The Stock Trading Reality Podcast

Being wealthy is something we all dream of. I say this with complete confidence because I define "wealthy" a much different way than many may. To be honest though, even if you want to be wealthy in the sense of driving a Rolls Royce, there are some initial steps that you must take in order to make that dream a reality. Whether you acknowledge it or not, there is one fact that we ALL have in common... we're all a CEO. While that may not make much sense now, I promise you it will after you're done listening to this podcast. Notes: In today's podcast, Clay and Chezz discuss personal finances and the power of a budget. The goal of this entire podcast is to help reduce your stress with a set of good habits and routines. The foundation for all wealth building, no matter what avenue you take (stock market, business ownership, etc) is going to be your budget. You are the king of your castle in the sense of you are in charge of your spending decisions. Your budget will be able to tell you what is financially responsible and what is not while helping you target your longer term goals. Another way to create peace of mind is growing a 'rainy day fund.' Setbacks happen in life (your car breaks, furnace stops working, unexpected medical expenses) but if you have prepared in advance for when Murphy strikes, this can alleviate your stress greatly because you were ready for whatever the world threw at you. Clay brings up a great point about choice of college and career choices. Please do the math and budget to help determine what your potential salary will be versus your college loans that you will be paying for years. More often than not, you can find a comparable school that will offer the same degree for a lower cost. The power of a budget can help you achieve your long term goals and it really is as simple as addition and subtraction. Take some steps and a hard look at your income stream versus your spending and start to be the CEO of your financial future. Quotes: "To me, wealth is the ability to sleep. If you can lay in bed at night and have no worries, that's a beautiful thing." "You become the CEO of your finances. We are all CEOs of our own personal life." "Get organized with your personal finances and odds are you will have money leftover. That leftover money can be put into investments." "It's a list of priorities specifically. Now I always bring up is 'is this money better on a purchase or better for the land fund?' " "Once you get a job, you see this sparkly new paycheck and you think 'wow, I've waited so long to have money' and I threw it around." "How does it know it's not in the cards? Because he has a budget. Because he's organized. Because he's CEO of his life." Links: Course: Cash Flow Creation Guide Mint: https://www.mint.com/ You Need A Budget: https://www.youneedabudget.com/

We've done many interviews at this point in our podcasting journey, but thinking off the top of my head, I can only think of one other person who is taking the approach Ward (our guest and chat room member) is using. According to Ward's logic, which makes perfect sense to me, he is first focusing on developing as a person, to which he believes will then allow him to develop better as a trader. The awesome part is, Ward has a few years under his belt, so it just goes to show that it is never too late to work on oneself for the better. This was a refreshing interview and inspired me for sure. Notes: In 1998, Ward read a few books about trading but wasn't in a financial position to put money in the market. However, the fire was lit. After getting married, his wife had her money in a mutual fund that wasn't growing fast enough in his opinion and thought he could do a better job. He didn't even fully realize that the market just experienced a huge downturn. Ward started to trade in stocks that had a steady uptrend. After reading 40 books about how to trade, he would still look back at his trading journal and question why exactly he entered particular stocks. He recognized he did not have a solid methodology. Unfortunately, Ward went through a cycle of trying a strategy, getting discouraged and then taking a break. This lasted for 4 years until he found Clay's youtube videos. He thought that looking over someone's shoulder and watching them execute trades would be more beneficial than reading the theory of trading from books. Ward was actually in retirement when he discovered Clay's videos. After seeing how well the course was structured, he went back to work for 2 months to pay for Claytrader University and to keep from having to utilize his savings for the package. At the same time, Ward discovered the power of self development and the power of a plan/goal. This ties into such a larger topic such that life isn't all about trading. Trading is a part of Ward's life but it is not the only thing that matters to him. Developing solid plans and planning the path to success played a crucial role in turning Ward's trading around along with many other parts of his life. Quotes: "When I thought about trading this money, it didn't even occur to me that the money hadn't grown because of the market correction." "I wasn't losing any ground but wasn't making any either. Even after all those books I read, none of them taught me how to trade." "I've got money and read a bunch of books and think I can compete against professionals. I realized there was an education problem there."

