The Stock Trading Reality Podcast

For you longer time listeners, you know nothing gets Chezz or myself fired up more than someone who "takes action" and offers no excuses... particularly when it comes to finding money to use to trade. Our guest from the chat room, Brandon (alias in room "bfaust25"), shares a journey filled with many ups and downs. The common theme however is due to Brandon's awesome attitude which has allowed him (and continues to allow him) to get up whenever he may get knocked down. Brandon is a shining example of just how powerful the combination of attitude + work ethic can be. My guess is after listening, you'll be ready to pick up a few part time jobs! Notes: Brandon’s introduction the market was his father-in-law who suggested he put in $200 a month from his paycheck into a brokerage account so he would have a decent size account in the future to use. He decided to focus on sector ETFs. From what he had read, he knew that market crashes were a great time to get invested in the market at a discount price. He was able to capitalize on that during 2008 and 2009. Brandon did a lot of research on selling options and decided to save up for another account to try that. The problem is, he still had no tool to forecast which direction the stocks/market would go. He grasped the concept of being directionally neutral but he knew there must be a way to figure out general direction. He looked into technical analysis and that’s when he found Clay and invested in his education. After he took a few courses, he rolled into Claytrader University where he discovered that there is quite a story in all charts and with that, there is many moving parts that need to be understood. After going through the courses, Brandon completely changed his tune from selling option premium to buying option premium and using charts. He unfortunately let his emotions and greed get involved after this which led to a downtrend in his account value. He struggled for a bit to grasp how to trade long options based on the underlying movement. These things all take time and take practice. This led to some frustration and disappointment so he took a step back. During this time, he learned how to properly prepare his family’s budget. Brandon has now picked up a few part time jobs to continuously fund his account and while he does that he is paper trading short options combining what he learned initially with what he has now learned technically. Quotes: “I read some Warren Buffett books. I was more in an investment mindset instead of trading.” “Now there is only 1 problem. I don’t know what way the stock price is going to go. Those guys are cool and all but there is a disconnect.” “I completely avoided risk management and didn’t use it. I pretty much blew that entire account over time.” “I took a huge step back. I took the Cash Flow Creation Guide and I needed to hear that. I needed the discipline.” Links: Course: The Cash Flow Creation Guide

We've decided to push the bounds of the podcast a bit and try something new... a VIDEO interview. I would not call it flawless, but the early feedback for those that attended it live was still positive. As weird as it may sounds, I've become good enough friends with a member from our community, Nate Wilson, to have invited to my house where we recorded this episode. He has been on two previous podcasts, but Chezz and I wanted to touch base with him and hear about how his trading has been unfolding. In fact, he literally traded my account the morning we recorded this, so we talked about that a bit in the interview. I'd highly recommend "watching" this one instead of "listening" to it, but do what you gotta do. Notes: In this live episode we have guest Nate Wilson with us and we compile some questions from the community to ask him. Many of our members trade options and wondered why Nate does not. He prefers the simplicity of day trading equities and considering no two traders trade the same, it is all about finding where your comfort level is. He has no need to branch out considering his success with his current strategy. We discuss the detriment of counting how many days you’ve made profits and how it should be avoided. Every day is a clean sheet and needs to be treated that way otherwise you will be making irrational decisions based on previous days performance. Nate discusses how he turned the corner and became more consistent. He reduced his position size and this helped him logically manage trades instead of just going all in at one shot. Smaller risk helps you stay focused on managing trades correctly since you are more comfortable. After watching Wolf of Wallstreet, Nate utilized his background in fundamental analysis to invest in marijuana stocks. This led him down the path of message boards and he started to buy into the hype. This is when he found Clay’s chart analysis videos. Nate is always looking to improve mainly with his entries. Picking quality entry points is not always the easiest and we are always trying to make sure we don’t force an entry at a non-ideal location. Quotes: “I looked at options for a little while and realized I didn’t like it. I prefer the fast in and out day trading of equities.” “If I revenge trade, I will literally get up from the computer and go talk with a coworker to get away from forcing trades.” “If you can’t manage your personal finances, don’t bother trying to trade. It’s a business.” “I totally got suckered in. I had no idea what was going on but they would say ‘BOOM! News is coming out!’ “ “I always want to constantly improve on picking a quality entry instead of forcing an entry. It’s a struggle.” Links: Video: 64 Trading Days - 2 Losing Days Blog: How I Ruined My Month

