The Stock Trading Reality Podcast

I give episode guest, Charlie, a lot of credit as he was willing to sit down with just me and be interviewed. Our co-host, Chezz, had other obligations, so Charlie got stuck with me... and he did great! His analogy and description about the emotion of greed was absolutely awesome and almost brought a tear to my eye! Charlie is one of the younger guests we've had on the show; however, in his very short journey thus far, he's already experienced as much as some people who have been trading for years. Thanks to Charlie's openness, there are many mistakes that we all can learn from (that don't cost us any money!). Let's go! Notes: Charlie had a real sense of urgency to be successful in life except he didn't know what he wanted to be successful at. After working a few different jobs, he finally found one that he enjoyed but was still exploring what other opportunities are available. After stumbling on a stock picker website, his interest was piqued. After doing some exploration on Reddit and other free websites, Charlie frantically opened 3 brokerage accounts because the application process was taking too long at some other brokerages. He just wanted to get his money there and start trading ASAP. Charlie did do a good job of managing his risk by limiting the size he enter with on these penny stocks. He did get addicted to larger gains which led to the greed voice and we all know how that ends. He does realize that he got lucky and actually ended up making money on the year. Even though Charlie had made 2,000 dollars over the course of a year, he did not like the fact that he was dependent on Reddit for his trade ideas. If Reddit were to go down, he would not know how to find stocks to trade. This epiphany led him to realize that he needed how to learn to 'fish' on his own and that is when he decided to invest his profits into his education. Charlie recognizes that this trading journey is just that, a journey. This is not a get rich quick scheme and now with realistic expectations, Charlie is getting through the content and planning on pursuing paper trading so that his future profits can be a result of his hard work and not luck. Quotes: "You don't know what this guy is talking about or what angle he's taking. He just talks about this stock that will make you millions." tweet this quote "My strategy was if someone's talking about it it's definitely going to go up because of hype. Hopefully get out before it plunges." tweet this quote "I was thinking this was going to the moon. They were going to cure everything. I got in during the dump stage of that." tweet this quote "Alright, it's house money anyways. I made 2,000 bucks and spent it on education. Pretty cool how that works out." tweet this quote "It's easy to learn from other people's mistakes rather than losing a bunch of money. It discourages you from doing something stupid." tweet this quote

We close out our journey with chat room member "CPO" in Part 2 of his interview. We left off with him deciding to meet Chezz and I in Baltimore as he wasn't too happy with the chat room experience thus far. Where did things go from here? CPO has learned quite a bit since then. His knowledge is now unfolding before his eyes in terms of feeling confident in not only build trading strategies that fit his personal risk tolerance levels, but in executing them. Once again, many nuggets of wisdom based on experience are shared thanks to CPO's openness. Notes: CPO recognized that if he wants to trade some of these volatile tech names he should focus on how they move. With deliberate focus you can definitely learn how certain names move and what their 'personality' is. Considering CPO is unable to trade at work, he has started to look at the futures markets since they trade for about 23 hours of the day. He used to try to day trade regular equities and options during lunch on his phone from his car but he was tired of just forcing trades and seeing he would be stopped out later in the day. Market preparation is always key and CPO takes a few hours out of his day to prepare by reviewing the main tickers that he trades. He also stresses the point that learning how to read charts takes time. This combined with your trade plan and the ability to recognize when your trade plan loses its appeal allows him to take the excitement out of his trading and put the odds in his favor. Quotes: "I'm not actually trading against the market. I'm trading against other people just like me. I'm my own adversary." tweet this quote "It's really hard to day trade when you don't have access to your trading platform while you are day trading." tweet this quote "All indicators are just to cue you that you're on the right track with your trade plan. It helps me make decisions." tweet this quote