If there is one personality trait that is a "must have" for long term trading success, I think I'd choose: self awareness. If you are not being honest with yourself and admitting what needs to be admitted, you will spin your wheels in the mud and never improve. Chat room member, Eric, is a shining example of being self aware and using that personality trait to progress his path forward. I really enjoyed our talk with Eric as he was very passionate and energized about the markets; however, was also extremely aware of his situation too. Notes: Eric's introduction to the market consisted of watching his father and some coworkers always checking their trading portfolios. He decided to open his own brokerage account in college with his student loans and that was how he first entered the market. He used basic fundamentals and general knowledge of what he thought would be a good stock to own to choose where he put his money. He decided to subscribe to a weekly newsletter that offered trade picks and after trading these for a while (with not much success) Eric decided to continue his search to find a system that worked for him. He struggled to find an education suite that worked for him. After college, he saved up another $3,000 to swing trade but he couldn't put his finger on proper entry and exit criteria. After a long YouTube search for helpful info, Eric found ClayTrader and perceived him as an honest person who will shoot straight and tell it like it is. This is when he started to invest in himself via education. The beautiful thing that Eric realized is that once you have learned how to read charts and manage your risk, you are FREE to find trades on your own. You no longer need to seek a 'guru' for 'hot picks.' As Eric increased his education in terms of risk and options, Eric has found lots of success trading advanced option spreads. He can control his probability of profit and his max loss, all of which are crucial for long term success. A few members have also inspired him to stay mechanical in all his trades instead of style jumping. By no means is he saying that this is the be-all end-all and he always wins but when he is wrong, he is wrong small and it doesn't take much to recover. Quotes: "When I was 15, my dad traded futures and used to tell me that trading in the stock market was dangerous." "I noticed every time, what basis did I have for deciding when to buy and when to sell? There was just nothing." "I didn't want to go down the path of watching 1000s of videos and in the end I'm not a better trader. It was a waste of time." "My whole life has been cycles of getting into and out of the market." "Once you start learning you can come up with your own plays." Links: Book: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

I really enjoyed this interview because it was a change of pace (in a good way). We've had many guests who rant and rave about the power of options, which is true for sure, however our guest (minor spoiler) was not a huge fan and chose another trading opportunity: Forex (the trading of currencies). Chezz and I sit down with community member Jaime and hear all about his journey with options and why he ultimately chose to take another path. What caught his eye about Forex? How is he doing with it? We cover that and much more in this refreshing interview. Notes: Jaime's introduction the market was a co worker who traded penny stocks. After watching him trade for some time, Jaime opened up a brokerage account to 'dabble' himself. His first few trades turned into investments in the hold and hope fashion. Jaime also only focused on playing the long side and avoided the short side (where he thinks the price would go down for profit). After sitting in a few tickers for a while with very little movement, Jaime wised up and decided to take a few years off before returning to the market with the goal of avoiding penny stocks. He wanted to focus on some larger names that actually had good liquidity. While Jaime began focusing on high volume options he unfortunately did not have a true risk management strategy yet. After learning about the nuances of options including the greeks, he started to realize all the things he was fighting when he first started trading them. This led him to the Forex course offered here which opened his eyes to the opportunities available for him (especially since there is no pattern day trader rules). Jaime practiced for a month before going live and has been doing very well since going live to the tune of tripling his account value. The glaring differences between his old trading and how he trades now is his outlook on risk management. Now, instead of focusing on only recouping his losses, which makes him greedy and stay in his winning trades too long, he willingly takes small losers because he knows that one winner will pay for many losers. This is the recipe for long term success and steady account growth. Quotes: "There was no strategy at all. Just going off of penny stock fundamentals which we all know is laughable." "I was able to get out of most of my investments. For the most part, I wised up pretty quickly and decided to be done with it." "There really was no risk mitigation or stop loss. Put some money in and it's either going to go up or not." "I'm at 50:1 leverage. I paper traded for a month and now trading live. I've done remarkably well. The chart just agrees with me."

