066: Dan Shapiro – Blocking Excess Noise, Establishing Your Process and Getting Screen Time

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Chat for more information. Tasty Trade Inc. is a registered broker dealer and member of FINRA, NFA, and SIPC. Podcast. What's up team? You're listening to episode sixty-six right now, and a big thanks for being here. This week we have returning guest Dan Shapiro who was first on episode 32. And after receiving a lot of really great feedback from that interview, I knew I would have to have him back on. So here we are. Dan works on an intraday timeframe and predominantly trades high beta stocks.

He's been trading for 16 years and during this time has experienced the extreme highs and lows that this business can throw at you. For a good part of his career, Dan was heavily involved in the prop world, but now trades independently from New York. Over the next 60 minutes you'll gain some insight to Dan's methodology, thoughts on managing risk, an outsider's view on the current state of prop trading, and much, much more.

This interview will leave you with plenty to think about and may even help you to adjust your mindset if that's something which is holding you back. Anyway, guys, I hope you enjoy it. I hope you find this really helpful. I'm Aaron Firefeld, and here is my guest, Dan Shapiro. Dan Shapiro, welcome back man. What's up? How's things? What's up, buddy? How are you? I am doing very well. It's great to be speaking with you again now.

Last time we really honed in on the psychology side of trading and we covered uh fairly extensively your journey coming up as well. This time we're obviously going to change things up, so I think a good place to kick things off would be by discussing your actual method and the way you approach trading.

Now I know a big part of what you do is based upon pivots. So first up, what is a pivot? Well l let me let me let me start off this way. First of all I want to thank you uh very much uh for having me on. Uh you know, it looks like we had a lot of great feedback the first time around and uh you know this time around we kind of wanted to give the people more of a kind of a macro micro type of environment of what actual a trader goes through. More more more importantly.

uh what myself. Uh just kind of diving into the pivots. You know, f first and foremost, you know, the the word pivot, okay, if you really think about the word pivot, and um a lot of people use the word A pivot first of all is a directional an area of a chart.

chart uh that potentially can shift in direction. Now a lot of people use different pivot points, all these different macro studies, this, that, the other thing. I use them a little bit differently. Um I actually uh have created Um a system out of pure um out of pure uh desperation, I had a I had a weak run. Maybe three, four day run about two years ago. Which I couldn't really get anything going. I just couldn't let anything going. And the one thing that I do every single time

I can't get anything going, I can't make, I can't lose. I try to start looking at charts, like the same way I started looking at charts back in two thousand three, how to look for a different arbitrage, different edge. And about two years ago I said what I said to myself, well w what's not working now? Like why is the market so stagnant? Is it me? Is it the market? Is it the is it the sentiment? What about this period in the last three, four days that I can't figure out?

And what I do out of you know pure desperation every single time because I always know. the market is always changing every single day, every single interval, because of technology, because of new market participants, because of the inflows in capital, whether it's government, individual, retail, institutional, whatever the case may be, the market's constantly changing.

So, I constantly want to go back and see where I can find my defined edge. And about two years ago, I started looking at charts. Now, I I didn't look at charts to see where a stock can be going. Okay. I I don't care where it's the next move to go. Anybody could look at a chart and say, well the m you know, the high for the stock is twenty and the stock is basing out in five days and if it takes out that twenty it should go higher. I don't care about that.

Uh what's more important to me is how did the stock get to that twenty, right? How did it get to the twenty? Why did a stock go from seventeen to eighteen, from eighteen to nineteen, nineteen to twenty, and here we are present day. So I started looking And I came to a real realization that pivots by themselves May or may not be a directional potential shift in direction, right? Everybody knows it because everybody used the word pivot very, very differently.

But then I stumbled upon after doing thousands of charts and countless of hours of back testing and it felt like I was doing it for a year, but it was literally I was doing it for two days. Um I noticed that charts by themselves, pivots by themselves, are kind of a coin flip. You know, maybe the stock goes higher, maybe the stock goes lower. But what I found out if a stock

is a potential pivot and it hits a supply or demand zone. Okay. And again, for those who don't know what a supply or demand zone is, it's any moving average. Any Bollinger band, any linear regression line, anything that you could put on your chart, a lot of squiggly lines, right? A lot of lines, a lot of data. Anything that you could put on the chart that will show you a point where emotional buyers, me technical sellers,

Or emotional sellers meet technical buyers. Now, when you combine with that on a 60-minute interval, right, on a 60-minute interval, it gives you a very, very defined, clean look. Now

As everybody knows, I am one of the most outspoken person about social media. I think social media is the best and the worst thing that could possibly happen to a new trader. I think there's so many opinions out there and ninety nine percent are just complete nonsense, complete garbage.

And in fact, with so much information, so much information or overflow, I think there is so much garbage out there, but there is a lot of depth as well. If you can go through all the garbage, you could find that one diamond in the rough. And for years and years and years because social media has been stationalizing the happy action, you know, I'm gonna be trading on a pool, I'm gonna be trading on a yacht, diamond rings, you know, uh Ferraris, you know, this, that, the other thing.

It's all action. Everybody has been brought to the attention that trading is fun. It's exciting. It is the place to be. And the most important thing that everything got thrown down the throats, especially for new traders, is the one minute interval. Right, Aaron? You hear this all the time. Well, if you look at the one minute chart, it's breaking out on the one minute chart. If you look at the one minute chart, it's breaking down on the one minute chart.

The problem with the one minute chart, think about this. You have 392 one minute charts. For the whole day, right? Three hundred and ninety two. I look at six, okay. I look at six sixty-minute candles. Within that within that 392 uh one-minute channels, okay, you have a whole bunch of uneducated Underfunded No process.

No pain tolerance, bunch of traders. Correct? And everybody's asking, where is my stop? And within that one minute channel, you can't be right within that second. You have to be literally right within that minute because Every minute that goes by, think about what happens. You get more players that come into the, you know, into the stock. You have more uneducated day traders, and then you have the funds that come in. Because remember, day traders and fund managers are two different things.

So for example, if a stock is breaking out on a one-minute channel and David Einhorn comes in and says, you know what, I want to sell a million shares of this stock, you my friend, are getting stopped out. So there's a lot of noise going into all these one minute channels. But you've been kind of not you, but you know the social media environment as as a whole.

has been forced down their throats to say this is normal. The one minute channel is normal. But the problem is and the bottom line is everybody keeps on getting stopped out on that one minute cycle. You're constantly getting new uh new participants joining into the next one minute cycle and then all you're doing is spinning your wheels, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, the broker dealer wins.

Um and that's not normal to me. You know, that's not normal to me. What normal for me is when I found in the last two years. were you can completely remove all the noise. You can completely remove all the noise. You can completely remove all the buyers and sellers, you know, the organic players that are coming to the channel. And I notice if a stock we can we call it a pivot.

