171: Stan Gluzman – Raid the "Money Box"

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What's up? How are you doing folks? This is episode 171 and it's with great pleasure that I introduce to you Stan Gloosman. an intraday equities trader at the proprietary firm Seven Points Capital. Stan also heads up a small team of junior traders at one of Seven Point's additional offices outside of New York in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. To give you an idea about the topics discussed on this episode, we begin with Stan's Path to Consistent Profitability as a Prop Trader.

Then from there we get into specifics about the various strategies that Stan has traded in recent years, including the actual strategies that he implements in the market today. I also ask Stan to share details about the various forms of analysis, statistical, fundamental and technical that he uses to identify his best trading opportunities each and every day. Of course there's more topics too, but I'll just summarise by saying I really do rate this episode. It's a good one.

And there's plenty of good bits from our conversation that I'm sure you can benefit from, especially if you're a short-term trader. I'll also mention that if you do like this episode, you should go back and listen to Mike Kat. on episode one fifty six because Mike's the co-founder of Seven Points and as you'll hear he was a mentor to Stan while he was still developing the skills to trade professionally. Let's get it started. Here is Stan Gloosman.

I was starting to wonder, I thought, oh'cause the market's still open. I was surprised you wanted to do it this at this time actually. I thought you might have been uh managing a position still. Um I'm watching I'm watching the market. I'm watching but I don't I'm not into in anything right now. Um Yesterday I missed a few st a few plays actually, but uh you know, I don't really like to trade the clothes anymore. Uh the clothes used to be my go to time, but the market has shifted and I guess

I've adapted to just hit it in the morning and kinda leave it alone for the rest of the day. And in the afternoon I just scalp around sometimes, but it's not a very It's not a very profitable uh time for me anymore. So I don't mind missing the clothes. Fair enough. Okay. So you're normally flat before the close as well, like you're not holding anything into the close? No, I don't like to I don't like to hold overnight.

No, y yeah, I understand that. But like you're normally flat, say, by, you know, three PM or something like that anyway? Yeah. Yeah, I'm usually flat by n by noon. All right. Okay. Yeah. Like I I scale in my biggest size is probably at nine forty five. And then like I'm trading around my core position until maybe eleven. And then at eleven I just have like a tiny position left. And then by twelve o'clock I usually close it out. Because

Yeah, like it it's kinda like the m the most inefficient time is in the morning, like the most it's mostly mispriced in the morning and then by noon it's like already priced in. So Man, I saw that chart you posted uh was it yesterday? Uh C L R O. I'm not sure what stock that is, but Man, that looked like a really tough trade. It looked like you absolutely nailed it as well. That was uh that that was some skill there. Which one? Which uh which chart? C L R O. Is that it? C L R O hm.

Um these tickers they pop they pop out of my head as soon as I close the computer. C L R O that was today actually, yeah. That was today. Okay. Yeah, that was this morning. Was that VWAP that you had on as the indicator on the chart? Yeah, yeah, look at VWAP. That was like Dead flat for most of the day. Like it looked like a straight line. It dipped, I think, around midday. Yeah. But yeah, you seem to just short the tops and cover at the bottom.

Um, I'm working on it, man. It doesn't always work that way. Sometimes I get a little greedy and I try to hold and I just get squeezed out. But whenever I I I tend to I I'm able to kinda short near the top. Um, so if I do cover that washout at least half my position, I'm ready to reshort the next pop. So

Uh that that's I guess my secret uh you know when it comes to trading these type of stocks. They're like crazy volatile. And there's a lot of there's a lot of reasons why I was covering the bottoms. Like it was the only uh play for the day, so all these people chat rooms are watching the same stock and they're all gonna I know they're all gonna pump it like multiple times. So I'm ready. Okay. It just looked like a really tough chart to trade.

It was, yeah. It actually was pretty pretty tough, yeah.

Anyway, man, how long have I got you for uh today? As long as you want, eh. We got time. Awesome. Well, I've got a lot I want to chat to you about, so let's uh let's get started. Um how many years have you been trading for now, Stan? Full time, I think around four, four and a half years full time, but in total maybe five and a half years in total. Yeah, I was trading

Uh I started in I think 2013, around that, but I was investing my money. Like I was still in college and I started just kind of dabbling in, investing, um Trying out some formulas that my inve uh investing professors, you know, showed me in class. And um I bought something that was like more speculative, I guess. I didn't really look at the chart.

Um, I just like plugged it in my formula and it said buy. So, um and it made me some money. It made like thirty percent in two days and it was like a five dollar stock. So it was pretty crazy. So that's when I'm like, why am I buying Apple when I can make thirty percent in two days? So that was kind of uh uh I was bit by the bug that same day.

So yeah, and then in two thousand fourteen I started Um doing a lot more research on how to actually make money, you know, make cash instead of like returns at the end of the year. Right. And uh started like studying how to trade and and whatnot and uh signed up to a bunch of different chat rooms and uh Bought a bunch of DVDs. So kind of locked myself in the room for a while and was just studying, grinding, and blowing up accounts. I blew up a couple of accounts.

in uh two thousand fourteen and Uh and then I thought I needed uh like a real um environments to you know surround myself with with professionals. And that's when I decided to join a prop firm. And that was twenty fifteen. So So when you went full time, is that when you actually joined the prop firm or were you full time just trading from home for a while as well?

I was uh uh full time when I joined the prop firm. So as soon as I actually graduated college, I uh joined a prop firm like next month Um and went full time. But before that I was I was studying uh quite a bit Um, but it was part time. But I was still like trading I was trading in class. Like I was sitting in my uh classes and I was, you know, you know, putting positions on Were you having much success with trading uh before you went into the firm?

I was a break even trader um in terms of my executions. Uh but I was so undercapitalized. I was trading very small positions and my commissions were burning through um my my break-even trades. So I was going down. My PNL curve was going down because of the commissions. Yeah. But I was like sort of a sort of a break-even trader. I just needed that little push, you know, that little edge.

What do you think uh what do you think you were struggling with the most before you like joined the prop firm? Like the sort of trading that you were doing in class. Uh, how different was that to the sort of trading you began to do once you joined the firm? Oh, it was completely different. It was different stocks, different strategy, different everything was completely different. So actually what I'm trading right now is pretty similar to uh what I'm what I was trading back in in college.

Uh but when I joined the prop firm, the strategies were completely, completely different. We were uh scalping for like a half a penny, literally, or or one penny, and we were doing millions of shares a day. So that was a totally different strategy. Okay. Well we're gonna get into that. I've made a note because I I think that's really interesting and I wanna hear uh some more details around that.