I learned a new phrase in this interview, greedy goblin. Yes, without question that sounds pretty rough, but as you hear our guest from the community, Caemeron, explain, it is actually a characteristic that all of us as traders should have. Having a passion and enjoying the challenge of seeing numbers add up, like a game, is an attribute that can be very beneficial. There is certainly some gray area in this regard, but with the right approach and mental mindset, the waters can be navigated in a profitable way. Notes: Cameron’s introduction to the market was from his teenage years where he would read about the big moves that biotech companies were making. He knew that if he could acquire the knowledge to trade those, he could significantly increase his earnings. At 18 years old, he moved out of his parents house and moved into a pretty run down trailer in the woods. Cameron worked at a gas station to help pay for the rest of nursing school. When he finished school, he was able to get a job at a hospital and stayed in the low cost trailer to save money. After a discussion with his father, he realized that his idea of putting all his money in dividend paying stocks would not make the gains he desired. While working in the nursing field, he noticed very quickly he did not enjoy it so he decided to leverage his old contacts to find a different profession. When he did open his trading account, he put his money into household names that he was familiar with. His thesis was invest 80% and swing trade the other 20%. He had no knowledge of chart usage at this time. After losing quite a bit of money trying to trade penny stocks, Cameron invested in his education and took RvR Trading because he recognized that if he could control the downside, the upside would take care of the rest. Cameron is now paper trading with his new found knowledge and recognizes that practice makes perfect. Quotes: “My friends call me a goblin because I love making money. I think it’s really fun and very challenging.” “I’d love to have enough money in the dividend paying stocks where it’s like I’m getting paid to hold these stocks.” “I opened up an account and got 3 free trades. My dad told me to stick to things I know. I bought AT&T and MSFT since I used them.” “I’m collecting aluminum cans, working at the gas station, mowing lawns, I’m doing everything I can to get money.” “He told me, if you can get through those guys, you can get through the FDA. That was a horrible investment thesis.” Links: Course: Risk vs Reward Trading Video: How and Where I Learned To Trade

While some may call the over-arching theme of this interview "common sense", the problem with that is common sense isn't very common anymore. Our guest from the community, Jody, approached the market in a very strategic, yet simple way. Again, some may say "duh!", but it is also one of those things that in many cases hides in plain sight. Bottom line, when you are unsure of something, go find something that you feel safe in and don't push the envelope. Jody has done, and continues to illustrate a great job of doing exactly that. Notes: Jody’s introduction to the market was similar to many, a 401k that a job provided matching for. This was back in 1999. It wasn’t until 2008 that he took a more active approach. After speaking with some fellow co workers, he had the idea to take his entire portfolio and reinvest it into the company he worked at since the shares were down 75% due to the market crash. After doubling his money in about a month, he decided to take profits and put it back into other funds. He got a love letter from the brokerage saying that he is not suppose to be actively trading these accounts since they are managed. As time goes on, Jody went back to school and changed jobs a few times. In the transition between companies, some of his funds went into an eTrade account. He makes an important decision in the sense that he recognized he didn’t know what he was doing so rather than gamble with that account he moved it back into his new companies managed funds. He finds Clay online and checks out all the free training material available. At the same time he notices a co worker who is trading at work with Robinhood. Jody now was interested in lower priced penny stocks so that he could theoretically turn a larger profit based on a larger move these stocks sometimes make. He still had an uneasy feeling and went back into cash. After watching the video regarding penny stocks versus options, Jody decided to learn how to trade options. He went through a few courses and is now working on honing his trading methodology. Quotes: “My 401k wasn’t really growing much. Then 2008 hit. Our company went from 30 dollars a share to as low as 7 or 8.” “I didn’t know what I was doing. It was kind of scary to have money in a brokerage so I rolled everything back into my 401k.” “In programming, you can see what’s breaking during debugging. In trading, when you lose money, you have no idea. You’re just losing.” “I made 300 dollars from CIE. I pulled that money and bought RvR Trading. My account is trending up now.” Links: Video: Work Smarter Not Harder Video: Trade Penny Stocks On Steroids