If a stock is pivoted, it goes against supply or goes against demand, and the next candle confirms that supply or demand on a sixty minute view, there's a good chance that the stock is going to go your way. And what I found, and again, basically outside of my live webinar, there's two other of my buddies who trade this. You can't find this on YouTube. You can search any strategy on the planet on YouTube, opening range highs, buying IPOs, selling IPOs.

Uh within the first thirty minutes of the day, this, that, the other thing, you'll never find this because again, it's not normal, right? But again, if ninety percent of the people are in the same stocks, ninety percent of the people are losing money in these stocks, how could the one minute channel be normal?

So what I found two years ago, there is a definitive advantage. There is a definitive edge kind of removing all the noise and instead of watching three hundred and ninety-two one-minute channels. All I'm watching throughout the day is six 60 minute channels. That's it. And when the stock violates the top of the range, and builds upon that level, I go long And when the stock b breaks below that range.

and and starts building below that pivot, I go short. And as long as there room, right? As long as there room in the trade that stocks go from supply to supply, from demand to demand, it's a valid setup. Now again, the one analogy that I always talk about, especially in the live webinar

It's called the Barry Sanders effect. Okay. Barry Sanders, especially for all you guys who are in the UK and Europe who are not familiar with the NFL, Barry Sanders was one of the greatest running backs of all time. Okay. And he uh used to run behind one of the worst offensive lines in NFL history in the Detroit on the Detroit Lions. And he would have a you know, he would have a game or he would have a half. that he would run the ball fifteen times for thirty two yards.

Right? 15 times for 32. He just couldn't get going. And then next thing you know, in the third quarter, he breaks a run for sixty seventy yards and he scores a touchdown. That's the whole point of the PS 60 theory. That's the whole point of trading 60 minute channels. Most stocks are not tradable. Right? Most stocks are not tradable. Every stock moves.

But most stocks are not tradable. So every time you're trying to trade a stock that is just moving, that's not tradable, you're going to get stopped like Barry Sanders did for two yards, right? And you're going to get stopped 20 times a day. But that one chart, right, or that two charts, or that three setups throughout the day, that supply gets confirmed on another 60-minute channel.

To the upside or to the downside, that's your home run. That's your cash flow. That's your Barry Sanders effect. You need room to run. You need valid setups. You gotta get rid of all the noise. And instead of being the normal the one minute rah rah rah cisboomba social media bungee jumping off their off their uh toilet bowls, you are looking at now very, very patiently, sixty minute channels that confirmed and once they confirm, it works very, very well. So

Uh it's a completely different theory. I know people who are listening to it at home are just like what the hell is he talking about? But it's real. Uh I've been putting uh the price action on social media, especially Twitter. way before the price action because again I want to show people the power of how these pivots get confirmed and when they confirm they confirm very very well and especially uh via the high beta name.

Okay, okay. Awesome. Well, we're off to a a running start. So Dan Shapiro, how do you identify a pivot on a chart? I mean, I'm sure there are various indicators that may do this for you. Do you use any of these or do you just Um do it by eye. Yeah, h here's here's the deal. As as everybody knows, I am probably

the self-proclaimed king of the idiots. Okay. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I've been doing this for sixteen years. I've been doing this since the end of ninety nine. So I I've got a lot of screen time. Okay. I've got a lot of screen time. I understand how stocks organically should trade. I understand how they shouldn't trade. I understand what happens or more important, what should happen. Okay.

And most of the charts that I trade, uh I trade a lot of high beta. You know, I trade a lot of high beta. The Fang stocks, you know, your Apples, your Googles, your Amazons, Netflix and Tesla are my two favorite stocks. Uh but on my charts and I use eSignal and I and then the funny thing is I don't use eSignal the ones that everybody else uses eSignal. I have an upgraded eSignal.

In the last, I would say, probably a decade. Okay. So my e signal is probably completely different than everybody else's e signal, because technology zones, I'm not. Um but what I do is I put in all these moving averages. Okay. My my chart looks like Like a a six year old took a crayon and went out of their minds. Okay. So I have the five, ten, twenty, fifty, one hundred, one hundred and fifty, two hundred day moving averages.

both EMA and SMA. Uh I use Bollinger bands and I use the most underutilized supply or demand zone known as the linear regression line, uh which uh e signal that's what it's called. If you use uh TC two thousand, I believe it's called the LR thirty. So yeah I have all these squiggly lines. Okay. Uh why is it important? You know, why is it important to have all these squiggly lines that a six year old could have drawn

uh with their crayon. Because again, before you put on a trade, remember Stocks just don't stop by themselves. Okay. There's no magical place that a stock is gonna stop. Okay. It's not random. It's like I say it all the time: it's like the the cartoon, The Wily Coyote and the Roadrunner, right? The wily coyote. throws an anvil, right? Throws an anvil off of a mountain.

And it stops in midair right before it hits the roadrunner in the head and it goes right back up and hits the you know hits the coyote back in the head. Stocks don't stop randomly. All these supply zones, every single moving average supply zone, Bollinger Band, linear regression line that I mentioned, they're points of reference. That's where the bodies are laid. And if you don't know they're there, okay, if you don't know they're there. How are you supposed to exit?

How are you supposed to know where the stock is going? Okay. How are you supposed to know if the stock has room for 30 cents of upside or three cents of upside? Because again, supply zones when they hit nine out of ten times they're gonna go back the other way and they need to confirm to go higher.

And there's never, okay, there's never um a guarantee that these things will ever go higher. So you need to know where the bodies are placed. So I have all these supply zones on my 60-minute chart. Remember, it's all 60-minute chart. Every chart forms a candle every hour on the hour. So I'm only waiting for six candles the whole day. Now a lot of traders, and you hear this all the time, especially on social media, which obviously you get all your great information from, you gotta be patient.

You gotta stay patient. Most traders don't know what they what they're patient for. It sounds, you know, it sounds reasonable. Sure, of course you wanna be patient. You wanna be patient in a bull market when there's a rabid bull market and and and they're just throwing money at you left and right. But more important is most traders don't know what they're patient for. What exactly are you waiting for? So if you don't know all these grenades, all these missiles are pointed right at you.

How are you supposed to think about this logically? How are you supposed to navigate through a room full of bombs, landmines, if you don't know where they're placed? Once you have all these lines in front of you, and again, kind of goes back to the Barry Sanders effect. If you don't know where all these

Defensive ends and middle linebackers and uh safeties and cornerbacks are ready to tear your head off, right? Because again, technical sellers meet emotional buyers and obviously vice versa. How are you supposed to navigate through the trade? So what I do is when I'm looking at these sixty-minute charts, and for example, if I'm trading Tesla, for example, and I say to myself, well

Let's just use, you know, I I don't even know where Tesla closed even today. Two oh eight, right? Let's just say two oh eight. Okay. But I look at the supplies and I say to myself, well, the next room, right? The next stock, because again, if you believe the theory that stocks go from supply to supply. and support the support, the next supply zone, whether it's the twenty, the thirty, whatever the hell moving average it is.