We have another two part episode as we dig into the journey of chat room member "CPO". He has been on an adventurous ride ever since first being introduced into the markets. This included signing up for the chat room and not being too happy about it. In fact, he was still not very happy about it when he decided to come meet up with Chezz and I during our Baltimore Meet-and-Greet. How'd this meeting go? Did he choke me out with this knowledge from his SWAT Team training? We shall see... Notes: CPO had an interest in the market at a relatively young age but he believed he was unable to participate. He thought it was for big wigs on Wall Street. As he got older and transitioned into a new career, he was offered stock options, matching 401k contributions, and those are all great but he disliked the fact that he did not have a say in where the money was invested. He wanted more control over his finances. He was pleasantly surprised to find that he actually had a brokerage account sitting idle and decided that he would utilize this money to invest/trade with some knowledge he acquired from a book and google. The unfortunate thing about this trading account is that CPO had treated it like Monopoly money since he didn't recognize that it was his hard earned dollars. After being unfamiliar with the pattern day trader rule, CPO was eventually flagged and this led to him not being able to day trade further in his account. He then went and opened a new account. The mistake he made at this time was that he was trying to trade alerts from the Inner Circle but wasn't familiar with the alerts or strategies that are best suited to them. This led to losing trades and frustration. He had tried to reverse engineer the alerts but was unsuccessful. Since the Baltimore meet and greet was not far from where he was living, he decided to take a chance and come meet some fellow traders to hopefully learn something. Quotes: "All I know is I'm thinking long term. Put it in and watch it increase like my 401k. I bought 50 shares of Microsoft and Disney." tweet this quote "Unfortunately, adrenaline in the market will sometimes cost you money." tweet this quote "I think the worst place to be in is not knowing what you don't know and being overconfident in what you do know." tweet this quote "I was trying to rush into the market because I thought the market was going to leave me behind if I didn't jump in." tweet this quote Links: Course: The Trading Freedom Pathway

This interview causes me to revert back to being a little boy again as I thought it was pretty cool to get to talk with a "real life helicopter pilot". Hopefully it isn't too apparent in the interview! Anyways, talking with trading community member Micah was a great time and one filled with numerous ups and downs (pun intended!) that create some valuable learning opportunities for new and old traders alike. Notes: Micah had some friends who were making money day trading. Considering they had taken no formal education, he is under the assumption they were just getting lucky. Micah did not experience the same luck. After seeing Clay's YouTube chart analysis, Micah decided to invest in his education and stop live trading immediately. He did need to take a huge loss in a petroleum penny stock before he saw the light though. Micah focuses primarily on a basket of 20 stocks that have good movement and volume so that he can generally find something that is tradable. He is utilizing options to trade directionally instead of stock (which is generally much cheaper from a cash flow standpoint). A large focus going forward is reducing the size of his losses since they are doing a good amount of damage to his profits. Considering his busy season is coming up, Clay and Chezz deduce that possibly using advanced option strategies may help him reduce his downside by setting his max loss in advance. Quotes: "I was doing the headline trading and reading up on everything but couldn't understand it and lost quite a bit of money." tweet this quote "I needed to completely stop trading. This money would be better spent on some sort of education." tweet this quote "Now I just cut my losses and look at it again. Maybe this charts just not doing what it's suppose to do." tweet this quote "As I take the classes and it opens new doors who knows, maybe I will be trading forex or futures. I'm happy with options." tweet this quote Links: Course: Options Trading Simplified Course: Advanced Options Trading

I can totally relate to our guest, Delgado (same name in chat room), as he started on the same path I did. He first got involved in the markets doing the "boring" stuff by investing into blue chips, but like myself, he became fascinated even more with the market and wanted to get hands on. There is certainly nothing wrong at all with wanting to become more involved in your own money's growth; however, going down the wrong rabbit holes can lead to a world of headaches. Notes: Delgado's introduction the market was somewhat similar to others. He had a teacher in school who would have the students pick 5 stocks each week and then see how it worked out the following week. He did open up a trading account with about $5,000 and invested in some relatively stable blue-chip dividend stocks. Even though he experienced success with his long term holdings, he had always aspired to be a day trader but didn't know anything about technical analysis or methods to accomplish this goal. After a friend introduced him to technical analysis and options, he wanted to find a more reasonably priced location to learn. That is what led him to the Inner Circle. While he didn't know what to expect when he joined, he quickly realized that the community had a no BS type approach and would always be straightforward and honest with him. Considering he wanted a place that wasn't going to make false promises, he decided to dive in and join CTU. To this day, Delgado is still going through a few of the courses while focusing on a small basket of high option volume stocks. He still primarily trades TSLA. When you strictly focus on a small amount of names to learn how they act we call that getting 'romantic' with a ticker. Quotes: "When the market tanked in 2008, I was all about Warren Buffett and just long term investing." tweet this quote "Instead of just getting out, I started to hope and wish. It was me being cocky thinking that this is easy." tweet this quote "It blew my mind how much money I could lose in 5 minutes. I could feel the sweat running down my face." tweet this quote "I learned patience. You don't have to trade every day. Once I started trading, I felt like I always had to be in a trade." tweet this quote "Arm yourself with a little bit of knowledge and your aim improves." tweet this quote Links: Video: Getting Romantic with Options Trading