There is a common theme among our community that follows the mind-set that "there are no excuses". I'm happy to report that we, once again, have another data point that proves this mindset is not unrealistic or impossible to put into action in real life. Our guest, Mike, was on a very... very... nice path, but then some "life evens" happened that set him back a bit. Speaking for myself, I was inspired by Mike's story and how he never threw a pity party for himself, but adapted the attitude of "get-er-done" and started chipping away. There is little question in my mind on whether or not you'll find any motivation in this interview... I'm confident you will! Notes: Mike’s introduction to the market was in highschool when he would follow the quotes in the newspaper. During college, Mike always had a huge interest in historical figures especially in the realm of finance. While he maintained an interest in the market, he actually passed up a job to work for a very large broker. Knowing one of the higher ups there, he saw how awful he was to his employees and decided that wasn’t an environment he wanted to be subjected to. Once Mike had some capital to put into the market, he went the way of value investing. These were all very long, multi month-year holds. He did quite well investing this way and admits he may have stumbled into some fool's gold but an unfortunate divorce wiped away his worth and actually left him in quite a bit of debt. After working hard for many years, Mike has cleared all the debt and problems in his life and has now been working toward rebuilding his trading account. He has been focusing on options so he can trade larger names with much less capital outlay (utilizing technical analysis). He will continue to focus on names and industries that he knows well blending in his older investment style criteria. Quotes: “If Vanderbilt had enemies he wanted to do away with, he would manipulate his stocks to drive his competition bankrupt.” “I got interested in value investing. I’m the kind of person that does a ton of research on anything I’m interested in.” “I only invested in businesses that I understand. I really didn’t understand technology so I didn’t own any of them.” “Investing is like watching paint dry. I thought trading would be a good way to accumulate funds for investing.” “I’ll give you two words to sum up successful trading. Impulse control.”

For you long time listeners of the show, Shawn is well known "as that lady who took $250 and turned it into over $10,000". If you are a member of the private chat room community, then I'm sure you've seen Shawn or perhaps even interacted with her. Well, she's back for another interview so that Chezz and I can check in with her and see how things have been going. What I loved is that despite her continued success trading, she has a few "other things" going on in her grand plan that make trading a bit more mentally easy. On top of that, she is a master at staying in tune with her emotions which is vital for us as traders. All sorts of good stuff and we're excited to bring it to you! Notes: In this week's episode, we revisit with Shawn who we interviewed this previous year. After a brief recap of her journey up to this point, we dive into her more recent trading endeavors. She stresses the importance of practice and how it was instrumental in helping her turn her trading around. After going through how she grew her watchlist from 2 tickers to a handful, Shawn tells us the process she used to learn how to spot what tickers work better for her with options or straight up stock. When she started trading, Shawn focused on small monetary goals that would lead her to earn more than the bank could offer. Since then, she has learned how to let her runners run to their logical conclusion and extract more profit out of trades that go in her favor. Shawn believes it is crucial to be in tune with yourself if you are trading the market. She recommends writing down the emotions you are feeling whether good or bad and taking a hard look at how to resolve them or make sure they don’t interfere with trading. Members of the community chime in some questions for Shawn. This includes what time frames she uses, and some various ways she chooses her trades which includes the importance of liquidity. Quotes: “You get a million dollars on paper money and I thought ‘alright, I’m going to trade.’ I thought this would be simple.” “SPY and AAPL were the two that I got the feel for. I didn’t really pay attention to other names.” “If you’re not on your game, don’t press that buy button. That’s bad practice.” “It’s 3 things to me. Being in tune with yourself, risk versus rewards and stops. If you’re wrong, get out.” “You gave me the tools, I put the work in. I was very excited to personally thank you.” Links: https://claytrader.com/podcast/episode057/ https://claytrader.com/podcast/episode058/