Cool. I think it'd be interesting to ask you how you actually got into prop. Like was I know you're at seven points capital now. Is that like Did you just go for an interview there and you got that or you tried to get into multiple firms and you you know, had a bit of pushback? Like how did you actually go about getting into uh a prop trading? Yeah. So I did some research on prop trading and there wasn't much information but

I just read on a forum that a good prop firm is the one that doesn't take your money. Like no capital contribution means your interests and the interests of of the prop firm are aligned. So they want you to make money. Um as opposed to when you're going in uh w w when you're going into a regular pop firm that does uh require capital contribution, they don't really care if you blow up or not because it's not their money. So

And Seven Points Capital was just right next to my college too, so I was like I I gotta try them out. And um they didn't charge commissions, they didn't char they didn't require capital contributions, so I thought, you know, I went in there, I spoke to my cats He uh looked at my trades, I saw that there's like forty people there trading and everybody's you know, seems to be happy. So I thought this is m this is where I wanna be. And uh, you know, they they they brought me in.

Do you remember what that I I presume there was some kind of interview process. Do you remember what what that was like? Yeah, I just um you know I I I think I had a phone interview. Yeah, I had a phone interview with uh one of the traders. He was also a recruiter, and he You know, he figured that I n kind of knew a little bit about trading, a little bit about risk management, so he invited me in to speak with my cats and I just came in and I showed him

Um I showed him my trades basically. You know, he was just asking me a about like just figuring out what uh what I know and what I don't know. Um and I guess if I'm teachable or not. Um like his thing was like he didn't want somebody to come in and say I know what I'm doing, like don't tell me what to do. Um, you know, that kind of thing. But at the same time Um know something about trading like being passionate about trading. So that kind of balance in there.

So I showed him some of my trades and uh I remember I uh I showed him a chart and he was asking me, Oh, where where's uh where was your stop and where's your target? And I'm you know, telling him and he's like, Oh, that's a trade that I would put on and I'm like, Oh nice. Um I'm probably fine. What was Uh, what were their thoughts that you were a break even trader?

Like were they discouraged by that in any way? Or were they not phased? No, they didn't care, uh, because They were recruiting people who knew a lot less and did a lot less trading than than I did. So I don't think they really cared uh because the strategies that they were trading were completely different. Like the edge was there. So it was just a matter of t teaching me a different strategy. Okay.

Now that you have What what did you say earlier? I think you said it's four years you've been with the firm now. So now that you've got those four years experience having traded prop and you've also had some experience as a retail trader. What would you say the advantages you have of being a prop trader are versus retail now? You know, I asked this question on a a recent interview with uh Jack Ma. I think you may have heard that episode.

Um he's a futures trader though, so I'm just interested to hear if um, you know, from an equities trader perspective. Yeah, the so the difference is day and night. Somebody asked me that before and I uh gave a comparison of uh working out in a uh really nice high end gym with a personal trainer. versus working out in your backyard with buckets of water, basically. That's how I felt at least. That's brilliant. Yeah. I mean

You're first of all, you're trading uh other people's money. So you're not risking your own money. So there's that psychological burden burden off my shoulders, first of all. Second of all, there's different routes that you don't have when you're a retail trader. Um when I was trading on my own, I was asking my so-called mentor like what routes like I was just trying to learn anything about routes.

And the guy was like, you know, I just use ARCA and and it's just an exchange, you know. Uh it's a route that I use even now, but You know, seven points like we have like ten access to like ten different dark pools and like six different aggregators plus all the exchanges. So there's a lot of different possibilities how to use those routes. And the prices for those routes are are nothing, next to nothing. So, you know, th everything like advantages are are are really there. So

Okay, so that's that's one example. Can we go into that a little more? Like when you're talking about routes, you're talking about how you're sending your orders to the exchange, like which exchange you're routing to, right? Correct. So can you just go into that a little more, like why is that why is that an advantage? Okay, for example, uh you're looking at the level two, the bid on the offer, and there's like

25,000 shares on the offer and it's printing it's printing some shares on the offer. It's printing thousand shares, thousand shares, five hundred shares. Um so normally if I'm just using ARCA. If I wanna sell on the offer, I would add liquidity on ARCA and wait until I get filled. And I'm gonna be the dead last person to get filled. Um if I have dark pools, access to dark pools, I can throw two hundred shares on ten different dark pools and see if I get tagged by one of them.

So and chances are I will get tagged by one of them. Chances are it's like Credit Suisse is printing on the offer. So I can just put my entire order on the offer and be the first one to get filled. So I I'll skip the line and I can actually get short on the offer and see if the stock drops. Okay, so it's a way for you to jump the queue. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And those are the strategies when I came in, those are the strategies that uh I I I saw Mike execute and I'm like

I I was speechless. I couldn't I di I've never seen anything like it. You know, I've seen him execute like fifty thousand share orders on the offer, like skipping the line and then getting short and covering.

at the midpoint, uh you know, those strategies they don't really work anymore. Uh, but we still do have access to those dark pools and aggregators and like I do use them from time to time. Like this morning I was trading um FCX and uh I was uh getting short with Morgan Stanley on the Dark Pool. So are you going to let's say you want to get short, but you don't want to hit the market, you just want to join the offer?

Yeah. Are you going to send I think you said before you might send two hundred shares to a dark pool to see if it gets hit. Um are you gonna send that to like ten different dark pools and see Which one gets hit first and then pull your orders um on all the others?

Yeah, that's correct. Exactly. Okay. So as soon as one gets hit, then you're gonna reload and with your full size Yeah, so That's one way to get it is one way to use that technology is to get short if you actually want to execute a position um and I wanna like jump the line and you know I'm gonna see who's buying and then sell to that to that buyer.

Another way is that if the stock is actually going up and I wanna know is this a real buyer or is this just going up with the market or like with the ETF, that kind of thing? Um So I can throw a bunch of orders to different dark pools, different aggregators, see who tags. and keep throwing it there. Is is he there? Is he still there? Is he still there? So I can be actually long.

But I'll keep selling to him a little bit, different po you know, at different prices to see if he's still there. So for as long as he's still there, I wanna be long. Once he's not there anymore, I'm actually selling my position and getting short because it's probably gonna roll over because he is the only guy who's buying right now and pushing the price up. Okay. And I'm just thinking about the time it would take to send

Like ten different orders to ten different dark pools. Do you have some technology which assists you with that? Of course, yeah, one button. I have like a hundred and fifty a hundred probably about a hundred and fifty hotkeys. So it's one button. Hundred and fifty hotkeys. Yeah. How many how many keys are on a keyboard?