We've heard many different approaches to trade plans over the 50 plus episodes, but today's guest gives us something quite unique. Shawn ("dimliwitti" in chat room) talks about a fourth "trend" indicator that he likes to use, and it truly has an important place within his strategy. I've been tempted to give his approach a try because it does make a whole lot of sense; however, I have not made the leap as of yet. Shawn has been around the markets for a while, so there are all sorts of ups and downs to talk about, which as always creates many experiences that we can all learn from. Notes: Shawn's grandfather managed portfolios for a living and really taught him how to manage an extensive sized portfolio. These were all longer term swing trades and had no short intraday trades. He relied heavily on fundamental analysis at this time. As time went on, Shawn recognized that there were many short term trade setups that he could recognize and the idea of quick profits really appealed to him so he tried his hand at active trading. This led to quite a sizeable loss and led him down the path to education. A very unique way that Shawn trades involves the use of fundamental analysis as a filter. He likes to find chart setups that are aligned with either a up trend in the fundamentals or a downtrend in the fundamentals. Shawn is a huge proponent of continuous education. He has already mapped out the path of what he is choosing to learn. Building upon what you already know is absolutely critical because the market is ever evolving. The moment you decide you have it all figured out will be the moment in which your performance begins to slip. Quotes: "My wife calms me down a lot with her good, conservative view of investing. It has saved me a number of times." tweet this quote "I didn't have all the tools yet. I latched into using trailing stops but that assumed I would be winning in the first place." tweet this quote "I got in this trade by shorting in the last minute. I was watching a lot of silly people buying in so I shorted at the highest point I could." tweet this quote "I have losing days. We all do. It happens. I'm not saying I'm an angel. Sometimes those voices takeover." tweet this quote

We left you with quite the cliffhanger in episode 57, but the wait is over! We pick right back up with Shawn (same name in chat room) and her journey as she tells us about entering her first trade and then growing the account from there. Like Part 1, this second half of the interview is filled with just as many little nuggets of wisdom, if not more. Shawn gives a humble and heartfelt look into what worked for her, what didn't, and how she handled all the various scenarios. Notes: After doing some paper trading with actual pen and paper, Shawn realized that this would not be as easy as she initially thought. She realized if you practice your chart reading and practice your risk vs reward you will trade intelligently. Shawn had the courage to press on in her journey instead of quitting after losing money initially. She recognized her investment in herself and decided to narrow down the list of tickers she would start to watch continuously. Once she got her expectations in line (she just wanted to perform better than leaving the money in a savings account), her trading really started to take an immediate turn into profitability. After spending more time paper trading REALISTICALLY, Shawn then transitioned to live trades and just mimicked what she had been practicing. In her first month, Shawn went from $250 to over $1400 generally only taking one trade per day. As her profitable weeks increased, she allowed herself a little more buying power. This type of compounding coupled with sound risk vs reward led her to almost a 600% return in the first month. To ensure that she wasn't experiencing fool's gold, Shawn then got a part time job at night to provide further relief knowing that she still has some stable income in the event this was all luck. This type of stress relief can make such a large difference in trading since the pressure of HAVING to make money every day is reduced. Since then, Shawn has now reached her goal of getting her account to $10,000 and she did it all herself. She is a shining example of what hard work and dedication can achieve in any aspect of life and we look forward to hearing about her continued success. Quotes: "I was expecting to double my money and to make rent in a day. I went back to training and remembered it's about the charts." tweet this quote "I have $700 dollars. On the paper side I had 100k. You don't have enough money to trade the way I've been practicing." tweet this quote "I made one trade a day. I waited for the market to do what I wanted to see from it. I mirrored what I did paper trading." tweet this quote "After a month, my account was almost at 1,300. I gave myself a raise for my buying power on a weekly basis. That is how I built it." tweet this quote "It was my goal to get to $10k. I did that by myself starting with $250 and now I don't have to put all my money on the line at once." tweet this quote Links Part 1: STR 058: She Turned $250 into Over $10,000. Here's How. (part 1)

