The Stock Trading Reality Podcast

These conversations are some of my favorites. They start out in pure confusion, chaos and craziness; however, by the end of the discussion you can see real progress has been made. Fellow member James tells us all about what he has been through, where he is at, and where he is headed in the future. What I find to be most motivating and inspiring is that you can start out as chaotic as he did, but if you stay self-aware and make the changes that need to be put into place, it is completely possible to start to consistently grow your trading account. I respect that James kept his ego in check and admitted to himself that things needed to change. There is a great lesson in that in and of itself. The great part is, that is only the tip of the iceberg! So let's get to it!

Envision the first domino wiggling back and forth. All it takes it for a slight nudge. Down it goes and all other dominos will be knocked down with the momentum. That's how I can best describe the underlying "feel" of my discussion with fellow member Ezra. He's a younger guy with great potential and a good head on his shoulders; however, there is something missing. There is something holding him back from just going "all in" and learning how to truly take control of the markets and his trading. When it comes to "dabbling" verves "going all in", there is a huge difference and this conversation will demonstrate this comparison. For whatever reason, Ezra is "dabbling" instead of "going all in" and it's a situation many people find themselves in. I 100% respect Ezra and his honesty and willingness to tell us the blunt truth. This opens up lots of learning nuggets that we can all take and apply to our personal journeys. Let's get to it!

While I know the topic of "can you trade with real money WHILE you are learning?" has come up multiple times.... I'm not quite sure it has ever been discussed in this manner. I will admit, I can get pretty stuck in my ways. But the way our guest, Carla, is going about her training and education towards the market has me reconsidering how I view this certain question in the market. Like everything, there is always "gray area" that should be and needs to be accounted for; however, with the way Carla is going about it, I must say.... I fully approve! If you are one of the people who want to use real money "while" you learn, you should consider using The Carla Method!

If you want to be a fly on the wall and listen to traders "talk trading", then this will be the episode for you. In this episode, I talk with longtime member Ryan (better known as "Mico" in the community). Sure, it was an interview as I did ask the questions, but most was just us talking strategy and offering up thoughts and opinions. We talk bitcoin, microcaps, shorting, position sizing, mental stops and a whole lot more! Ryan, just like all of us, has had some time toughs but thanks to his honesty we have ourselves some great nuggets of wisdom. Let's get to it!

Have you ever had a "Utah event"? I know I have and they aren't very pleasant. My talk with community member John sheds a ton of light on some very common problems that many of us face as traders. These problems don't make you stupid, they make you a human…. But, they still need to be addressed and "put under control" at all costs. Although John has struggled, he has now found himself a nice little sweet spot within the markets that has been treating him very nicely over the past couple of years. There are many ways to profit from the market, but one way is to simply get very specialized in one specific location of the market and excel at it. This is exactly what John has learned to do. We'll talk about this and much more. Let's go!

A huge part of trading is mental. It may sound dramatic, but if you want trading success, the mind must be mastered. Our guest today, Marc, takes us on a great journey of witnessing his Dad do well as an "old school trader" in the markets to now trading all on his own. Like all of us, he's had struggles and the one is due to a mental issue I can relate too. Some people find it odd when I tell them, "I don't know anything at all about this company, but I'm trading them" and Marc's struggle illustrates exactly why I approach the market in this way. Bottom line, there are sneaky voices that we can be proactive against if we set certain rules for ourselves and that's just one of the great nuggets of wisdom you will learn. Let's get to it!

Talking with full time traders is always a popular thing on the show, and that's what we have this week. Jason ('jyandcomp2' chatroom alias) is a full time trader who made the jump the way it should be done. Technically speaking, you could quit your job today and then tomorrow "be a full time trader", but that doesn't mean it was a wise decision. This brings up the logical question, "Well Clay… what "would" be a wise way to do it?" You'll get that answered and a whole lot more as you hear from Jason and the ups and downs of his journey so far. I had a lot of fun with this talk and I'm certain there will be some valuable nuggets of wisdom you can extract from it. Let's go!

Stay away from day trading! It is too risky. This is exactly what our guest, Mark, was told when he was first learning about the markets. Here's the seemingly contradicting thing: I agree with the person who gave him this advice! Please give me a chance to explain, but this is just one of the interesting rabbit holes we go down while learning about Mark and his trading journey up until this point. I will say at this point that Mark no longer views day trading as "risky"… how he has reached this point is yet another thing you'll hear all about. Let's get to it.

A unique twist on this discussion is that our guest, Paul, is now a ClayTrader University member. By the time you as a listener hear these talks, in many cases, several weeks have passed by. I think this is pretty cool because it gives us all insight to what having "many pieces" of the puzzle looks like…. But… not quite "all" of them. Perhaps you can relate to Paul in this regard? You know what you are doing, but, you just have this feeling in your gut that something might also be missing? I've talked with Paul quite a bit since this discussion took place, and he'll be the first to tell you that while he certainly was not wandering around blind, there were still "pieces" he was missing out on within his trading. Paul is a great guy who I've apricated getting to know better and better and I'm extremely confident that whether you are brand new to trading or a seasoned veteran, there will be something that you can find of value to apply to your trading or simply use as a "reminder" of how things need to be done. Let's get to it!

This one had me laughing. If you find yourself having to fake digestive problems in order to "make a trade", I feel confident in saying you are NOT going about the markets in the wisest of ways – haha! Thanks to our guest, Chad, and his truthfulness we all get to see what certain "strategies" can lead to. As funny as his story is, I'm sure several of you can relate to it in one way or another. Bottom line, signing up for a service that promises to send you text and/or email alerts in order to make you money is not going to turn out well. I realize on the surface it sounds great (and the really great advertisers make it sound even greater), but in the real world and in a practical sense… it doesn't work consistently. From both an entertainment perspective and a wisdom perspective, this discussion has lots of great stuff in it, so be sure to set some time aside to listen! Notes: Today we speak with community member Chad. His interest in the market grew after he talked to someone who retired early and was currently trading ETFs in his tax-free account to generate about $1,000 a week. After spending hundreds of hours going through free education and briefly paper trading (for a week), he pooled together about 7k and borrowed money to get his account to the 10k mark. His logic was that he could trade 1000 shares of stocks under 10 dollars with that size account. Chad started the first day positive and then promptly lost 800 dollars the next. This led him to realize he needed to find someone who could provide a more structured training. He joined a community that essentially played follow the leader. While he had some winners he had more losers which were also larger than his wins. He decided to take a break and focus on life instead of trading. Utilizing the gains from selling his house, Chad got his finances back in order and cleared his old debts that had accumulated. After getting back into trading he started to paper trade options, futures, and forex. Chad opened a futures account and began to rapidly trade intraday since his new job hours worked with market hours. He realized that he ultimately did not want to day trade. As much as he wanted it to work it just didn't work with his personality. This led him to focus on advanced options. Now Chad is paper trading advanced options while he saves up to a certain amount for his trading account. While he has a rough idea when he will go live, he's going to wait to see what his paper trading performance has looked like and will use that to determine when he is ready to put money on the line again. Quotes: I thought you had to be on Wall Street or work in an office building to be a part of the market. I saw the tab at the top that said 'Options.' I thought that was settings for the platform. I was willing to listen to complete strangers to verify my thesis that this company would do well… even though they've never had a positive earnings report. I like to relate free education to a 1000 piece puzzle. You don't have the picture on the box and you're missing 100 pieces. I came to the conclusion was that I don't like day trading. Despite wanting to do it so badly I didn't like the rapid decisions you had to make. Links: https://claytrader.com/videos/trade-profits-100-time/