One of the coolest things about hosting the podcast is hearing the career fields people are in. I'm not sure we've ever had one as interesting as our guest, Justin, (alias in chat room "JustinT") who works alongside traders where he tells them what to buy/sell. Because of this interesting career field, Justin has quite the unique path in regards to learning the markets and how to trade them. It is intriguing to see where he has been, where he is now, and where he is headed. Justin offers no excuses and is in full blown "ax-to-the-grindstone" mode. Notes: When Justin was in college, it was the middle of the dot.com boom and he perceived this as an opportunity. Considering he was into technology, he was there for the beginning of the online brokerage industry. After coming into some money, Justin opened his first brokerage account. Initially, Justin lost some money right from the get go and decided to put his money into IRA’s and let them grow for 15 years. After going through a few different jobs during the 08-09 recession, Justin got a job in the natural gas industry as a scheduler and works with traders daily. After scouring StockTwits and trying to find good traders to learn from, Justin ultimately went on to find trading specific podcasts which led him here. After 20 episodes, he decided that he would investigate Claytrader further to see if it would be worth it for him to invest in his education. Justin has always been very open with his wife about his endeavors in trading and they jointly agreed that it would be beneficial for him to invest in his education since he is serious about using trading as a form of supplemental income. Not only does he have a paper trading plan and a time frame, he has a plan on how he will proceed further with live trading. He treats this as a business and that is how you get ahead. Quotes: “There were IPOs all the time and I heard about how they would skyrocket after they hit the market.” “I’m the logistics guy and the traders are the traders but I get to tell them how much they can sell everyday.” “I knew it was possible but I was missing something. I tried to piggyback on some traders from StockTwits.” “I’ll start out small and trade equities for a while. Just to utilize the technical analysis I’ve been taught.” “Be patient. Relax. The market will always be there. I’m just going to keep practicing because it pays off.”

This episode holds a special place in my heart as our guest, Louis, from the chatroom was quite the customer service challenge. He was about as hard headed as it got when it came to him actually deciding to come aboard, but I'm glad he did. He's one of those traders who even after making a boatload of money, was still aware enough to know that he need to tap the brakes a bit. He started off guns-a-blazin' and rolling in the dough, but where did that lead him? Well come along for an enjoyable discussion about the bumpy road we call trading. Notes: Louis’s introduction to the market started as a child. He would farm crawfish and he wanted to know why the prices would change all the time. He was witnessing supply and demand at it’s truest form. While Louis was stationed in Iraq, he saw someone on base looking at charts and struck up a conversation with him. Since Louis was always outside of the base, he was unable to really trade similar to this guy but he decided that once he got back stateside he would start to learn how to trade in the market. He joined a buy and sell alert service and his first and only trade was to go long gold (as a hedge against the ‘end of the world’). He put his whole account into this trade and then left it for 6 months. This resulted in him just about doubling his 100k account. Louis heeded the advice of a co worker who warned him that he could just as easily lose all that money he recently made. This led him to start investigating how to further his education. After utilizing as much free education as he could find, he realized that it wasn’t the whole picture so he eventually joined Claytrader University. Recognizing that he shouldn’t risk all the profits he came into, he stopped trading and spent time going through the training. He was also paper trading while going through the courses. This has led Louis to become a completely methodical trader who has a process for spotting entries, managing risk and determining logical places to take profits. Quotes: “The price always changed. That’s what really got me interested in the market. I wanted to know why they changed.” “Well I just forgot about it. I treated it like the Fidelity account. Six months later that trade made me 90,000 dollars.” “I’m cheap by nature so I didn’t want to splurge on the courses. I got to the point where the free stuff stopped working.” “I only put 4 grand in there and wanted to see what I could do with a small account. I saved that money from shoeing horses.” “I experienced a big gap down and my stop loss got hit. My co workers are still hanging on to it and hoping it recovers.”

