The Stock Trading Reality Podcast

We look at diversification in a slightly different way in today's interview. Our guest, Darren, operates his own business; however, due to realizing the need to create additional income streams for himself decided to venture into the world of the stock market and trading. Due to Darren's experience already with starting and running a business, he approached his trading career the same way. What did he do? How did he set-up his trading business? We learn about this and more. Notes: Darren owns his own business but quickly came to realize you are at the mercy of reliable employees to continually grow the business. He wanted to take some of that financial dependence into his own hands and opened a trading account. While Darren was not hesitant to invest in his education right away, the training he took did not include any technical analysis and because of this he was unable to develop consistent profits. He is now trading directional options and has focused on a select set of stocks to get intimate with while learning how they act to be able to capitalize on their moves daily. Darren would recommend that all new traders spend a healthy time practicing because with practice comes confidence in yourself and that is a strong attribute to have while trading. Quotes: "I did take an $8k extensive options course but it lacked the charting. Not knowing the charting made it too difficult to stick with." tweet this quote "I look at the chat and then I look at the chart and then I make an educated analysis. Before I would just buy an alert." tweet this quote "I used to think 'it will come back' when I was taking a loss. Now it's just like hitting a pothole. You hit it and you move on." tweet this quote "1. Get educated. 2. Practice that education. 3. Continue to practice until you are confident in your abilities." tweet this quote Links: Video: The Trade Plan Destroyer Video: Getting Romantic With Options

While a very private individual, today's guest stepped out from the shadows to talk about his journey as a trader. "DS" takes us through first getting started, realizing he wasn't nearly as smart as he thought he was, and then hopping onto the true path of success: figuring out the "sweet spot" in his trading personality. We learn about the steps he had to take in order to construct a trading system that fit his personal risk tolerance profile and therefore allowed for trading consistency. There is a huge amount of great nuggets of information in today's interview, so you'll want to be sure to soak it all in. Notes: DS was invested in mutual funds for many years and after he semi-retired he decided to take control of his finances and decided to learn how to trade. He was struggling to realize why some of his trades wouldn't follow through when he realized he was competing against other timeframes. DS recognized that everyone has their own trading parameters and comforts. He designed a strategy that fit his risk profile and provided comfort. There are many tools out there for traders to use but what matters is finding ones that work for you. Quotes: "I was looking for something larger than 100$ a day. I could win that on the golf course. The moves just weren't large enough." tweet this quote "You're not smart when you first start. You're either lucky or run out of money until you figure out what works." tweet this quote "It's not like you are making money off the company. You are making money off someones inability to read a chart." tweet this quote "When you lose 10k in a week multiple times you come to realize very quickly that you are not that damn smart." tweet this quote "You may not have winning days everyday but if you have more green days than red you are able to grow it and retire." tweet this quote Links: Course: Robotic Trading

Ambition is a great thing. Today's guest has three college degrees, so "ambitious" is probably not even a good enough word to describe her. With this being said, ambition in the world of trading can lead to some pain, and that's exactly what happened to today's guest, "Keisha." She came out of the gates blazing and quickly got into trading without really taking the proper steps, and as you will hear about, she got herself into some trouble. How did she react to this? What was her new plan of action? The answers to these questions and much more in today's episode. I hope you all take to heart what is being communicated within this interview about the pitfalls of going "too fast" compared with the benefits of "slowing down." Notes: Keshia got involved in the penny stock market while she was finished up her college education. She found InvestorsHub and started reading up on various tickers. One of her first trades took her account from $1,200 to $10,000 but greed had kept her from selling. She was determined to get educated and trade smarter after that gain had dwindled to $300. She studied for a minimum of 4 hours a day for months while she was preparing to get back into the stock market. Keshia understands that it takes time and effort to be successful. After stringing together multiple green and consistent months, Keshia is now at the point where she is starting to scale up her size in a slow and controlled manner. She is comfortable with her risk and without that comfort, your trading will certainly be uneasy. Quotes: "I enjoyed watching the level 2 and the candles form on the chart even though I didn't understand everything they meant." tweet this quote "My husband really wanted me to pursue the stock market. He really has been my biggest supporter." tweet this quote "At first I was trying to use all the indicators and it was just too much. All of that is not really necessary." tweet this quote "In school you are taught that you are right or wrong but with trading it is okay to take a controlled loss." tweet this quote "If I allow a loser to get larger and larger, that's a good way to blow up your account and I don't want that happening." tweet this quote "You're better off investing in your education instead of relying on someone else to give you a hot stock pick." tweet this quote Links: Course: The Trading Freedom Pathway