When it comes to just flat out being lucky, in the history of the podcast, I think we have a new winner! To give credit where credit is due, our community member, Josh, worked hard and saved up $1,000. So it is not a situation where he just lucked out in regards to having money, but yeah... I don't want to run anything, just listen - haha. After the initial luckiness, Josh quickly discovered that there is much more to trading than what he had originally thought. While he joins a long list of many who have thought this same way, the way Josh conducted himself after this realization is something we can all learn from, myself included. Notes: Josh's introduction to the market was a virtual game and after he learned the mechanics of it was able to pad his virtual account. This led him to want to do it with actual money. After saving up $1,000, he asked his dad for some tickers on his watch list but his dad is a notoriously bad typist and ended up giving him a recommendation on something he didn't intend. Lucky for Josh, after holding for 8 months that ticker was bought out for triple what he paid. Josh and his friend had been following the marijuana legislation in 2013 and decided to spread their money into a few different names. They had actually caught the start of the 'pot stock boom' and instead of holding and hoping, Josh ended up taking profits to be safe and not get caught in the dump. After finding little success in the penny stock market, he shifted his money back into larger names that he didn't mind holding longer term. He was busy with school and life so he prefered to not sweat the small moves that stocks tend to make intraday. After watching some of Clay's videos he decided to change brokerages and find a good platform for day trading. While Josh didn't have a risk management plan on paper, he was extremely protective of his money and refused to let any future trades go against him by a large margin. He falls into a small percent of people who DO NOT go big and ultimately go home. Josh is now keeping himself accountable by paper trading with an Excel spreadsheet. He also realizes that less is more when it comes to indicators. Price action and volume are king. Quotes: "I figured out I was good at reading the programming of the game, make a bunch of money and get really ahead." "We saw that legislation was coming out for marijuana. My friend and I did some research and spread our money into some penny stocks." "I started looking into .0001 stocks. I've been trying to sell some of these since 2014 but liquidity trap for sure." "I thought, oooh all IPO's go up right? I'm going to get in and get out but I couldn't get out quick enough." "I stopped putting money on the line to figure out why I was unable to predict the market right." "I used to have bollinger bands and histograms but didn't know what any of them meant. I thought I was cool like the Youtube videos." Links: Video: Sales Pitch or Belief

The concept is nothing new. For you longer time listeners, you've heard it time and time again... not to mention, you've probably done it yourself: make mistakes. Our guest, Thomas (alias in the chat room is "thwidra"), did exactly that, but he provides an excellent example of how traders need to blame themselves, not others, and then improve. He actually made some money at the start to, but quickly realized and admitted to himself it was pure luck and he had no idea what he was doing. Something that many new traders fail to realize (myself included when I was new!). He has had to do some reinventing of himself, but Thomas is progressing by leaps and bounds. Notes: Thomas began his trading in 2016 with mutual funds. After doing some research into the funds he had allocated, he saw that it was not increasing at an acceptable rate. After being unable to reach his advisor, he pulled out his funds and decided to take control of his money in the market. He found a site similar to iHub (message board for stocks) in Germany and after reading through the board a few times he decided to put some money into a few tickers. He admits that he got into a lucky trade which was a 100% gain but the important part is he realized this was pure luck. After some new found confidence based on his previous large winner, he started to purchase stocks while at work and then letting them sit. After reopening his broker account later in the day he saw that he was completely in the red and gave back half of his gains. Thomas did a great thing throughout all of this. He took complete responsibility and did not try to blame any external factors. Thomas learned not to put his whole account into one position and did a much better job of diversifying across multiple tickers. At this time he also found some of Clay's stock chart analysis videos and he saw the value in technical analysis and invested in his education to be a more knowledgeable trader. After going through some courses, Thomas began to paper trade but more so in hindsight. He realized the error of this and began to paper trade realistically. As he continues through the courses he continues to paper trade and hone his craft. Finding what works best BEFORE trading real money is a real key takeaway. Quotes: "I was not looking to trade penny stocks but what I noticed is that those people were looking at stocks with a low price." "At that time, SDRL reached its top and was falling down. It started climbing again but I thought it would break down." "I tried to search for some sort of holy grail. I tried to find some hot stock picks. This led me back to break-even." "It wasn't good paper trading. I didn't have a real plan in place. At this point I was struggling a bit with my emotions." "At the moment I'm not that confident. I won't go live until I have more confidence and paper trading experience."