Every single Monday for 100 weeks straight, we've put out a brand new episode... I would be a total liar if I said I thought that would happen when Chezz and I first began our podcast journey. Sure, I planned it would have success, but literally 100 weeks straight of new episodes? No way! With that being said, thank you to YOU, our listeners, for providing enough interest to keep the show going. In this special episode we bring back a couple of guests who are well known among the community and absolutely killing it with their trading. We all just sit back, shoot the breeze, and let the conversation take us down rabbit holes and whatever topics we want. Thanks again to all you listeners and we look forward to another 100 episodes! Notes: In this special episode we have two staple community members on with us, Shawn and h00ch. This podcast will be much more off the cuff than our usual structure since we have interviews with both the guests already. A common problem we encounter here is that people want to quickly double their money. During the discussion, it becomes very clear that there is no ‘one size fits all’ and while some people fall into quick riches, that fools gold is generally quickly lost. Learning to trade is a journey and becoming consistent is part of that journey. We have a good discussion regarding penny stocks versus options. Both Shawn and h00ch have transitioned from penny stocks to options for the various benefits that are discussed. It makes a strong case on why you may want to consider trading options instead of penny stocks. Going back down memory lane, we each list our favorite moments from the past 99 episodes. We get quite a diverse set of answers from everyone and we look forward to 100 more podcasts! Quotes: “This is not a ‘get rich quick scheme.’ You have to be smart. There are bigger dogs out there not afraid to take your money.” “You press the buy and sell button. Nobody else is pushing that button for you. You are completely responsible for what happens.” “If you want that kind of fun you’re better off going to Niagara Falls to hit the casino.” “They think penny stocks are their only hope for a small account. Don’t think it’s either penny stocks or bigger stocks.” “I originally got a part time job to take the pressure off myself so that my needs would be met in order for me to not force a trade.”

If you're newer to the markets and your plan of action is "learning as I go", then all I ask is that you please listen to our guest, Mike ('HeyFordy' alias in chat room), who took the same path. What I like about Mike is that he's from the Northeast, so he's got that accent and has no problem being blunt and telling you like it is. He doesn't hold back any punches and speaks his mind, for better or worse. Mike is an amateur boxer, so his views on mindset and psychology are fascinating. Whether you are new or an experienced trader, I'm willing to bet there will be at least something that stands out to you and assists you in your personal trading. Notes: Mike’s introduction to the market was his buddy who was trading with his free Robinhood account. He funded his account and just dove straight into it. Mike was just puppet trading his friend who gave him some ‘picks.’ Unfortunately, Mike ended up becoming a bag holder and maintained his losing position for a few months. He went on a search for a good group of traders that he could follow. Mike grew his small account by the thousands with sheer blind luck but eventually that luck ran out. After getting stuck in a trade that he was unable to sell, he started to wise up and realize that he needed to learn how to spot his own entries and determine his exits. Mike went on to search for as much free information as he could find but struggled with it since it had absolutely no structure. After this he went on to try some subscription services that offered hot picks. He quickly found out that this didn’t work either. He joined the Claytrader community shortly after this and eventually went on to take the first course, Robotic Trading. Mike said that this was a big eye opener and he know wanted to learn even more. He now started to understand WHY he should be buying and WHY he should be selling. This led him to take a few other courses since he recognized that education for the market is a continuous process. Mike is now truly enjoying the freedom that comes with education in the form of not needing anyone to give him ‘hot picks’ or steer him into various tickers. He has developed his own strategy, applies solid risk management and executes trades that he has personally planned. This is the true path to long term consistent success. Quotes: “I downloaded it, funded the account and dove in. I didn’t have any education or anything. I wanted to do the ‘learn as you go.’ “ "I grew a small account by the thousands very quickly just off of luck. I thought I had everything figured out.” “His DVD was like panhandling for gold. You had to go through a ton of dirt just to get a small speck of gold. It was ridiculous.” “Robotic Trading was eye opening. A lot of the uncertainty went out the window and I started seeing things in a logical way.” “I like swing trading a lot better. I like to manage them over a bit of an extended time.”