Winning 80% of the time does not mean you will make money. This valuable lesson comes to us thanks to the blunt honesty and transparency of today's guest, "ZenTrader". His highs and lows as a trader provide many situations that I'm confident many of you listeners will be able to relate to. While "talking wins" is certainly the more exciting topic and marketing point, today's discussion revolves around the importance of risk management... a much less attractive topic, but one of the utmost importance. Notes: Zen decided to take his tax return for the year and put it to work in the market. He was lured into the large gains penny stocks are known for making and decided to find some traders to follow. After finding initial success, he attempted to day trade and even with an 80% win rate, his losses were much larger than his wins and that is when he decided he needed to delve deeper into technical analysis. Zen found himself in a vicious circle of puppet trading others successfully and then taking losses when trading on his own. He would alternate between those two types of trading for some time before deciding to get educated. After listening to a recommendation to check out options, Zen spent time practicing and perfecting his methods to find what strategy works best for him. Quotes: "At one point I was looking at 24,000 from 2,000. I thought to myself, I don't want 24,000 , I want 200,000." tweet this quote "I would purchase at what I thought was a support then promptly watched it fall through. I then decided to stop trading blindly." tweet this quote "I had a few successful trades and I didn't need an education. I didn't need anyone to tell me what to do. I was a trader." tweet this quote "Just using risk vs. reward and buying stuff when it makes sense seems to be working out a lot better for me." tweet this quote "You can't learn how to be disciplined. You can't learn how not to be emotional. You have to train yourself to do that." tweet this quote Links: Course: Penny Stock Survival Guide Course: Options Trading Simplified Twitter: NJZenTrader

Today we talk with Justin, aka FreeFall909, and discuss a journey that I'm sure many people can relate to. After being inspired by a Hollywood movie about the stock market, Justin found himself in the Wild Wild West of penny stock trading and eventually turned himself into someone else's puppet. It was not until he got honest with himself that his journey was put on the bullish pathway. While Justin is not a professional trader or anything like that, his story is one that hits the heart and soul of the goal of this podcast: giving insight into the life of a normal guy who is on a quest to conquer the markets. Not only does honesty go a long way in normal life, but when it comes to trading, being honest is a critical piece to the puzzle as you will hear about in this episode. Notes: Justin was interested in the stock market at an early age and decided to get involved after the movie 'Wolf of Wall Street' came out. While he was able to find some penny stocks that moved, he was very inconsistent and gave back his earnings most times. He started to follow various people on Twitter and it was on one of those 'plays' that he took a significant loss and then decided to take some time off. After seeing people on InvestorsHub talk about technical analysis and charting and decided this would be something worth educating himself on. Justin is not rich and didn't think he would ever be able to trade big board stocks but then learned about options and completely abandoned penny stocks to trade these larger name companies. While he doesn't trade huge size, Justin's winners are drastically larger than his losers and that is an attribute that can scale up to larger trading size in time. Quotes: "I didn't really take out of it that penny stocks were scams. I thought that they were going to make me rich." tweet this quote "I thought that any and all marijuana stocks were going to go to the moon. I wouldn't even pull up a chart." tweet this quote "I was just pumping the money in until I was at a pretty significant loss." tweet this quote "I got the options course, realized I could actually play big board stocks and I knew it was going to work at that point." tweet this quote "I'm trying to manage my risk more than I am trying to get huge gains." tweet this quote "It's nice to know now, even if I only make 15$, I actually knew what I was looking at and was rewarded." tweet this quote Links: Course: Robotic Trading Course: Options Trading Simplified Videos: Live Trade Playlist