It's only 30, 40 cents higher, then you say to yourself, is the trade worth taking? Is the trade, you know, a high beta name like Tesla? Is it worth taking the trade for thirty, forty cents? Most of the time I'll say no because again, if I'm trading a high beta name, I want to make sure I have enough room, right? Because again, we wanna make sure we don't have

one carry for two yards, we want to make sure we have the Barry Sanders effect. The big hole opens up and now the stock is trading a dollar, two dollars, three dollars from supply to supply. So um it's it's a very simplistic way of doing it. It's in It's so important to create organic patience and I'll sit there literally like a statue waiting for these things to confirm each in previous candles as long as there's room.

To the upside of the channel, to the downside of the channel, and it confirms and builds to both sides of the direction of the market. It's a valid trade, and I take the trade usually works out pretty well. Right, right. Okay.

Now I'm sure like any type of chart pattern there are additional factors that may make this pattern stronger or either weaker. Is there anything else you like to see in combination with a pivot, you know, maybe strong volume on the previous candle or anything along those lines?

Yeah,'cause ba basically what I do is I I I try I I would say I trade, you know, ninety percent right now. I mean I've traded different things throughout the years. I I'm pretty much regulated to high beta stuff. Okay. Uh the most important thing about high beta is number one

You need to have you need to have a point of interest. Like if you're trading Netflix and you see the market like today for example, Netflix was the weakest stock out there. Matter of fact, all the fang names, all weak stock. So you have to say to yourself, well, these are all market sensitive driven securities, right? The market's up 200 points. Netflix is putting in lower highs for three consecutive candles. It finally breaks the previous candle. Can I go long?

Right? Can I go long? Well, it hasn't rallied the whole day. What makes you think it's gonna rally now? So you there's a lot of moving parts. You know, obviously when you're dealing with market sensitive instruments such as the fang names, the volume is gonna be there. Okay, the volume is gonna be there. Um so you're not really looking at volume from ratio from candle to candle. You're more concentrated on number one, the d direction direction of the move, whether it's the up and downside.

But more important, I try to pay attention to what has the stock done, whatever direction I'm looking at, what has the stock done in relation to the futures? Because again, you can be the greatest technical chartist of all time. You could have read 10,000 books. The greatest technical thing that you have going for you as a professional trader is the eyeball test, right? It's the eyeball test.

So if the futures are up 200 points and Netflix is taking out lower lows, I don't need to have six different things on the chart to tell me. Something's wrong there. Whether there's a seller they're trying to clean up, there's something wrong there. So a lot of times the biggest, you know, the biggest indication for me is what has the stock done?

in relation to the last interval of the futures. Because remember, you don't need to win the day, right? You don't need to win the day. You need to win intervals of the chart. Since there's only six intervals

You need to win any of those six intervals throughout the day. So if you're trading Netflix, you can trade it to the upside, you can trade it to the downside. If you're trading Tesla, the same thing as well. These things give you enough ranges. So a lot of the times you're trying to kind of evaluate. What have these things done in the last hour in relationship to the futures? Because again, it's common sense. And I try to look at things of common sense. If the futures are exploding,

And these stocks are taking out lows, there's something wrong. I don't need to know that the stock is weak. That is weak. Okay, it's like it's common sense. It's 30 degrees outside. It's it's it's snowing. There's hail coming down. You're not gonna take your newborn baby in a tank top and flip-flops and put him outside. It's just common sense. So a lot of times with all these stocks. It's more common sense what's happening in relation to the futures.

Have they taken out a previous high? How much volume? And again, volume plays a part in it, but again, you have to assume with their market sensitive instruments, they're going to be providing you a lot of liquidity. within interval to interval, but more important is what have they done in relationship to the futures? Do I have room in the chart? Can I validate this trade? What has the stock done in the previous candles? When the futures were actually going the wrong way.

Um so all these things you have to do'cause again, if it was as simple as buying and selling and say, all right, look. Previous high on Tesla is two eight. The futures are going higher. All right, let's buy two eight, should go to two oh nine. Just doesn't work that that way. There's so many different variables.

Uh you look at the futures, you look what the other fangs are doing, you look at the overall market sentiment, what's taking out lows, what's taking out highs, and again, you have to ask yourself all the questions, is the trade worth it? Right? Think remember. Is the trade worth it?'Cause again, at the end of the day, if the futures are exploding and Netflix is taking out the lows of the day, you say to yourself, Well, I see Netflix as weak.

But is it worth doing? Because again, at the end of the day, eventually sellers get tired, especially a day like today when the market's up two hundred points and you'll have a nasty reversal in the middle of the day from Netflix.

taking out loads through the whole day and finally exploding uh towards the middle of the part it later part of the day. So, you know, a lot of the part is, you know, a lot of the time it's watching what futures are doing. A lot of time is obviously observing what other fangs are doing. Uh a lot of time is just usually just trusting your eyeballs, just just use using common sense.

Um and more important is just remember you don't need to trade every single interval of the day. Some days will give you value and you'll have 10 trades on these things. And some days, for example, like yesterday I had two trades. Right. Yes, I had two trades and today uh I did okay today. I caught Netflix, but uh more important is uh more important is again, how do you feel? How strong is the day going? Which side is the direction of the trade are you looking to take?

More important, how much room is there in the trade? And can you validate it because of the movements in that direction of the futures?

Got it. Now you've thrown a couple of terms out there, one being fangs and the other high beta. Can you just explain those for listeners? I just want to make sure everyone's on the same page here. Yeah, so I I gotta give the credit to uh Jim Kramer. Uh he named um he gave him the name Fangs. Uh Fangs basically stand for Facebook uh Apple, uh Netflix and Google. Okay, those are the four fang stocks.

Uh but those four Fang stocks have friends. Okay. And those friends are Priceline, Baidu, LinkedIn, Tesla. Uh you could even throw in like for solar, you could throw in, for example. Um you know what else you can throw in? You could throw in, you know, VRX value, I mean anything that can put in a range, okay? Anything that could put in a range that could be traded on both sides of the ledger because the ranges are so wide.

So at any given point and any given day, you can trade these things to the long side and to the short side in the same day, because a lot of times these stocks do represent strength, they do represent weakness, all in the same channel, sometimes all in the same candle. Uh but any stock basically that you can trade without you know validating a daily chart. Cause again, remember, most traders do trade off daily charts. And you know, prior to like two, three years ago, I used to be kind of a daily

really chart trader as well. I used I never used to put in a lot of stock off the intraday stuff. Um but Um any stock that can be traded throughout the day, a big range that can be validated on both sides of the market and have enough. Uh value uh is considered a fang or a fang with friends, right? A fang with friends. Um it's basically creating volatility. And you know, obviously volatility, these things are everything uh to a guy like me.