I'm not sure, but I'm utilizing everything. I have like control Q is is one, but like alt Q is something else or shift Q is something else. So what's your what's your most used hotkey? It's probably F two, which is just short the bid. Okay. What, the h take the whole bid or how many does it short?

Oh, it's just whatever uh quantity that you put in uh level two. Okay, so you gotta type that in and then you hit your hotkey. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I use a scroll wheel to to scroll up and down to pick my size and I hit F two. Okay. Cool. Yeah. Now

When you came into the firm I presume you probably worked quite closely with Mike Katz. Yeah. Okay. Would you say that he was a mentor to you in some way? He was probably one of them the w one of my mentors, probably the first real mentor that I had, yeah. Right. Now for anyone listening, if you don't know who Mike Katz is, he's the co founder of Seven Points Capital and he was on the podcast uh last year for episode uh one fifty six. So I'd encourage you to uh give that a listen.

What were some of the traits that Mike tried to instill in you? I was sitting next to Mike for quite a while. Um and the one thing that I noticed uh he he wasn't really doing like anything uh anything different from all the other traders, but he was always looking around. Like that's what I noticed. He was always looking around, scanning, journaling, just kind of figuring out what's moving right now, where is it moving, why it's moving, and how do you make money.

Uh you know, and that's it. And he he always seemed to be like in in the right places at the right times because he was always like You know, he kept his eyes open all the time, on his toes. Uh so I think uh That's his biggest his his biggest advantage as a trader, just be open minded and see, you know, is swing trading working right now? Is it just intraday momentum that's working? Is it scalping that's working? And, you know, whatever it is that is working, let's jump in there.

When we talk about things which are working and aren't working, can you maybe just flesh that out a little more. Like obviously it sounds quite um it sounds quite I guess that's a bit of a weird question to ask because it it it probably sounds like a bit of a dumb question. But it's like how do you

How do you kind of tell when something's beginning to not be as effective as it once was and and think about when you should stick'cause that's the hardest part, right? When you should stick with it and just know that There will be times where these particular plays don't work so well and others are going to work so well, but when do you like entirely just abandon that and jump to something else? Like that's a it's a tricky call to make.

It is, yeah. So total to totally abandon I wouldn't ever totally abandon the strategy. You know, I w I always try to keep my toolbox full, but I think If you're trading a certain setup and for two days in a row, you're down on a day. You gotta change something. So that's kind of my rule of thumb. If I'm down two day and read two days in a row, I have to change something. Whether it's my approach to the to that setup, I have to tweak my entries, tweak my exits.

or think about maybe it's a psychological error, maybe maybe I was fearful or something like that. Um but if it's more of a lack of volatility or lack of just setups, then I have to start looking around. So rule of thumb, for me, two days, two down days. Can you give an example of that? Like when was the last time you were down two days in a row?

Um pretty recently, um Okay. So what did you do what did you do like the following day? What were some of the things which you tweaked, can you remember? Yeah, so actually I think three weeks ago I had a pretty tough week where I I was down two two or three, even three days in a row. So um for me it's just sizing down.

First thing I do is always I size down, I bring down my uh my risk for the day, my lockout for the day, divided by four automatically. So uh if my, you know, max risk is X, it's one fourth of X. Next day. And sizing down and just kind of feeling the waters, going back to basics, trying to scalp versus going for the home run trades. And from there, I'm just analyzing uh my statistics and seeing like what am I uh you know, what am I doing right? You know.

uh and and comparing it to what I was doing. So figuring out what's what it is that's not working and why it's not working. You know, if it's a mistake on my part, then my my job is to eliminate that mistake. Uh but the first step is to size down and to go back to basics. Okay.

And I wanted to ask you as well, how long was it until you became confident in your ability to make money as a trader? I think uh so when I started at seven points, I was again a breakeven trader. for about four months and I think my fifth month I I got my first paycheck and from there on it was it was more about how do I size up. And that's it.

Six months, yeah. But from there on, yeah, I was just trying to size up as much as possible. And i you know, I went up I went up pretty big. Like in two thousand sixteen, um In 2016, we were trading we were trading a lot. So that was like my second full year. So that was when my fur my 2015 was my first full profitable year. 2016

I was on top of the world. I was like, let's make some real money now. Um so question for you, Aaron. What do you think how m how how many shares do you think I traded in twenty sixteen? Just scalping? Well no, it was in the million. Yeah. He was, yeah, just take a guess. I actually looked at the uh the numbers uh yesterday. How many shares over the entire year? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh man. Uh five hundred million?

Oh wow, that's that's a lot. Two hundred and sixty million. So that's like uh about a million or probably more than a million a day, uh just just scalping. So just really trying to size up. and uh just trade as much as possible. So two thousand sixteen probably was that year. Second year trading. That's a lot of shares. Did you ever get whacked like trying to tr size up? Like it sounds as though you sized up pretty quickly. Did that were there any moments where

Uh, you know, you took a pretty substantial hit and it kind of knocked you back a little bit? All the time. Um, I think that's part of um Part of like just trying to size up is sometimes you'll take a big hit and um increase your risk tolerance. So um I would take, you know, my first first time I ever took a thousand dollar hit. That was a big hit for me, you know. I I you know, that was like

A lot of hard work for a thousand dollars, but taking that first thousand dollar hit, that was that was quite a bit. Um, you know, and then, you know, as you size up you're You're taking that thousand dollar hit, that's ki kind of like a regular uh you know, a regular trade uh that went the other way. So and the bigger you size up, like you will take uh, you know, bigger hits and that's that's part of it. Yeah.

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Now, I think you said it was two thousand sixteen that you traded what was it, about two hundred and fifty, sixty million shares? Yeah, yeah, something like that. Okay. So I presume that was the year that you were just doing a lot of scalping. Yeah. Now just tell us a little bit about that strategy. What were you doing?