This episode's guest is a bit different compared to everyone else we've interviewed who trades with a day job. Nate Wilson (same name in the chat room) is successfully trading with a job, but that's not the unique part. He actually enjoys his job and has no ambitions of quitting it to trade full time. Nate trades for the enjoyment of it and to create supplemental income for his personal finances. I really enjoy this interview as it is a great example of how trading does not need to have the end goal of "I want to trade full time." When done right, trading stocks and options can simply be a solid source of additional income to your monthly budget, or as we call it "fun money." Notes: Nate's introduction the market was a 'friends and family' plan for the Under Armour initial public offering. His background involves looking at companies financials and doing fundamental research. He applied this to his trading for 9 years before learning technical analysis. Nate then started trading penny stocks during the marijuana boom and found continued success. He hesitated taking profits but eventually realized he was riding a bubble and sold before the bottom fell out. After getting educated, he started trading too large to start and while he didnt suffer any large losses, his account wasn't growing. Once he realized risk management was the issue, he corrected it and has been growing his account ever since. Nate honed his trading strategy to fit his full time work schedule and is now focused on building consistency while managing risk. Quotes: 10:30 "I didn't even know what a candlestick chart was. I knew my broker had a line that went up or down with stock price." tweet this quote 12:00 "I was up hundreds of percents and I was still holding thinking it was going to the moon until I took some courses." tweet this quote 15:20 "I would read these penny stock 8-K's and knowing how they look for real companies, I knew they were hogwash." tweet this quote 17:00 "I got lucky through the pot stock stuff and didn't take any huge losses. I probably didn't make all I could have though." tweet this quote 22:35 "I would make a good amount of money when I got it right and I'd lose a lot of money when I got it wrong." tweet this quote 34:30 "I already watched stuff get out of control and I knew not let my losses get out of control." tweet this quote Links: Course: The Penny Stock Survival Guide Video: How To Average Down Trade Ideas Twitter: @natewilson2

Chezz and I sit down with Steven King (same name in the chat room) and hear about one of the craziest stories to date. In fact, the story is so crazy that I asked for verifiable documentation to support some of the claims being made. Becoming a high school dropout after turning $900 into $40,000 is just the start to a journey that truly covers some highs and lows of trader emotion. Despite making some extremely large amounts of money, you'll be shocked to hear about the reality of the situation in terms of the emotions involved. Sit back and buckle your seat belt. This is one crazy ride journey with some very valuable insights and lesson's learned. Notes: Steven had a strong desire to get rich dating all the way back to his time in high school. He dropped out in 10th grade after finding initial trading success. He got caught up in the lifestyle that accompanies coming into large amounts of money and faced many struggles to get back on his feet. After spending more than half of his profits, the IRS sent him a bill for 170,000 dollars to which he did not have anymore. He took a job on an oil rig, was able to pay off that bill and started to get his life back on track. After he finished getting his college degree he began trading again and realized the benefits of options. You can get the exponential returns penny stock players are used to while simultaneously being able to control your risk up front. Steven recognized that he needed to approach trading like a business. He formed a plan and now he sticks to it wholeheartedly. Quotes: "I started with 900 dollars and after I turned that into 40k I decided that there wasn't a reason to keep going to school." tweet this quote "Charts isn't the hard part in trading. The hard part is the emotions. It's the mental mindset, risk management, all those pieces." tweet this quote "The worst day that I ever had in my life was the day that I made the most money. 283k dollars in 1 day but no one to share it with." tweet this quote "If you have trouble sleeping at night because you're worrying about your positions, you're not managing your size correctly." tweet this quote "If you can count to ten, you can be an amazing trader." tweet this quote "The important thing is 'why are you trading.' Today I trade because I want to help people. I want to become a philanthropist." tweet this quote "It's all written down just like a business plan because this is a business. If you're going to trade you do it like a business." tweet this quote Links: Video: The Trade Plan Destroyer Video: The Stock Trader Career Zapper Course: Robotic Trading Course: Risk Vs Reward Trading Course: Options Trading Simplified Twitter: @stevenhking

The passion this episode's guest has for succeeding as a trader is hard to rival. Ted Williams ("BigT") is a member of the 'early birds' group in the chat room as I've coined it - meaning, you can routinely find him in the chat room every morning before 6 am est. His story paints a true picture of how trading is an ongoing journey. After originally turning $300 into $20,000 on a single penny stock, BigT has continued to evolve as a trader in his quest to meeting his personal goals. Get ready to hear some of the best quotes I've heard yet from any guest. In fact, his advice he gives at the end of the podcast is priceless, and it is only two words. Notes: Ted first became interested in the markets as a hobby. His wife had many hobbies and he wanted to find something he could devote a good amount of time to. Before he learned how to trade options, BigT was trading penny stocks and he made an absolute killing on one of his trades. Ted then moved fully to the options market based on the vast amount of volume that exists compared to the penny stock world. He experimented with some 'trading robots' and quickly realized they were nothing more than a few glorified indicators. That's when he decided to form his own trading plan. After trying advanced options strategies, Ted decided to focus strictly on directional plays and found much better success taking stocks both long and short. With time, experience, and education, BigT now is able to completely trust the chart and tune out his emotions. Quotes: "My wife had lots of hobbies and I had none. I had some extra money, started studying and in 2011 I made my first purchase." tweet this quote "I turned a little over $300 into 20-something thousand dollars. It took like a year and a half but I was in it." tweet this quote "I thought I was good. I thought I had the gift and could do that over and over again. In the end, it was fools gold." tweet this quote "Because the money was so easy with NTEK, it became Monopoly money. It wasn't real to me. I didn't treat it with respect." tweet this quote "When I wake up in the morning I'm looking at charts again. Am I green every day? No because I still fight with emotion." tweet this quote "Before, when I'd be down, I'd almost have to see a grief counselor. Now, I see where I messed up and go onto the next trade." tweet this quote Links: The Trading Freedom Pathway Twitter: tmw61165