Okay, cool. Now obviously you have, you know, some stocks which you might label as your favourites, but prior to the open Do you have a pretty good idea on what stocks you might be trading that day? And if so, how do you identify what stocks may provide opportunity for you?

Well this two yeah, that's it's a good question. Uh there's two things I I look for. So I I do I go through like five hundred charts. Um I go through like five hundred charts a night. You know, I do the you know, I do my watch list'cause again I I I truly believe Uh no matter what your levels, uh no matter what your levels of experience trading two weeks or trading twenty years.

I I think you gotta put in the work every single night. You gotta put in you know, you know, you can't just like I used to, you know, prior to like six years ago. I used to just turn on the computer and say, you know what, my God given talent is gonna make me money, this, that, the other thing, and you know, and you know, it got me very complacent, it got me very lazy.

And you know, six years ago I started a live webinar and you know I it forced me basically to sit down every single day and knock out like you know 40, 45 minutes worth of chart chart work. Uh so I look at two things. Obviously I don't need to um chart the fang names or the the high beta stuff because again

Uh as long as I know the general direction of where they are on their charts, uh correlated to what the market's doing, you know, correlated to the market sentiment, I'm kind of fine there. But what I do is I go through, you know, five hundred charts on the S P five hundred. On the IWM and I look for stocks on the daily chart uh that are coming out of a range. Um you know, I try to put down you know six to ten ideas.

for myself so I'm pr kinda prepared for these things in the morning. They could go from you know, I'm probably the only human being That could look for a dollar stock and uh a$700 stock all in the same breath. Okay, I'm the only schmuck in the world universe.

That could trade some some dollar stock and Google pretty much in the same interval, which is which is insane to even think about, but it's it's the reality, it's kind of my reality. But uh so I make a list, you know, I go through all these charts and I'm looking for stocks that are coming out of a range on the daily. Remember this is all on the daily, uh coming out of a range.

Minimum, you know, minimum five to seven days. Obviously the longer the distribution, uh the better the result will be. Okay. Uh and I'm looking for a stock stock to come out of that level, uh close above its supply. Okay. Obviously the next level of supply needs to be uh further away so I can actually validate the trade.

And if the trade hits that number the next day, I am uh you know, I'm trading it. Um what I don't do and I and I and I think this is such an important part, especially for new traders, okay, and I I wanna make this point incredibly clear.

The first day the first thing I used to speak to a lot of traders when I was in the prop industry for years and years and years, and we'll I I guess we'll we'll talk about that a little later because I know you a lot of your listeners uh send you emails regarding that. But when I was in the prop industry, the first thing A lot of new traders would do is open up that pre-market highlight. What stock is up eighty percent? What stock is up ninety percent? What stock is up two hundred percent?

And all they want to do is trade that damn stock for ten cents. Okay. And I would rather take cyanide, okay, drink it, cut off my left thumb, feed it to, you know, feed it to uh the local bear. Uh then trade that high ba that that pre market highlight.

What that pre-market high list is the complete opposite of what every new trader should be doing. Everybody wants to drive that fast car, right? Everybody wants to drive that fast car. Your Ferraris, your Bentleys, everybody wants to drive that fast car. The reality is when you're learning to drive, you want to go slow. Because you've never driven that car. And as when as everybody knows, new drivers are the worst drivers. That's why new drivers car insurance are for through the roof. Okay.

So when a trader is turning on his computer and they're seeing that A B C D, and by the way, a stock that's has three million shares in the float is up ninety percent pre-market. If that's your focus, you are gonna fail. It's just a matter of time. You're gonna fail. You might make money once, you might make money twice, but you will fail. Because again, driving a car doesn't start at 150 miles an hour. It starts by putting the key in the ignition.

Putting on your seatbelt, checking your mirrors, and then slowly, right? Slowly coming, you know, coming out of the driveway. That's why you born babies, they don't come out of the womb running, right? They come out of the womb crying. Then they can't then they eventually they develop holding up their heads, right? Then they eventually crawl and then they start walking and then they start running. So that pre market high list and pre market low list

is the biggest setback to education, to your uh educational process that any single trader does. So I have no interest, zero interest looking at these stocks. Zero. Because again, I'm not gonna buy them up to a hundred percent. I assure as well, I'm not going to short them up 200% because stocks that go up 200% could go up 400%. And I see so many tragic stories. Day in, day out, you hear all these stocks going like KBIO blowing people out and all these different stocks that go from

Three to four. Well, the stock can't go from four to five. There's no way the stock can go from seven to eight. Twelve to fourteen? Never. Next thing you know, you're uh you know sweeping the floors at a low at a local IHOP.

So I I I think the the majority of traders and un unfortunately again it goes back to the theory why social media is kind of the best and the worst thing for the development of new traders. I think they're more fixated on excitement. The thrill of the chase, the testosterone level. Is it Monday yet? Man, is it Monday? It's a whole different conversation. Trading is supposed to be boring. Okay. It's supposed to be boring. It's supposed to be lethargic.

It's supposed to be it's supposed to be a way that you can validate consolidating your business that it goes straight and narrow. It's like a restaurant. Restaurants know their busy day is going to be on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. They know, right? They know Monday is not gonna be their busy day and they accept it and they move on. With trading, it's kind of the opposite. The trading is we're gonna start on Monday and we're gonna go all the way Friday.

100 miles an hour, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. And the reality is they can't go. They don't have a process. They're underfunded. They're undereducated. They don't know what they want. They're patient, but for what they still don't know. And the moral of the story is they crash. before they actually live out their potential. So what I do is completely different. I go through my charts, I wait for the markets to open up, I wait for the pivots, because again, it forces you.

You know, watching six candles throughout the whole day, it forces you literally, right? It forces you literally to wait for these candles to form. So the first candle forms 10 a.m. Eastern time, the next candle forms 11 o'clock. So between ten and eleven, you watch to see. What Apple is doing, what Facebook is doing, what solar city is doing. And again, if they're putting in strong handles into supply.

You know you can need another candle to again confirm that candle, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. So my process is a lot different. Yes. Do I see what's upgraded? Yes, because a lot of times if you get Amazon upgrade, I want to trade Amazon. Uh again, if you want if you see, for example, Solar City get upgrade, yes, you want to trade that. But a lot of times I mo mostly go

uh through charts. I like the organic moves that go through stocks that stop at supply and I know next day if they confirm the previous day's high or confirm the previous day's low, I wanna trade it. I wanna do my very, very best Not to trade with social media. I don't want to be in the same stocks as them. I don't want to be in the same interval as them. I don't want to be fighting every single guy with a$2,000 account keeps on getting stopped out every 30 seconds. I want to be an organic.

Boring, lethargic lethargic trades that have natural buyers that clean up sellers and have natural sellers that clean up buyers. And rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. I'm I have this is not a game for me. This is not a sport. It's not fun. It's nauseating. These are on good days. But when they work, they work very, very well. And when they don't, I try to figure out why, make adjustments, and move on to the next day.