So back then there was a lot of inefficient algorithms um in the market. And it was in stocks that were just kinda going uh sideways in a in a channel. For whatever reason, they were just very actively traded but going sideways. So, you know, traders say to make money you need um liquidity and volatility. Uh but back then we only needed liquidity and that's it. Like uh uh also volume, but not really volatility. So Well I would pull up my regular.

twenty stocks from the from my list of stocks that are scalpable and I would look for those algos and they would, you know, most likely print in ten of them in ten of those twenty stocks. Something would print on the offer or something would print on the bid. So sometimes I would see like two thousand share algo every like twenty seconds on the offer. And I would just, you know, go through my um

through my dark pools and see which one gets hit and then just short the offer and cover the mid or short the offer and see if the stock wants to flip down and cover the mid at uh at one price down. Uh so It was just it was a grind, you know. A lot of shares, yeah. What stocks were you trying to do this in? Sprint. You know the phone company Sprint Ticker S. Okay. And what type of range would a stock like that do on a given day? Like this isn't this isn't a stock which just has like a

Like a five cent range on the day, is it? It it is, yeah. It is two cent range on the day, yeah. Now it's a little bit more volatile, but back then it was just like a you know, three to five cent range. Also Siri S I R I. Um Ford F would also be very stable just sideways and printing a lot. There was a lot back then. Some of them got delisted. A lot of oil names oil stocks that got delisted.

So to do this type of thing, I presume that's that's I guess one of the first things that you're looking for is a stock that has a very small range on the day. Uh high volume and small range, yeah. High volume and small range, okay.

Yeah, it's interesting because uh you know, I did the interview with Jack Ma, who's a futures trader and uh you know, he's trading bank bills and they do a very small range, so it's kinda You know, I'm just interested to hear but he's also, you know, spreading between contracts and doing all sorts of things where this is just

You know, you you're essentially market making, right? Exactly, yeah, market making. Okay. So were you were there ever times where you would take liquidity take liquidity? Yeah. For example, if I'm shorting on the offer. And I'm I'm seeing that the offer is about to get taken out and the price is about to move up.

I'm uh buying that offer. I'm covering my short and I'm buying that offer and I'm selling my long on the next offer one price higher. Okay. Hold on, let me just go over that again. So If you're on the offer you get filled, you're short. Mm-hmm. If you see that offer's about to go, you'll then cover the trade at the same price and scratch it. Yeah. Okay. And what if you miss that? You're then covering at the price above for a

Uh yeah, if I if I miss it then I'm not really covering. I'm I'm seeing maybe if I can cover on the bid, which is also the same price once it flips up. Okay. Um But usually I can time it. Yeah. I mean we we got pretty good at that stuff. So we could time that flip up and we could get out for break even. So it was essentially a riskless trade. So it was pretty crazy, to be honest with you. The

We were taking some pretty big positions and just scalping all day without with like a success rate of like ninety-six percent or something like that. Like very rarely you would take a loss on the trade. How did you think about how

In your I guess your strategy must have had some idea about there's there's a higher probability that uh You know, if I get filled on the offer, there's a high probability that it's gonna go back onto the bid rather than this offer's gonna go and it's gonna trade up to the next price.

So there's something called book pressure and it's I mean it is w what it sounds like. It's the pressure within the level two. So I can kinda gauge Just by watching the tape I can gauge if the stock if the pressure is down or up. So um sometimes the sellers would be in control and the stock looks like it might actually flip down. Sometimes it's the other way. But those algos that were printing, they didn't care if it was

the the pressure was up or down. So it could be printing the bid about to flip down, but that algo is still buying the offer. You see what I'm saying? So I can get short on the offer while the stock is about to drop. Okay. Why are you so interested in what these algos are doing and not just regular buyers and sellers? Like what difference does that make to you? Because they're the ones that are giving me the fills at really crazy prices.

So, you know, I'm I'm the one that's taking the opposite side of of his trade and instantly in the money. And and how do you know it's an algo? 'Cause he keeps repeating. He's literally printing every twenty seconds, over and over, all day. Same price, same quantity, same time increment. So it's like a a timed buyer, I guess you could call it. Yeah. Why why are there people or or firms or

I guess participants running these types of algos. What what are their objectives? What are they trying to do? I think that they are filling customer orders. Um, but I'm not sure why they're doing that. But what I think is somebody calls up you know, who whatever Credit Suisse and says, Hey man, um buy me like two million shares of this stock and they're just like putting it in the algo and the algo just executes it w throughout like, you know

A period of two weeks or something like that. So they don't really care if it's on the bid or on the offer, they just like trying to accumulate a position. You said before that often if you got filled on the offer, so you're now short, you would try and cover into the midpoint. Can you just explain what do you mean by the midpoint? Yeah, the midpoint is is is the midpoint between the bid and and the offer. So you can actually peg your orders to the midpoint.

and uh look for liquidity there because there is liquidity there. Like you don't see it but there is liquidity there. Like I can add liquidity to the midpoint and see if uh if there is liquidity on the other side. So I can short the bid, uh I can short the offer and cover uh in between the bid and the offer. Okay, and y to do that you need to s route your order to a dark pool, or can you do that on something like ARCA?

Yeah, you can do it on ARCA. Uh chances are you won't get a fill on ARCA. It's pretty expensive. Uh if you do it on BIGS, uh BYX. Uh you can pay a little bit and uh that's usually one of the first ones to get filled. So I I route through through bicks uh to the midpoint pretty often. So is that normally what you would try and do is get uh field at the midpoint and not try and catch the f the full spread, so you wouldn't even try and then, you know, cue on the bid.

No, I would try to first get the bid. Uh but if I can't get the bid, let me get the mid then. Okay. And how profitable was this this type of trading for you guys?

It was very profitable. I mean, nobody w nobody really traded anything else. It was just scalping every day all day and like people made a lot of money. But you know, over time that It it kinda went away because we were kind of at the mercy of that algo. Like the position sizing, you know, how much money we're making. was it depended on those algorithms, right? So we have a basically a pizza pie and we're dividing it among like twenty traders, right? And then the more traders learn the strategy,

Like the smaller the uh the slices, right? And then with time those algos got smarter, so the pie got smaller and then you know, next thing you know we're eating crumbs. So Do you see opportunity to do this in sort of some of the less liquid stocks, like you know, maybe some shitty little penny stocks? No. Not at all. I think in shitty little penny stocks, w first of all, they're very volatile. Uh they're not really going sideways. And um second of all, it's mostly retail.

So retail they you know, they're routing through some Robin Hood, whatever, they have a thousand share orders. They don't have like a million share order to fill. That's a predictable pattern. Yeah, okay. I see your point. What sort of technology we're using to assist you with this type of trading? Point and click. Purely point and click. Yeah, yeah. Just a lot of hotkeys, that's it. I love it. Uh what else was I gonna ask you on this strategy? Um oh yeah, why'd you stop doing it?

Was it was it like you said Yeah, the algos got smarter and the pizza got pizza slices got too thin? Yeah. That's pretty much it. Pretty much.

