Unlock the Market's 'Cheat Code' to Trade Like a Pro

On this week's Stansberry Investor Hour, Dan and Corey welcome J.C. Parets to the show. J.C. is a Chartered Market Technician and editor of the Everybody's Wrong newsletter. He's also the founder of All Star Charts – a research platform for both professional and retail investors which tracks U.S. and international stocks, interest rates, commodities, and foreign exchange markets. 

J.C. kicks things off by discussing the difference between market technicians and "chartists," the fact that valuations and fundamentals no longer drive stock prices, and the "big bullies" that trickle down to the individual stock level and move markets. He delves into the topic of positioning and finding parts of the market where folks are too bullish or too bearish. For example, J.C. points out that small caps are currently vulnerable for a squeeze. After that, he gives listeners the "cheat code" for analyzing the market, including what to look for, how to cut through the "noise machine" of financial media, how to spot changes in trends, and how to distinguish reality from narrative. (0:35)

Next, J.C. walks through a hypothetical trade in the small-cap Russell 2000 Index to demonstrate his thought process and how exactly he finds opportunities. He highlights relative strength, waiting for a change in trend, weighing risk versus reward, not taking profits too early, and his unique position-sizing strategy. J.C. also emphasizes the importance of continually asking yourself how you could be wrong once you've formulated a thesis. As he says, if you can't answer the question and don't know how the market could prove your thesis wrong, "It's not an investment. It's a religion [based on belief alone]." This leads J.C. to talk about overcoming human emotion, having a plan before entering a trade, and taking advantage of all the emotional investors who don't have a plan. (19:48)

Finally, J.C. throws out a few areas of the market he likes today and is following closely for opportunities, explains how he decides the right time to enter and add to a trade, and gives listeners solid advice for risk management. "If you're in a trade that's losing, you're going to be distracted, and you're going to miss the giant elephant that's walking right past you," J.C. quips. And he closes the show out with a conversation about investing discipline, including not entering risky trades even if you know they'll go up. (37:21)