Right. Well a ton of value in that answer, Dan. Thank you very much for sharing and going into such such detail. It's really appreciated. Now At the end of the day or however often you do this, how do you reflect on your trades and review or judge your performance?

That's a good question. I I do it once a month. Um I I look at my sheets once a month. Okay. Um I fully expect and and I wanna I wanna make this I I I see this all the time on on social media. Stay humble, right? You hear that all the time? Stay humble. Put your head down, smile, and stay humble, okay? Because the market will humble you. That's all true. Okay. Here's the here's here's something that I completely disagree with. Okay. I think you have to be a good person in life.

Okay. I think you have to be a humble person in life. I think when you're a trader, you have to have a God complex. You have to believe that you could walk on water. You believe that the person on the other side of the trade, I will bankrupt your whole lifeline, okay, if you're trading improperly, okay, and I have no problem taking the food out of your kid's mouth.

Okay, that's on the trading aspect. I believe I'm a good guy, I'm a family man, I love my kids, I'm pretty pretty good in my community. Okay, I'm a very nice person, but in trading you gotta be Kobe Bryant.

You gotta be, you know, you gotta be Michael Jordan. You have to be a killer. Okay. You have to be the absolute killer. So when I'm looking at my trading, I expect every single trade that I put on, I'm gonna make money. Okay, I'm gonna make money on every single trade. Obviously, does that happen? Of course not. But you have to believe that. So, what I do is every single month at the end of the month. I'll look at my sheets and I'll look at the days and I say to myself

Well, what happened that day, right? And I'll look at the trades and I'll go back on the charts and try to figure things out. And I don't look at the the way I trade, whether it's a good thing or bad thing on a daily basis, on a weekly basis. I go through my sheets once a month, but I do truly believe

As long as you don't prostitute your process. And I don't care what your process is. You could be trading, you know, credit default swaps, you could be trading uh e-mini whatever it is, whatever your trading is, I believe that you will have periods of Dullness, right? You'll have periods of you'll go on a monster run and you'll have periods that you know what you can't get out of your own way. It's called the buzzsaw. Every single trader, for the exception of social media,

Every single trader that puts on risk, okay, is gonna run into a buzzsaw. It's inevitable. The more screen time you get, okay, the more screen time you have, and the more, you know, more hands that the market gives you.

Eventually you're gonna run into a bustle. There's been days, and I swear like the days long, every single thing that I've done for that one day, whatever random day it is throughout my career, it's been wrong. I buy the stock at the top of the channel, I get hit with a reload seller. I short the stock at the bottom of the channel. I get hit with a reload buyer. There's nothing I can do to make money that day.

Right? And I shake it off. There's nothing you could do. Because again, sometimes you'll get that two five offsuit and there's no way you could play that hand. The only thing different about that day is instead of me keep on compounding the problem and saying to myself, well, I'm only down X. But you know what? X could turn into XYZ. So you don't want to turn a band-aid, right? You don't want to turn a paper cut into a severed head.

So what I do every single month, I wanna make sure, yes, my losing days I'll have losing days, but I wanna make sure and this is where the kind of the responsibility kicks in. I want to make sure I didn't take that band-aid, right? That band-aid with all these paper cuts and turn it into a severed head. So if I see a number, okay, if I see a number that jumps at me on my sheets. I know there was something wrong that day. Whether it was something I was holding overnight

You know, obviously there's bad news that comes out all the time. Your stock could get downgraded. FDA and I try not to hold uh you know uh biotechs overnight. But you know, you never know what comes out overnight. Like a couple of years ago I was long uh uh interrupted potash, IPI, and some stupid news came out the whole sector, the whole group was down twenty-five percent the next day.

Okay, it's part of the business. So that kind of day would obviously stand out for me. But most important thing, what I do to kind of look back at a trading month, I say to myself, Well, if I made money 18 out of 22 days, 19 out of 22 days, whatever the number is. I want to make sure that days that I didn't make money, okay, or caught a buzzsaw, okay, because again, every single trader, no matter who you are, will catch that buzzsaw.

I wanna make sure first and foremost that again I can make back that day, whether it's the next trade, next two trades The next day. I just don't want to make sure I put myself in a situation being stubborn or pig headed or just being just an idiot. Okay? Because again, Meyer Hoffman used to tell me all the time: the greatest thing you could do is

Don't trade like a putts. That's it. Don't trade like a putts. The greatest advice he ever gave me. Don't trade like a putts. So as long as I never traded like a putts and those numbers that are down days are manageable. I'm fine with it. Because again, that's the cost of doing business. There's not you can't escape. There's nothing you can do. So I try to make sure those days don't jump off the page.

I wanna make sure those numbers are not exaggerated to what I normally take on my days to the downside. I try to correct it if there possibly is. If there's just one of those days that, you know what, ish happens, right? We say it all the time, ish happens, right? If it's one of those ish happens days, then you know what? I'm fine with it. Rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, go into the next month. Short memory. It's just part of the cost of doing business. Next trade, next trade, next trade.

Okay, Dan. So while we're on this subject, let's move a little deeper into risk management and position sizing. There were a few questions that actually came through on Twitter about this. Um so can you talk to us about how you actually measure the size of your positions?

Well look let me say this. I I wanna actually break this down because it's different how I do it. I've been doing this for sixteen years. Okay. I I let me let me tell you what the the advice I give to new traders. Okay. Number one, most new traders again, as we all know, are undercapitalized. Okay.

And there's a whole theory out there. So many different weird ways of of kind of doing risk management. This is what I tell my guys. This is what when I was in the prop business, this is what I t used to tell all my traders. If your account size is$25,000, okay, if your account size is$25,000, the maximum, maximum fixed risk on every single trade should be 1%, right? 1%. That should be your maximum risk.

Now here's where things get very, very good for you. Okay, here's where get good for you. So let's just say for example, a stock closes and again, goes back to the five hundred charts previous night to get to your Uh to get to your homework the next day. So let's say Solar City, you know, closed at twenty-four, you know, twenty-four. 75, right? 2475. Um the high for that day was 25 bucks. So I know going into the next trading day, if it takes out twenty five bucks.

I want to belong the stock. Okay. So let's say you have a$25,000 account, right? 1% of$25,000 is$250. Correct? So that is your max risk. That is your max risk. So you know going into the trade, okay, how many shares, what's the biggest bang for my buck that I could put on. Still have a fixed cost of twenty-five, you know, two hundred and fifty dollars, okay, and get the biggest bank to the upside if the stock works. So you say to yourself, well, I'm buying the stock at twenty-five.

Stock closed the previous day at twenty four seventy five. So if the stock fails, right, stock fails, my maximum pain is two hundred and fifty dollars. twenty five cents. So I'm buying a thousand shares, right? So if the stock goes, goes up a dollar, goes up two dollars, you're risking twenty two hundred and fifty dollars to make a thousand, two thousand, et cetera. For example, if you buy a$5 stock, right? A$5 stock, stock closed at$4.95.