Okay. All right. So that kind of dried up. Your edge there kinda evaporated to a certain extent. Where did you go from there? What was your next kind of evolution as a trader? Yeah, so we noticed that um the pizza got really small there. And we started looking around and w we've been trading SSRs. Uh we started trading SSRs. And for those who who aren't familiar, SSR is a short seller restriction. Um if a stock drops ten percent today, then it's gonna be SSR today and tomorrow.

for two sessions. Um so SSR means short sellers are not allowed to hit the bid. Um so short sellers are required to short in between the first time. The bid and the offer. So kind of like on the uptick. So anywhere in between. So usually short sellers are like stacked on the offer. Um

So we started specializing in in SSRs because we had all those routes, all those dark pool routes and like ways to get in at the midpoint, at the IO for like find finding those like crazy prints. Uh we were able to short stocks that Normal people, you know, would just try and short on the offer. Hopefully they would get filled. Uh we were actually getting some crazy fills as the stock was dropping and like not shortable. So that was a big edge for us for uh a couple of years.

So why could you get these fills which other people can't, purely because you're using dark pools? Yeah, I think so, yeah. So if I'm able to short the midpoint and most of the market participants probably don't even know that they can, uh then that's an edge for me. You know, if they're sitting on the offer

Hopefully, you know, hoping that they get filled and I'm sending twenty different orders to twenty different venues at the midpoint, I'm cutting them off. I'm sitting at the mid and I'm getting I'm getting some fills at the midpoint as the stock dropping. So I'm able to actually get short, you know, before anybody else would. Okay. And what about these stocks which are currently SSR? Well what about them makes them so attractive? Is it just because the offers become really stacked?

And you pretty much lean back on that if if necessary. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. The setup basically if the stock gets really tight. um th tight range, then you know, I'm maybe I wanna go long, maybe I wanna get short. Uh, but if the offers are starting to come in, it starts kind of a domino effect, like a chain reaction where

somebody sees the order uh the offer and they they join that offer and then everybody else starts to join and the bidders get scared. So the bidders start to pull their orders and next thing you know the stock is just rolling over. And everybody's trying to get short. And what type of trades were these for you? Were they very scalpy trades or were you trying to write out a larger move? Um it depended. You know, actually today I traded two stocks uh that were SSR. Uh one trade was for

Like five cents. Another trade was like for for 35 cents. So it was it's it's kind of scalpy. Um It's not like an all day type of a fader setup. It's more of a scalp setup for sure. Uh but it's di different ranges depending on when that offer gets lifted. Okay. So when a stock becomes SSR, if you try to uh hit the bid, you just your order just rejects, does it? It just s hangs there and that's it. Yeah, it doesn't feel Okay. Yeah.

Interesting. So are you still I know you just said that you traded a couple of stocks which were SSR today, but is that still like your bread and butter? Is that still the sort of things which you look for or if you move past that as well? It's um it's a tool in my toolbox, but it's not my moneymaker anymore. Yeah, it it that edge started I wouldn't say started going away, but it it it started kind of disappearing. Um

For a while. Um, I think last year, like last uh June or so. So w how does an edge like that disappear or become less effective? Because it it kinda seems like that's just a characteristic of of the market. Yeah, the offer gets um more fake, the level two becomes more fake and it becomes a little a lot less uh tradable. Like I don't trust the level two as much. where that offer can used to come in and there's nothing that would lift that offer, you know, other than a big order. But nowadays

You know, a big offer would come in and somebody would try to buy a little bit of it and they just cancel it and the stock shoots up and everybody covers at the same time. And, you know, the stock has been flipping down. for ten minutes and and then in one candle it gives back everything. It just pops like thirty cents in one candle. So it bec it becomes um

Uh yeah. It becomes very wiki and uh you know, the the trades, you know, after a hundred setups it's not as profitable anymore as it used to be. Yeah, okay. Right.

Okay, so what's your kind of like go to style of training? Like when you come in now? When you come in each day, what sort of things are you looking for? Like where where's your edge nowadays? Right now I look for pretty much two different setups. Uh one of them is a a fader setup where a small cap stock gaps up and probably is gonna fail.

And just go back to where it came from. Um and that's the strategy I I was trading when I started in college. Um so I kinda went back to that strategy because those small caps are very very volatile. And there's money to be made. They're very volatile and there's a lot of dumb money in there. You know, there's a lot of newbies and there's a lot of so called investors who believe in those companies. But, you know, if you read the PR, if you read the filings

you know that is irrelevant, you know. I the PR is completely irrelevant and they're probably gonna dilute um uh like the company is gonna try to raise money and like add shares to the to the share uh to the pool of outstanding shares. So there are certain edges in there um that help me you know, make a consistent profit. Um so that's one of them. And uh I still I still look at SSRs. It's still on my screen, just not on my main screen.

Um and also right now it's earnings season, so I do look at large gaps. Uh when they move, like I don't know, like Intel, you know, they do um respect levels and I trade those levels. Okay. Maybe if we can just go into the the first setup which you spoke about there where you're fading uh Stocks which gap up. So what's an example of of why a stock might gap up a and something that might get your attention?

So a stock might gap up because, for example, a company um announced that they're working on a licensing agreement with I don't know Walmart. So they're like dropping these like you know, big words, Walmart, right? And um, you know, a lot of people are looking at that licensing agreement, Walmart, oh my god, let's buy it, right? And the stock just goes up.

So that's one reason. But there's a lot of different reasons they they gap up. Like it's very similar. Like, you know, over the over the course of um you know, that I've been trading these setups, like I've seen like pretty hilarious uh PRs. And a lot of times it's the same PR that they released. three weeks ago, it's the same exact one. So they can like release re release it two or three times.

When you say the same one, is it the exact same one? Or it's just kinda like Yeah. It's the same one. Just they word it a little bit differently. They rephrase some things and it's the same exact thing. So there's nothing new in it? Nothing. So that's that's an instant red flag, I'd presume. Oh, absolutely. That's an A plus setup right there. Yeah, okay. So how are you finding these stocks? Um, like I presume you have a pretty good idea on what stocks you're gonna trade before the market opens.

Um is that the case? Yes. Yeah. I have a gap scanner. So uh with with certain criteria. So I I like filter it out uh by float and market cap. Um so I wanna I wanna see a stock with a smaller float, like maybe uh under a hundred million. Most of them are like less than twenty million share floats.

Um and you know, I want it to be a small cap, like not like a billion a billion dollar company. Because a billion dollar company has reputation, you know. Um but a small cap stock, they don't really care. They just want to want to gap it up. Whatever it takes. Okay. And can you talk to about how you're actually trading these? Because when I uh on your Twitter feed you you post um some of your trades.