In this episode, we interview full time trader Derek Chernault ("hokiez28") whose primary strategy is swing trading; however, also does some day trading to compliment his overall strategy. Like many traders (myself included), emotions were a major thorn in the side of Derek's early trading experiences. Learn how Derek was able to not only eliminate the emotions from this trading, but also build up the confidence in order to trade full time. Whether you are thinking about swing trading or day trading, this episode will give you a very realistic view into both of these strategies. Notes: Derek's introduction to the stock market was based on a product he used to help him quit smoking. He put $4,000 into 2 penny stocks as a long term investment and then used another $1,000 for active day trading. Derek was completely content taking 30-50% gains but greed had started to set in after he watched a few run 1000%+. Once he realized his initial success was luck, he decided to invest in some trading education to help him approach the market from a skillful standpoint, not a lucky one. A huge turning point for Derek's trading was moving out of penny stocks and into larger capitalization names because of the increase in liquidity. Derek's biggest problem was managing his risk and once he applied it to his swing trading it really clicked. We discuss the misconception of the 'holy grail' with a combination of indicators. Derek suffered from paralysis by analysis and now trades the 2 king indicators… Price and volume. Quotes: "I was immediately intrigued by watching the value of my money go up and down but I wasn't really trading. I was parking my money." tweet this quote "I was happy with 30, 40, 50% profit. But then the greed started getting to me because I'd watch some go up 1,000%." tweet this quote "Within 2 weeks that couple thousand dollar investment was worth 20k. But I didn't sell a single share." tweet this quote "That luck I had in the beginning had run out and I realized that I didn't have any skill. It was all luck." tweet this quote "That's when things really turned around is when I got out of the penny stocks and moved onto the big boards." tweet this quote "Early on I never wanted to take a loss. I would just keep holding and usually sell the very bottom." tweet this quote "One of the biggest things I've learned in trading is that you have to accept that you are going to be wrong sometimes." tweet this quote Links: Twitter: @hokiez28 investorshub Robotic Trading The Penny Stock Survival Guide Risk vs Reward Trading

When first getting started many traders find themselves in a situation with a smaller trading account. This leads to the common thought process of "I need to trade penny stocks in order to build up my account." Richard Davis (RDTrader12) discusses his experience with this same thought process and where it lead him in his journey. Spoiler alert... it was not to the land of riches and success. He learned some valuable lessons along the way and he is kind enough to share the experience with us. Are you currently under the impression that the "only" way to trade with smaller accounts is through small cap and penny stocks? If so, definitely set some time aside to listen to this interview. Notes: RD began trading as a puppet and was fortunate enough to find early success before giving it all back. After taking a few months off, he attempted to start paper trading but fell into the trap of hindsight before realizing the issue. RD decided to invest in his education as a final attempt to become profitable and once he developed a trade plan his account started to skew positively. A big stumbling block for RD was the amount of risk he took on and once he corrected that he developed much more confidence in his long term trading ability. RD abandoned penny stocks as the volume dried up and now trades options fully. Quotes: "Within the first month of trading, that 2000 dollars evaporated to about 550 and not quite understanding how it happened." tweet this quote "There is a right way to do this, and I know this because people make a living and I have to figure out what that is." tweet this quote "Now, if I have a loser, I don't even blink an eye because I understand what my max loss can be." tweet this quote "You're going to have losers. When you accept that/learn how to handle those it will just put you that much farther ahead." tweet this quote "I really had to back down my entry size almost to the point where I didn't care. I just had to practice." tweet this quote Links: Clay's Story Video: How to Avoid the Pattern Day Trader Rule Video: Getting Romantic With Options Trading