You're buying the stock at five, you know you have a five cent rix max. You know your fixed rate, your fixed cost is two hundred and fifty dollars. So you say to yourself, how many shares can I maximize? What again, the biggest max pain is one percent of my account, which is two hundred and fifty dollars. And your upside is again where the chart looks. So you say to yourself, well, five cents,$250 risk, I'm buying 5,000 shares.

So the closest you are, okay, the closer you are to the entry, okay, the closer you are to the entry for the previous day's closing price, you can tear up or tear down and give yourself the biggest bang for your bucks.

Your max pain is always fixed. And what that does, it takes the complete emotional part of the trade out of the way. You don't need to you don't need to forecast. You don't need to overthink. Oh, there's a buyer, there's a seller, there's a buyer, there's a seller. You can let the trade play out organically. Okay, you can let it out play organically. You don't need to overthink. You already know your max pain.

And you're saying yourself, What's the most amount of shares that I could buy within this interval? that it's if it goes, it's gonna work very, very big. And if I'm down, you know what? I'm still down that one percent. So again, you buy the stock at five, the stock goes to five fifty in two days.

You're up two twenty five hundred bucks and your max pain again, your fixed max pain is still that two hundred and fifty dollars. You could do that with Google, you could do that with Apple. So again, you have a twenty five thousand dollar account. Maybe you know.

Maybe$25,000 account is a little bit of a of a hard stretch trade trading Google. But let's just say, you know, you say to yourself, okay, I'm risking Google, you know, I'm risking Google. You know, the previous day's high was I just pick a number, 750, whatever it was. seven fifty. The clo stock closed at seven forty eight, right? Seven forty eight.

What is the maximum shares I can buy? Okay, and sell have my fixed cost, my max pain that I could trade Google, not get shaken out and still said the same thing. So you say yourself, well. I could buy roughly a hundred shares of the stock, I'm risking two, two and a half points, and if the stock goes and again everybody knows how Google could run and goes on a multi day run, you can make twenty, thirty points in Google.

So th the best thing for new traders is is stop overthinking. Because remember, there's only three parts of a trade. Just think about that. There's only three parts of the trade. It's the process. Right? Your tier size and the result. There's nothing else. Okay. There's nothing else. But if you can. Intelligently, okay, understand your max pain. If you can't intelligently have the proper tier size.

your result is already lost because all your emotions are already, you know, already engulfed in the first two, you know, the first two parts of that trade. So if you're if you're buying a stock, right, if you're buying a stock and you can't sit in the trade for 10 cents, you're trading way too much size.

Right? Way too much size. Because I I hear it all the time. Well, the stock is not going. Well, the stock is down seven cents against you. Yeah, but the stock is not going. Then thirty minutes later, the stock takes out the highs of the day. So tier size is very, very, very important, but more important their tier size

is having your fixed you know your fixed uh max pain. So if you go into every single trade and you say to yourself, I'm a new trader, I'm going with that one percent, I'm going for that one percent maximum drawdown per position. Now all I need to do is figure out from the time that I'm entering the trade to my whatever my stop is, whether it's on the 15 minute chart, your your maximum drawdown to the downside or on the daily chart from where the stock previously closed.

I already know by max pain, the dollar amount. Now I have to figure out the correlated number of shares, how much to buy, and then I give myself the biggest bang for my buck. Because again, it's all about risk-defined trade. If you if you're risking a thousand dollars to make, you know, three hundred dollars, you're wrong. If you're risking

five hundred dollars to make two hundred dollars, you're wrong. But if you if you put aside an allocated percentage, which is a one percent basis, which I always tell new traders to do You already know your max pain. You can do the numbers very, very quickly in your head. What's the difference between the closing price and the entry in the next previous day? Give yourself the biggest bang for your buck. Let the stock run.

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Now this is probably a good point to ask another question which came through on Twitter. Um If you're an undercapitalized trader, Should you wait and save until you do have sufficient capital or should you consider trying to get into a prop firm? And I know you're a good person to ask about this considering your background. So um give us your take.

L let me let me let me give you let me give you the reality. Okay. The prop business that I came from, and we're quote unquote the prop business now is apples and oranges. Okay. Back in the day in the prop business, okay, you could you could put up twenty five grand and have

three million dollars worth of intraday buying power. Okay. At certain points in the prop business, hell, you didn't even have to put up any any of your own money. And you still had, you know, eighty, ninety percent payout, okay? The firms made so much money, so much money on commissions, we didn't care what we were

If you if you remember that interview uh I uh uh Peter from Lucci did with me and Meyer, you know, we used to pay three cents a share. Three cents a share. Used to do millions of shares, millions of shares a month. Think about how much money that is. So these firms didn't care. You could be down a hundred grand for the day. If you made, you know, if you made$250,000 in commissions, what's the difference? Right? They let you keep your account open. The game has changed.

Okay, the game has changed years ago. The prop business is dead. There's there's five Four or five major players left. Okay, four or five major players left. Nobody wants to take a risk anymore. Okay. Uh that that is for for sure. Nobody wants to take any risk anymore. Before man, they used to say, Hey, listen, you wanna go in three million overnight, do it. You used to go in a million overnight, do it. Blah blah blah blah blah. If you're wrong, you're wrong.

You know, you could always make it back. You could go into the firm's money. Now it's just it's more focused on education. Again, I don't wanna t use any names. A lot of places and again you kinda you guys kinda know who they are on social media. They realize the money is not in the commission business anymore.

It's not. Nobody's doing volume anymore. Okay. Guys I know that used to trade five, 10 million shares a month are trading 800,000 shares a day, uh, 800,000 shares a month because again, there's not enough value throughout the day. Again, the game has completely changed. So the firms realize there's no money left in commissions. That's why, you know, firms like Schoenfeld three years ago.

Like in the summertime fired like a hundred traders. You know, all these different firms are getting rid of traders because again, the talent out there doesn't complement their business model anymore. It doesn't work that way. So they figured out, you know what, there's no money in commission anymore. Yeah, we have our core guys, they're still doing their volume, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's all gravy and stuff. But they realized a long time ago, the money's not in commission.

The money right now is in education, right? Think about that. That's the big word right now: education. So they started doing a lot of in-house seminars. uh you know talking about daily uh you know weekend you know weekend um weekend events two three day events they're selling this they're selling that and that's all good okay so for me to turn around to a new trader and say hey look

I know you're undercapitalized. You know what? You should go trade prop number one, nobody's hiring. Okay. And if they are hiring, okay, and if if they are hiring, they're not gonna let you take any risk. They're not gonna let you take any risk.