This interview has been one of our most highly anticipated given so many members of the community are already aware of our guests inspirational story. Shawn (besides being our 2nd ever female guest) has also accomplished quite a feat. In the spirit of wanting to control risk, she started her journey with only $250. In a span of a few months, this $250 amount grew to over $10,000 (and at this point, is still growing). How did she do it? What steps did she take? It wasn't a smooth ride, but that's the beauty of her journey. Let's get started! Notes: Shawn's introduction to the market was similar to many. The company she worked for allowed her to allocate where her 401k was allocated and since she saw that computers were the up and coming trend, that is where she placed her money. Needless to say, her 401k appreciated rapidly and she continued to contribute for some time. One of her friends was a trader/investor in the penny stock market. The catch about this is that Shawn has something called common sense! She realized what her friends were telling her about doubling or tripling her money sounded too good to be true. Eventually Shawn saw Clay's Youtube videos that showcase technical analysis of some tickers that she had her money in. This intrigued her because Clay doesn't tell anyone whether to buy or to sell. He just presents the facts that the chart is showing. After going through a few courses, there was enough proof that this wasn't a scam and that the material pays off if you apply it correctly. This led Shawn to purchasing CTU because she wanted to go through the courses she hadn't started yet. She was dead set on applying herself 100% and this was her proving it by investing in her education. Quotes: "I guess I didn't know enough about trading at the time. I didn't have enough black and white facts in front of me." tweet this quote "I always wanted to invest in gold. I risked a whole $100 bucks. If I can make $200 bucks then there might be something to this." tweet this quote "Now somebody is telling me where to put my money but how does that work for them? I was very wary. I wasn't going to get suckered in." tweet this quote "I didn't expect to get rich, I just wanted something to happen with these penny stocks." tweet this quote "I knew every hour I spent, I was one hour closer to pressing that buy and sell button." tweet this quote

Expectations play a vital role to us as traders and investors. In all actuality, expectations are a normal part of everyday life; however, when it comes to the markets, they can lead to literal loss of money. Chat room member, Corey, explains to us how his entry into the markets was plagued by expectations that were not even close to reality. This causes him to go down many paths that lead to... well... unfavorable outcomes. All in all this was a great interview and one I'm happy to share with you all! Notes: While Corey had slight experiencing following stocks when he was younger, he did not get actively involved until he finished up school and started working. In 2009 he now had a 401k and some spare capital and recognized that the big market downturn was actually a buying opportunity and this led him to put some money in the market. Initially starting out value investing/swing trading, Corey started to get interested in more active trading. This led him to the free penny stock newsletters. The mind boggling part is that he did not partake in the marijuana penny stock boom at all. It was all names in other sectors. Corey does eventually close his positions and put some money into his education. His focus was on penny stocks but the important part is that he realized he needed to invest in himself. At the end of 2015, Corey joined CTU and has been working his way through the 400+ hours of content offered. He is still paper trading and solidifying a strategy before he puts his hard earned money back to work. He also paper trades in a hybrid way in the sense of he is live with 1 contract but paper trades 2 additional ones. This keeps him accountable and leaves his risk low. Quotes: "Wow. AIG traded at 400 dollars 6 months ago. Now it's 40 cents. This is an opportunity to buy." tweet this quote "I was at least expecting a double, a 100% gain. That's what my expectation level was at the time." tweet this quote "I really struggled buying something that I was fairly confident was going to come crashing down. I struggled going long." tweet this quote "Sometimes I would time it right and do well. Other times I would time it wrong and not be disciplined." tweet this quote

It's a line I struggle with quite often. Should I cross it or shouldn't I cross it? When it came to this episode's guest, Dave ("SuperDave" in the chat room), I assumed he could handle some tough love, so as he admits to in the interview, I called him out in the chat room. How'd he respond and what did he do from that point? We talk about that and much more in what I believe to be a fantastic discussion. Notes: Dave's introduction to the market was similar to many others. He started getting interested in watching how his mutual funds were trading in his retirement account. Eventually he was driving himself nuts watching the value fluctuate daily so he went cold turkey for some time before revisiting the market. After seeing a coworker experience success trading short term options, Dave decided to continue his education via books to which he accumulated quite a library. Most of the books written about options are extremely complex and this led him to try to find other avenues to make his money in the market. Dave did invest in his education which is a HUGE step many new traders fail to take. Unfortunately, two of the 'mentors' he used ultimately did not help him very much. A majority of their income is from their monthly chat subscriptions. After trying to reverse engineer alerts from the Inner Circle, Dave continued investing in his education and started to get through some courses. While getting through the content, Dave was actively paper trading to see where he was weak in his trading and where he excelled. All of Dave's paper trading lead him to find a winning system for himself. He has his set criteria that he looks for and after struggling with managing his risk vs reward he has now nailed that down too. He is a shining example of how consistent and deliberate practice can and will pay off in the long run. Quotes: "My general market overview was listening to the talking heads and sort of floundering around and guessing." tweet this quote "I just bled slowly with small daily losses. Not seeing the patterns, not seeing the trends, not understanding movement of stocks." tweet this quote "I posted that 'holy crap that was scary' and Clay called me out for trading too large and not knowing what I was doing." tweet this quote "I spent all of last year paper trading and building a trading plan. I then took my live account from 500 to 1200." tweet this quote