Confidence is a great thing to have in the world of trading the markets, there is no doubt about it. With that being said, if you allow the confidence to transition into stubbornness, your trading capital is going to get smaller in size. Our guest, Tony ("TonyAcaiBowls" in the chat room), walks us through his journey where this whole idea played a pivotal role in creating some headaches. The one characteristic I need to give Tony credit for is his wild ambition, which is certainly a good thing; however, once again, too much of a good thing can be bad, as you'll see... Notes: Tony's introduction to the market started with his family having CNBC on the television while he was a child at home. Tony's father would watch it in an effort to keep an eye on the stocks he personally held. As he grew up and got to college there were not many majors that interested him but his interest in trading from childhood presented an opportunity so one of his majors included finance. After reading an article about a trader who turned a small sum into a few million, Tony decided to save up some money during college and get involved in trading. Realizing that he shouldn't jump in blindly, he was smart enough to invest his money in what he thought was a good training program but realized he needed to learn more. Tony decided to try a paid chat room subscription and puppet traded based off of alerts made there. While he increased his discipline, there were still a few trades he got stubborn with and this led to a large decline in his account from the losses. By no means is having confidence in a position a bad thing but as traders, risk management HAS to be on the forefront. After going down the rabbit hole of Stocktwits and other message boards, he started trading off of hype again. He came across Clay's stock chart videos and was intrigued at his unbiased analysis and started to realize that the charts tell a story which can help determine trading plans. He joined the community and was pleased with the lack of 'hype' and strict focus on technicals. This led him to join Claytrader University and now he is currently going through the courses. Quotes: "I came across this article about this guy who took $10,000 and turned it into 2 million. I thought 'wow, I want to do that.' " "I thought I could catch a bounce for 40c and make my money back. I was able to take a little profit but it wasn't a good trade." "I was holding and hoping. One trade I thought had to go down and that blew up a big portion of my portfolio." "You were analyzing these charts and were very unbiased. It helped me understand how the charts tell the story."

Yes, it is possible to make progress as a trader without spending a dime on education; however, you better have a great source of income via a normal J-O-B. This concept is exactly what we see unfold with our guest Mark Raison (same name in the chat room). He decided to venture the sea of free information himself, and it proved to be a very very costly and frustrating experience. In fact, listening back on the interview, I'd say he still has a ways to go in regards to a few areas, but with his good paying job in place, he can just keep inching along. Let this episode serve as a warning of just how tricky and difficult the "I will use free information" pathway of learning to trade can be. Notes: Mark considers himself an adrenaline junky. The surprising thing though is that he exhibits a great amount of risk management as he moved through his trading career. We generally see this the other way around. After searching around the internet, Mark realized that he wasn't going to buy into the nonsense marketing of living the 'yacht life' and making millions while trading on the beach with an iPad. He found Clay and recognized that he seemed down to Earth and had nothing to prove to anyone but Mark wasn't willing to put any money into his education yet. His internet research led him to find a million different strategies and he realized quite quickly that he needed to find what worked for him specifically by trying multiple indicators and moving averages. Mark started to put these strategies into practice and found out that his lack of live data wasn't good for trading news driven events. Unfortunately, he funded a live account and due to lack of proper risk management took a string of losers that ended that account. Mark was fortunate enough to have a good paying job to refill his trading account even though this wasn't ideal. It was able to give him peace of mind that he can continue to search for what works. Eventually he told himself he can't refill the account and had to work with what he had and be very selective. This led him to choose much more ideal setups instead of mediocre ones which has helped his profitability. Quotes: "I basically put money in and started trading blindly on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Over time I learned to trade the American market." "I didn't want to do any training. I didn't want to give someone else my money to learn or pay hundreds for a chat room." "Everybody needs to find their own trading style. It's one game played thousands of different ways." "You need to try different things. You need to know what works and what doesn't work with trial and error." "You should see what they are saying, why they are saying that, and then do your own search on why YOU want to trade it." Links: Video: Paper Trading: How to Properly Practice as a Trader