And yeah, you're probably not gonna you're probably not gonna put up any capital, okay,'cause a lot of the firms, if they're on SIBO, Philix, whatever, you know, again I'm I'm kind of out of touch with it'cause I've been out of the prop business uh for a number of years now. But I used to be in the business for years.

I mean for years. So I I know kind of everything about it. I know, you know let's just say that. I know a lot about it. Okay. So for for a new trader to to get hired, right? They get hired, they're coming out of college, they get hired. Number one, no, the firm is not giving you any risk capital to trade. Okay. They're making you trade a hundred share lots.

Uh okay, you're making your hundred share lots and again if you're learning on somebody else's dime, that's fine, okay? But you are not getting the true nature of the beast. You're just not. You're not getting the true nature of the beast of the physical actual proactive part of trading on an every single day basis. So the prop business is dead. It's dead. I mean let's I I'm being completely honest. I have a lot of good friends still in the prop business.

all in the New York City area. Everybody knows each other in the New York City area. But the majority of the firms in the New York City area are right now going into the educational space because they can make a half a million, a million dollars in revenues a month. Opposed to hiring the trader, have them sit there, risk their money, this, that, the other thing, and make and make two grand a month off commissions off them. So the game has changed.

Really believe, okay, if you don't have the 25,000, okay, don't go to one of these offshore quote unquote prop places. They're they're bookies. They're they're bookies. If you're If your account is in Bermuda, okay, they're a bookie. They're a bookie. They're not a broker. They're a bookie. Okay. So they're telling you you could trade with a little as little as a thousand dollars. They're a bookie. Okay. I don't even know if if you're actually even trading money. They're a bookie.

And they're telling you, well, there's no pattern day trading rule and again this is the the word pattern day trading rule is something new to me. I only learned this phrase three years ago. Again, I still don't understand, which I and I actually do understand why the government

thinks that people are not sophisticated enough to trade their own capital under twenty five. Like what's the difference if you're trading twenty four thousand, twenty six thousand? Why are you more sophisticated at twenty six thousand than you are at twenty four thousand? But what I would definitely suggest a new trader to do, if you are under Uh the pattern day trading rule and I'm not the aficionado of the pattern day trading rule. I know nothing about it.

But I do know I think it's what, three, four day trades a week, something like that. What I would do is if you have twenty thousand dollars, okay, instead of having one account with four trades a week. Open up three accounts, right? Three accounts with then you get what uh eleven twelve trade uh day trades a week.

And you kinda you know can you kinda build it up until until uh until you have the twenty five thousand. But people ask me all the time, what's the you know, what's the good amount of money? Right? What's a good amount of money to trade? I say a lot. Right? A lot. And after you have a lot, add a lot more. There's there's no magical number. But again, I do feel for the people who are trading uh under the cap uh under the twenty five thousand.

Uh you know, I again that the whole prop world, it's dead. It's it's dead. It's just a reality. It's dead. I used to be, uh I used to be, I used to have offices in Ascent, I used to have offices in generic. Um you know, it's it it's dead money. It's not the same business anymore.

The one tip that I will give to your uh to your listeners, and a lot of people don't know this, and now now that I'm out of the business, I you know I don't mind sharing with this. You are a commodity, okay? No matter how old of a trader you are, how new or how season of a trader, you are you are a commodity. Because the firms are not doing the numbers they used to do.

You, my friend, are barry bonds to them. Okay. So every single account they have is a commodity. So if you're coming in there and they and you could negotiate Any commission rate you want. Okay. So if Ameritrade tells you, and again, I have no idea what Ameritrade charges, but if Ameritrade charges, say, for example,$7.99 a trade, you could come in there and say, you know what, I want to go negotiate an aggressive, you know, an aggressive rate.

Clearance, guys, is virtually free. Okay. Clearance is virtually free for the broker dealer. So any number that's coming in over X. is very, very profitable. So if you're a trader that's doing a million, two million shares a month and you're trading for like seven bucks, you could get your commission rate to like a dollar fifty, man. You could you just gotta you just put most people don't know about it. If you're doing volume,

You are a commodity to the firm. So if you're doing a million, two, three million shares and you're paying three, four bucks a share, come into them and say, you know what? I want, you know, I want. You'll I I want uh I want a dollar fifty. I want uh a dollar. You know, throw in the ECN. So you know what or

I'm gonna leave. I bet you if you're pulling in two, three million shares a month, I bet you you will get a ph phone call uh from that broker dealer and they will restructure your commission rate. So uh if you you you definitely wanna get your cost down, that's first and foremost. Um You definitely want to set up your business. You know, don't you know don't uh be cheap with your business.

Uh get good chart padding uh chart packages, uh get good software, you know invest in your business, invest in yourself. You know, you are the must follow. You see this all the time on social media. That guy is a must-follow. Ooh, he's a must-follow. You're the must-follow. Okay. You're the superstar. Okay. You're the guy. Okay. You're the girl. Okay. You are the superstar in the making.

You just don't know it yet. Okay. You just don't know it yet. Because the difference between you and a person who's been doing this for for for many, many years is screen time. So you have to do whatever you need to be done, whatever needs to be done. For you to become that superstar. So don't salivate it with some random avatar on social media is trying to get to you. Okay.

It is nothing out there that somebody can show you that you can't figure out for yourself very, very quickly. Okay. So you are the rising star. All you need to do is position your business the right way. Because again, a a steakhouse, for example, like Old Homestead in Manhattan or Peter Lugas for example in Brooklyn, very, very famous, uh very, very famous steakhouses.

They're not gonna serve their steaks on paper dishes. Okay, they're not gonna prostitute your business their business. So why should you? Right? Invest in your business, you know, get a aggressive commission rate. Okay. Do what you have to do to get enough.

capital, okay, that your business runs smoothly. So you don't have to worry about being right on a one minute in the one minute interval. Because again, if you're under capital capitalized, that means again, you already have no pain tolerance. You already have no valid process. You already are sweating. The first thing you're asking already is where's my stop before the trade is even put on? Okay. I don't remember the last time I

I thought that the trade didn't work out. But again, the difference between me and somebody that's just opening up their first brokerage account on Monday is screen time. The more scenarios you see, The more hands that you're played, the more things that you figure out what not to do. The value is not learning what to do. It's learning what not to do. Because remember, the value in your account is not the money you make, it's the money you save.

So get your ducks in a row. If you have cash flow problems, again, would I go on the route of what I did borrowing money from a loan shark? Probably not. Okay. But again, I did what I had to do at that time. Okay. Um, you know. Would I max out credit cards? Probably not, but there's a will and a way you'll get the capital, you'll build your accounts very, very slowly, organically, boring, right? Like watching molasses, watching, you know, watching paint dry.

And eventually, again, with enough screen time, uh, once you get your process, and again, whatever your process is, it could be an option trade, whatever it is, you'll be that rising superstar and you will be the Mushalo. Awesome advice there, Dan. Now you mentioned in their um platforms and software uh and you also mentioned earlier that you do use eSignal.