And one of the things which is quite apparent is how you use multiple entries and multiple exits and you know, you you also run a core through the day. But can you talk about um, you know, how you're timing your multiple entries and and why you think I presume there's some sort of edge or some sort of reason rationale why you're actually doing that and not just, you know, I'm all in at this point.

You know, if there was one secret to my formula, it's probably multiple entries and multiple exits. Uh because if I, for example, think, oh, this is this is the top and I get in full size and I'm wrong, I take a big loss um versus if I think, oh, this is the top, let me take a quarter position, I take a quarter and the stock, you know, keeps going and I'm wrong, then I take a loss on a quarter position. Um so

Uh you know, on the contrary, when I am right on full position, I'm right a lot. Um in second scenario, if I'm right, I'm in quarter position, I just add. You know, I add more, more, more, it drops And I cover like half and then I work core. So I know that I'm on the right side. I have a nice average. So now I have I basically divide my trade into uh two separate trades. One of them is a scalp. Uh one of them is a core for the all day fade.

So I'm kind of able to um short pops, cover washouts, but at the same time ride out the the trend all the way back down if if it wants to go back down. If not, then I just uh get out. How many entries would you say you take? I know it's obviously going to vary quite a bit depending on the day, the type of setup, et cetera, but you know, would you say you're normally I I think you said your first entry is normally about quarter of your size.

Yeah. Does that mean you're gonna take another three entries or could that You know, if as soon as the stock if you're short and it starts to drop, then you know, you're you're starting to get in the money. Are you gonna like sort of maybe take even more entries? Yeah, absolutely. So If I'm right, I know I'm right. uh and you know the stock went to

a level of resistance on the daily chart and I found some w w warrants, for example, in a f in the filings at that price and we actually stole out there, then a lot of things are lining up. And I'm taking that first entry there. And if it rejects, then adding as much as possible. Uh on a way down.

Right. So I'm not really I don't I'm not chasing, but near that top, if it actually stalls out and starts to roll over, I'm watching the tape very, very closely. I see a big bid, I'm smashing that bid. And from there on if a stock pops uh to or near that um price, um uh reshorting. And if it pulls back, I'm covering that reshort. Uh so it could be two entries. It's never really one entry. It could be two entries, it could be ten entries. Uh depending on liquidity, kinda you know, depending on

trade to trade, it's different. But definitely like scaling in with a few different orders and scaling out with a few different orders because you'll never really pick the top or pick the bottom. But if you're like scaling in slowly, you have a lot more room for for, you know, to be right. Mm.

And you said that you kind of split the trade up into two parts. So you've got your core and then you've got some scalp trades mixed in there as well. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. When you're covering, let's say So the stock like just drops, runs through a whole bunch of bids, you're gonna maybe cover some then. How much would you cover of your like of your full position?

Like is this just like an eighth? Like h how much you kind of depended on the scalps to work versus dependent on the core position to work? If the stock drops sharply, I wanna take some risk off the table because there's probably gonna be a bounce. Some I might take off a quarter. Um if it drops, you know, puts on another two big red candles, then I'm gonna take off another quarter.

And I'm gonna keep that half. But if it bounces, usually after a sharp drop there's a bounce. So the idea is I wanna cover into any big washouts and I wanna short bounces. Okay. And just I guess going back a little bit um to talking about when you're getting into these types of plays. How much pain are you willing to take if you get it wrong? Because obviously something gaps up a lot on the day and you're trying to short it, you know

uh there there's there's gonna be like you've said before, it's sort of difficult to pick the exact top. Um You're gonna get it wrong sometimes. How much pain are you willing to take? I have a set risk amount that I'm willing to lose. If I go past that amount, uh I'm stopping myself out and that's it. Sometimes I don't and that's when I take the biggest uh my biggest losses when I get stubborn. You know, it's you have to think

about making money and and and part of that is like having small losers. So if you think you you're right, you know you're right, but the price is just going against you. you're gonna take a big loss. Like do you wanna make money or do you wanna make r uh you know, do you wanna be right? So I wanna make money. So if I'm wrong, I wanna be out. Now

I believe this is something you do quite a bit in order to, you know, help you become better at these types of plays and just and uh a better trader in general. Uh, you do quite a bit of statistical analysis. Yeah. Can you just share some of the things which you do? Uh you know, what what what is some of that analysis which you do? Yeah so statistics is is something that

I'm uh really exploring and I'm finding some edges. And the more I talk about it, the more secrets I'm gonna give away. But um basically I'm I'm tracking the performance of my setups. So if the setup is okay, it gaps up and then it spikes You know, how much does it s how m first of all, how much does it gap up? Then how relevant is the news? How bad are the filings? Um how small is the float? The smaller the float, the higher it's gonna go. Then how far it actually spikes. So

Uh how far does it actually pull back? What time At what time does it top out? At what time does it bottom out? When does it close? What was the volume at the end of the day? What was the volume pre market? What was the volume at nine thirty five, nine forty five? Uh Ten o'clock, ten thirty. So I'm taking all that data from every single stock that I trade that fits uh, you know, that gapping criteria and I'm tracking it. I'm trying to figure out is there a pattern?

So Um from there I uh I run some stats and I figure out like uh you know how far do they rip from the open. percentage wise, you know, and that's kind of uh I call it the money box. So a lot of stocks they top out in my money box because my money box represents a range where this setup actually tops out and rolls over. And then I have my second money box is where they bottom out.

Right. And it's like percentage from the open and at what time what what's the time range? So a lot of them, um rip up, you know, X amount of percent, you know, in this uh exact time uh time frame. And um so one thing is like having that having that those stats and knowing them and then another thing is actually um calculating it, right? So um I started learning how to code as well. So those statistics that I have

I've built some some um indicators around them. So that money box is actually visualized on my charts. So whenever the stock is trading in that range, I can see it on the chart. So that's another um edge that I have. So yeah, definitely tracking and just trying to figure out the pattern, just trying to figure out if this is um There's a repeatable pattern, and then just finding a way to put it in my uh platform. So maybe I'll get to a point where

where I'm good enough at um uh coding that I can actually uh get my platform to enter the position for me. But for now I just kind of it visualized it for me on a chart and it's a big edge. How often do you find that these types of moves play out in the same way, like at the same times during the day? Like you said, so one of the things you look at is, you know, if a stock gaps up this much, then it might, you know, spike another, let's say, two percent before it rolls over.

