of one particular setup. And I think at the beginning if you really learn one great setup and just you know the first couple of years just straight

Specifically that one setup and and of course you have to know when to trade it because there'll be there will be time when you have to sit on the sideline and do nothing because you know your specific setup won't have an edge. If you do that, you know

Oh over time over time you'll you become really successful and over time you'll be able to start adding new setups. So at the beginning, you know, less is more you you have to you have to concentrate on that one setup. And and there are so many actually working setups that are shared for free in the public domain or you can get them in in a

There's so many really good books. You can get them for really cheap and just uh just just take a setup from another trader that's you know it's already profitable and uh you can tinker it. uh you know, to your own uh you know, lifestyle or based on your own uh study of of past winners.

Yeah, I love that answer. That's really good. You t you've made a lot of really valuable points in there. So Ivan, thanks again so much for coming on. You've you've given some incredible answers and incredible insights. So you've been an awesome guest. Before we bring this to a close

Uh, can you share with listeners where they can learn more about you and your trading and, you know, any sites they should check out? Uh so I'm I'm active on on Stock Tweets and on uh Twitter and uh I'm using the handle at uh Ivanhof. Ivan H O F and I also uh run a couple of sites. It's ivanhof.com and then the other one is socioleverage fifty.com. And you can, you know, just ping me on on Twitter or on Stock Tweet. Okay, good one. I'll put make sure to put links to

uh everything you mentioned there in the show notes at chatwithraders dot com and just click on episode twenty four. Um and just you mentioned there social leverage fifty. Do you just want to give us an overview on on what that site's all about? Uh yeah, it's a trading service that I that I run with uh Howard Linson and it pretty much uh help helps uh traders and aspiring investors to to be more profitable. in the markets and just to accelerate their learning curve.

Sure, that's really good. So I mean check that out. And um yeah, again, all the links will be in the show notes. Ivan, thanks so much for coming on, man. Take care and we'll speak to you soon. All right, thank you, man. You've come to the end of this episode of Chat with Traders, but don't worry, more great episodes are on the way. Leave us a rating and review. On Shat with Traders.