Um, is there any other platforms or software that you use on a day-to-day basis? Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. So in two thousand three, I was trading uh I was trading in a firm called uh Spectrum Securities, right? That got bought out by uh Schoenfeld Securities. In 2003, uh, right after I left, I went to uh a hedge fund by the name of Gould Capital. I was the absolute worst trader on the planet there.

But this guy, Steve Goodo, was friends with this guy named Dan Merkin. Okay. Dan Merkin, I'm sure all you listeners know. Is the CEO and founder of Trade Ideas. Okay. And I started using Trade Ideas. At that, you know, the 2003, I think their company was only in. A year or two old, he sent me a bunch of t-shirts, trade ideas, and I started hang hanging hanging them out.

Okay. So I've been using trade ideas. Uh it's a it's a I'm sure your your your your f your followers and listeners know a lot more than I do about their technology and you you should really have Dan Merkin on your show. Uh great you know he's not a tr he's he's not his his platform is Um the whole artificial intelligence behind the trading and the kind of the the engine that runs it.

But I use trade ideas for my uh intraday real-time filters. Uh indirectly, indirectly, I think I must have given Dan and the whole team of trade ideas. probably over three hundred traders uh throughout the last you know you know the last thirteen years. Um you know it's I don't even know how much it costs. I have no idea how much it costs. I I know it's not expensive. Uh I used to tell Dan Merkin all the time: if you would charge$500 a month, it'd be worth it and probably be still cheap.

So uh you know, you guys, you know, go, you know, e use pr you follow uh I think Dan Merkin's um Twitter handle is Trade Ideas One. Uh good guy, he'll help you out, greatest technology out there. Uh so I use that. Uh I have been using eSignal for you know for god knows how long. The only bad thing with me, because I am the absolute worst, I don't upgrade anything. Okay, so I've been using the same Um I've been literally using the same version of eSigle

For like eight years, I've been using the same version of trade ideas since like 2003. So what you what your listeners use and what I use is like completely two different products. But I love it. I love it. I would h I would definitely highly uh recommend uh not necessarily eSignal'cause e signal, you know, e signal is good. I'm just used to it. So I can't really say eSignal is better or worse than anything else out there. I'm just kind of a creature of habits, I've been using it for years.

But trade ideas is is dope, man. It's it's really good. They have a lot of bells and whistles. They're structured for any type of trader. Uh I know Dan for you know for since two thousand and three, and because I was the absolute worst trader in the world.

in Goodoo Capital, that's how I met Dan,'cause you know, he Steve turned me on to Dan and he gave me his platform and I started getting profitable somewhere like around two thousand and middle two thousand and three, two thousand and four. Coincidence? I don't know, but

Uh in all in all all sincerity and all honesty, it's a great product. I think uh your your your listeners uh should definitely check it out. Sure thing, sure thing. All right, Dan. Well I think we've pretty much run through everything that I wanted to cover. Um is there anything that you want to add or are we good for now?

Yeah, the only thing the only thing I want I want you listeners to understand, okay, and you know I'm not you know I'm probably the biggest Anti Christ when it comes to social media. I've been doing this for sixteen years. Um I've seen everything in this business. Okay. I mean literally I've seen there's nothing that could happen to me in this business that that that I could Ever put on

put out to my worst enemy. Okay. So I've been run through the ringer in this business over and over again. Okay. So every single day that I make money, lose money, that I'm still in the game. I'm very, very fortunate because I know how long and how desperate it took me and how many desperate years of trial and error it took me.

to um you know to get to where I put to the where point I am. And that point is being very, very comfortable mind skin. I don't need to, you know, answer to anybody. I don't need to apologize. or show this or show off or anything less. I I live a very, very comfortable life. Um, I've been in this business for a very long time. When I see the circus that's going on on social media. It's a disgrace to they people call themselves traitors.

That they claim that they do the same thing for a living as I do. And I know that every single day, whether win, lose, or draw, and I've had some really good days. The vomit that's pouring out of all my pores is the reality of trading. So for all you listeners, aspire, especially you all you aspiring traders. Understand this. You gotta put in the time. Nobody, you know, nobody's entitled to give you anything. Okay.

uh this business so you can surround yourself with good people, it's not a team game. You are Tiger Woods. Okay. You're Tiger Woods. It's you versus the field. We're all smiling dandy. Uh we could all be friends, but if you don't establish your process,

If you don't really hone your trading, a guy like me, we could be friends, I will take the money on the side of your trade, on the other side of your trade with a smile on. So remember just to kind of end this, uh, you know, first of all, I want to thank you very much for having me on again. It was it was a real pleasure. But guys, I'm telling you right now, if you want to be a trader, put in the tower, you know, put in the long hours, put in the t you know, trial and error.

Don't let anything bring you down, man. I'm telling you right now. People will doubt you. Your friends will doubt you. You will doubt yourself. I'm telling you, there's a rainbow out there, man. There's a rainbow out there. And the only thing, again, that's separating you from a guy like me is screen time. So if whatever you can do that's not gonna

Prostitute your process or shoot yourself in the foot in the meantime, that's one step closer that you're gonna live out your dreams and be a professional trader. So guys, don't give up. Keep working. Remember, you're the superstar, damn it. Not some random avatar on social media. It's you. You just haven't lived out your potential yet. Okay. Trust yourself and you're going to be great.

Love it. As I knew it would be, Dan, a absolute blast to have you back on, man. So thank you so much. My pleasure, man. Where can listeners go to find out more about you? Well, put it this way, it it's you know, the whole social media thing. I do lo I do run a live webinar. It's called uh accessatrader dot com. Uh it is a live seven hour webinar which we trade live. My s you know, my sh my screen is shared.

And I am literally speaking for seven hours a day and people ask me in the room all the time, how do you have all this energy uh to speak for seven hours a day, you know, se you know, five days a week, and I tell'em a lot of cocaine. Uh but you know the re the reality is, you know, we go through a lot of real time scenarios. We trade live every single day. There's no hidden, you know, hidden uh tapes or recorders or, you know, uh trick photography. It's just right in front of us.

It's a very good organic learning uh webinar. And you know, again, I don't promote it because I don't, you know, I don't care. My business was built organically. Uh I make my money clicking a mouse. If I want 50 new subscribers, I click a mouse and I click click it in the proper interval with extreme prejudice. Win lose a draw, I'll be back the next day. So you can find me on Twitter, it's Dan Shep55 on Stock Twist as well.

Um very accessible. If anybody has any questions, feel free to email me at accessatrader at yahoo.com. And you know, you know, I'm just a regular guy, just living the dream. Good stuff, man. Well, I really do appreciate it. Uh thanks so much for coming back on, Dan, and I'm sure um we'll stay in touch. You got it, brother. All the best. You've reached the end of this episode of Chat with Traders, but rest assured there are more out of And zero.