Like ha do you find that That varies quite a bit. Like there's a lot of room for error there. Or do you find that it's quite often a fairly repeatable pattern? Like if a stock gaps up, let's say five percent, it's A lot of times it's gonna run another two and a half percent. But then there's also gonna be uh quite a few occasions where it goes, you know, four percent or I I don't know. Like, do you find Uh uh does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. So that

That number, that four percent or five percent, it's not a line, it's a range. So I take the average and I take the standard deviations, one up, one down from that average. So it's more of a range where uh if the stock gaps up and then rips up anywhere from four to six percent. So that's kind of that range where I'm interested. Uh

It's a it's a f it's surprisingly a very reputable a reputable pattern, uh, but it's not the holy grail. It's not a signal for the entry, it's a signal for hey look at me um this might be a setup so I line that up with um with the tape. So if the tape says this is the top, then I'm starting my uh uh you know starting to build a position there. But if we're trading in that range

Sometimes the tape says, Hey, there's a lot of bidders here and everybody's buying offer and we're actually moving up. So I'm stepping away. So sometimes they keep squeezing up. Those are my outliers. Uh sometimes, pretty often, pretty often they top out there. So

Yeah. I I think you explained that really well actually because Obviously you've got statistical analysis to back up your ideas, but then you've also got your tape reading skills and your, you know, actual trading abilities overlaid with that is where, you know, you feel as though you have a great edge. Yeah, it's not it it's not just uh tape reading, it's also

Um it's also fundamental analysis, uh just trying to run through their statements and seeing like w what are they trying to do here. And sometimes it's like pretty laughable uh where They will drop a press release. right after they dropped a secondary offering. So they're dropping a press release just to pump up the stock so that they can dilute their shares. And it's hilarious sometimes what happens. So it's fundamental analysis, it's statistical analysis.

And it's tape reading. So the more things that line up and also just basic technical analysis, like looking at a daily chart, you know, what are the levels where it topped out previously? So the more things that line up, the bigger um I'm willing uh the bigger the risk I'm willing I'm willing to take. And you said before that you'd coded uh this this section on the chart which you describe as the money box.

Are there any other indicators or custom tools which you've developed uh that further help you with your trading? Yeah, there's another one. Um again, the more I talk about it, the more secrets I'm gonna give away. There's one guy on Twitter that I that kind of introduced, at least to me, the idea of volume forecast. His name is um I gotta give credit where credit is due. His name is All Day Faders, is a pretty good follow on Twitter. Um he forecasts the volume for the stock.

So the idea is if the stock the volume of the stock breaks the forecast, that means there's unusual demand and it's probably gonna go up. So I've developed a similar one, but I call it the forecast two point oh where I forecast the volume. Um at different times of the day for the end of the day. So for example, at nine forty, the forecast says it's gonna trade ten million. At nine fifty, the forecast says it's gonna trade

Like eleven million. So the forecast went up. So that means that something has changed. Right. We're we've deviated from from like the normal kind of uh volume distribution. You know, and then at ten o'clock the forecast says a stock is gonna trade fourteen million shares. Right. So that again tells me uh oh there's unusual demand going on. in the stocks. So it's probably gonna squeeze. And a lot of times they will

hold, they will gap up, they'll spike, they'll kinda come down a little bit and then hold and then start squeezing because somebody was just holding it up. There was like unusual demand in the in the stock. So that's another one. That's a brand new one. I'm still testing it out. This may be delving into your secrets a little too much, but how how are you trying to forecast the volume?

Um just collecting just collecting the um the volume at those times and comparing it to the end of the day and like finding a common denominator.

So yeah, whoever uh whoever wants to uh create something similar. Uh I think they have enough information uh to work with at this point. Now I think a good question to ask you, Stan, is obviously your train has gone through several uh evolutions. I think that's probably the reasonable word to use. Yeah. How have you gone about finding a new edge each time? Like when one thing which you've been doing has kind of dried up or has become less effective.

you've used your ability to adapt and to find uh another area of the market where you can make money. How do you how do you find these new areas? I really don't want to get a job and that's my motivation. So I just wanna be I just wanna trade and if something's not working I need to find something else. So I just do a lot of research. Like I go home and I rip through hundreds of charts

and I read, you know, Twitter feeds and I ask questions and I watch different videos on YouTube. Uh I'm just trying to find what what's moving. So I guess like going back to um uh like what my cat's is doing when he goes home and journals and like looks for what what's moving. I'm kinda trying to do the same thing. So when those SSRs like stopped working for me and like last June, like I started

you know, I went through a s you know, a little drawdown and uh it was uh the first time I actually was down in a month, June twenty eighteen. Uh that was rough. I was pulling a lot of um all nighters just building spreadsheets, building that statistical uh like advantage, you know, building a database and like seeing what's going on.

And, you know, a a lot of people all also helped me. I didn't do it just on my own. I figured it out on my own, but I did um get help from a couple of guys. I have a friend, um on Twitter, J Trader. He helped me out a lot. I learned a ton from him, uh a couple of other guys. Um, you know, Mike Mangiri, by the way, he's um Хіза ко фаундер оде компанії.

He said, Listen, if you're losing money right now, like don't worry. Um, I got you. Like if you need money, I'll just pay you and like like no big deal. So he had my back. Um a lot of people don't know who's Mike Mangiri, but he's one of the co-founders. Um, you know, so I had like I had strong support, I would say. And People believed in me and I believed in myself and uh that's what it takes, you know, a lot of work and s you know self belief, I guess.

That's a that's a pretty big deal for someone to offer you that. Like that's almost unheard of in sort of traditional prop trading arrangements. Yeah, for sure. Oh that's very instills, you know, loyalty and uh

You know, I love these guys. I like working with them and uh you know that's how I treat uh traders that I uh work with right now. Kind of try to treat them with respect and trust. Yeah. Well let's get into that because Uh or maybe your best to describe this, but you've so you were in New York, you're at the Seven Points office in New York and now you're in somewhere in Florida.

Yes, in Fort Lauderdale. Okay. And and what's the deal there? You've got a trading desk of your own or what what's going on? Uh what happened was basically I mean I lived in New York for a while and I wanted to get out of New York. It was very expensive. It's it's you know, the weather's not that great. So I just wanted to leave New York and um

I was talking to Mike Katz, Mike Mangiri about leaving New York, and we came to a conclusion that we can set something up, something else. We can set up like a branch office. Uh we picked um Fort Lauderdale because It has a pretty high population growth. And uh the median median age is pretty low. Um like Florida is infamous for like uh people to retire and Fort Lauderdale is like the youngest city.

Uh so we picked this city and also there's a lot of good colleges around. Um so uh like finance finance colleges so we can recruit people. So myself and I have a partner, his name is Krishna. a branch office down here in Fort Lauderdale, uh just you know, just to trade, save a little bit in taxes also, uh, compared to New York. And we also started recruiting guys who want to trade with us. I I mean calling myself a mentor is I think is a little arrogant.

to be honest with you, but uh I guess w we do play a role of of mentors, uh, because we we hire guys who are passionate, who are passionate about trading, but just need a little guidance, just need uh, you know, to be surrounded by By profitable traders. So right now we have three people on our desk trading live. Um And uh in total there's there's five of us and we have one more person right now studying uh to get the license.

And uh we have a small team going going on here, yeah. And how does the team dynamic work? Because obviously you're each trading your own book. Where does the team dynamic come into effect? So the team dynamic is Everybody comes in the morning and does their own research. And so we prepare in the morning and then we share the watch lists. Before they open, we're saying, Okay, I'm watching this stock, this stock, that stock.

uh for for these reasons. These are the levels I'm watching. And um so at the open we're calling out setups. You know, this stock is topping out, the stock is, you know, forming a head and shoulders. Um, you know, everybody has their own scanners so they can say, Oh, this, you know, Apple's making new highs. And okay, okay, that's that's something that I want to watch or Krishna wants to watch. Uh so we share setups, we like alert each other.

you know, some somebody's missing something, we alert each other. If it's uh Fed day today, stuff like that. Midday we um we do a midday recap every single day. Um where each of us shares

uh their screen and we put on the chart and we talk about our trades, our executions, and everybody like kinda asks questions about the trade or gives some constructive criticism about the trade. And the idea is If there's a mistake, uh, we want that person to see that mistake, to point out that mistake and correct it for him, if he doesn't see that mistake.

Right. So everybody like shares uh their trading uh midday and then at the end of the day everybody journals and the next day we repeat. So we try to work as a team. Have there been any interesting observations from your point of view? Because you've now been with the firm for about four or five years and you know, when these three guys who you're kind of guiding They I guess they're in a very similar situation to what you were when you started four or five years ago. You know.

having the experience that you do now and looking back, it's almost I guess in some ways looking like looking back at yourself four years ago. I mean, are there any interesting observations which have come from that? I think that if a trader um I think that when a new trader has somebody to watch You know, if if if a guy comes in and wants to trade small caps but he doesn't really know how to approach them, he shadows me for a couple of weeks.

uh you know, he has a much better understanding of the process. You know, if he doesn't have somebody to watch, if he's just trying to figure out on its on his own, then he has a much higher probability of just failing on on his way to success. So uh definitely like uh I think in New York especially like there's a lot more traders. Uh there's like thirty people or something like that. So You will probably find somebody who trades similar setups

as you do, you know, on that floor. So you can you can kinda link up link up with that person and uh even trade together, you know, jump in a chat together or or sit next to each other and talk about trading together or even shadow each other. So uh also what I do for uh for my trade is I record my screen every day.

And then I post it on our proprietary website just for my team so uh they can go back and rewatch the tape and rewatch how I executed their trades. And sometimes they record their screen and I re watch it just to give some feedback. Okay. What about uh f what about with regards to consistency? Like um, you know, what are some of the things you're Some of the exercises or some of the things that you do with uh these three guys to help them improve their consistency.

I think eliminating mistakes um just every day working on something very specific. Uh if you're repeating the same mistake over and over, whether it's Whether it's a technical error, you didn't see a level on the chart or you hit the wrong hotkey or you're you were fearful to enter the trade. I want you I want them to know, to be aware. I want them to write it down, stick it on their monitor and to actively work on eliminating um eliminating that mistake. Um I think uh

A trader should always be working on a project. Uh whether it's a setup or your mindset or getting in the zone, like whatever it is, you can always trade better and you should always be working on some project. I think um Uh for me, like for example, for me uh for 2018, my project was to size up and I wasn't very consistent. I actually underperformed compared to 2017. I underperformed by a bit. Um I still had a a good year, but

I wasn't as consistent because I was just trying to size up and I was trying to to go for the home run every time with as, you know, big of a position as possible. And that hurt my consistency. So my goal for two for two thousand nineteen is to actually uh find a balance between being sized in You know, full size. Um but at the same time, get out at the right time and like not being not be in the mindset of this is gonna be a home run trade.

If it's gonna be a home run trade, I'm I'm probably gonna have a half position. If it's not gonna be a home run trade, I'll have a decent gain, but I'm not gonna take a loss. Um so for me personally, Um, just being in a mindset of maybe it's gonna be a home run trade, maybe not, and I'm okay with it, that's gonna help my consistency.

If you had to look back on 2018, what would you say were some of the biggest lessons that you had? Like you look back on 2018, you say, you know, that was the year that I learned such and such. Was there anything which really stands out? Well I added a bunch of uh trades to my toolbox, a bunch of setups. So definitely I learned that that that I can trade. Um To be honest with you, I can size up, I can trade, and like if the market changes, I will adapt.

And that's it. And all it takes is just a lot of sleepless nights and uh ripping through charts and talking to other traders. There's always money to be made somewhere. There you know, there's a lot of uh I've seen a lot of uh Good traders stop making money and just give up uh just because that setup doesn't work anymore. You know, I used to trade with a couple of guys who were really, really good and they're not around anymore.

Why? I don't know why, because they're maybe too lazy. They were too lazy to find a new setup. So um I think the lesson for me is that if something stops working, there is another place to make money, somewhere else. Hundred percent, man. And that you know, this very much I know I've mentioned it already, but it kind of ties in with the

uh the the interview I did with Jack Ma, you know, one of the big things he spoke about was about how you need trading skill and not just a trading strategy. Um and that's kind of why I labelled the episode Strategies die, skills survive. Um I agree with that. It goes back to what you're saying there. Well this has been a lot of fun and maybe we could try and do it again sometime. I think that that would be really good.

Yeah, I'd be down for that. Okay, cool. So if someone wants to find out more about you, follow along online, uh, is there any way they can do that? Uh yes, uh I'm pretty active on Twitter. Um Chokana Trader, C I O C A N A trader. Shokana Trader on Twitter and on Instagram. So come check me out. Instagram, same handle.

Exactly the same. Chokana Trader. Okay. Good stuff, man. Uh all right. Let's call it a wrap. Thank you very much for doing the podcast. I appreciate it, Stan. Thank you very much, Aaron. You've reached the end of this episode of Chat with Traders, but rest assured there are more outside. And zero.