Did I ever think I'd "talk trading" with someone from El Salvador? Absolutely not! But hey, that's the great thing about the podcast, it is allowing us to hear about journeys from literally all over the world. We speak with chat room member, "DarthRay" about his journey, which includes getting lured into a group where the leader was eventually sent to jail for essentially operating a Ponzi scheme.. yikes! He was also doing some real time trading as he spoke with us, which prompted an on air coaching call to unfold. I don't want to ruin anything, so I"ll just say the interview was very unique, and I mean that in a good way :-) Notes: Darth has had an interest in sales and the market for many years. After going to university, he transitioned into full time employment but once he arrived he recognized that he didn't like the fact that he wasn't in charge of his time. He started to investigate other income sources and considering he has some family who are in the market, this led him to try his hand on a simulator first. Three years ago, Darth decided he wanted to find someone to learn from. He thought he could make a good living trading off of alerts from guru's. Unfortunately he had to learn the hard way that penny stocks generally move off an alert and then get offloaded into the sheep of the service. This led him to recognize he wanted to avoid penny stocks and trade options. After growing his account 300%, he unfortunately was involved in a ponzi scheme and gave all his gains back and more. The service he was using eventually closed and an investigation ensued so Darth went to find another service that hopefully wouldn't dupe him. This led him to Claytrader.com . As Darth has progressed through his education he has developed a solid routine to prepare for the market and to trade accordingly. He completely abides by good risk vs reward principles which leads to long term steady growth in his trading accounts. As Darth has progressed even through some hard trading times, he has learned so many lessons and learned the reality of what trading is. Patience, focus, education, and persistence are all great words to define his approach to the market and also his life. Quotes: "I traded 3 Yugioh cards for a Playstation and 5 games. That is when I felt the first rush of trading." "My paper trading was unrealistic. Basically I was lying to myself. I wasn't preparing with my real balance." "He told us to buy specific puts and calls. What we didn't know was that he was selling them to us." "I got a contract with a firm in Chicago and I'm going to open the first Latin American introducing brokerage." "I can lose up to 3 or 4 times but if I have 1 winning trade it makes up for those 4 and gives me a profit. I focus on the winners." "Never give up. This business is very hard. Never stop studying. The more I learn, the more I realize I have much more to learn."

Freedom of time is a very noble goal as it allows for you to pursue avenues of life that may not otherwise be realistic. This is what community member "Dukes" (same name in chat room) used as his motivation to learn how to trade the markets. By using trades as a vehicle to free up his time, Dukes is able to strive after his dreams of building upon his acting career. I really enjoyed this interview as it goes to show that trading does NOT "have to be" a full time thing. It can simply be a tool to help you get ahead in other areas of life, which Dukes is a pristine example of. Notes: Ben is currently pursuing his acting career and while on the journey he was a manager at a clothing store. Because of his position, he was given stock options and that led him to get interested in the market. He would take odd jobs here there as well to further his career along with decreasing the debt in his life. A key point here is that Ben didn't get into the market to 'get rich quick.' His interest in the market was to free up his time to pursue where his real passions are and after seeing Clay's live trading videos he thought the market would be a good way to supplement his income. Once his life was at a stable point (stability defined as clearing all his debts and not trading to 'make ends meet'), Ben opened up a trading account and just invested into household names as many new traders do. It oscillated up and down and he realized that he had much to learn if he really wanted to grow the account. After learning about technical analysis, risk management and options, Ben decided to focus on options specifically because of the significantly lower cost. Using the options as stock replacement has allowed him to trade larger names without putting his entire account in one trade. Ben strongly suggests that people spend more time paper trading since he only practiced for a short period of time. While everyone struggles with greed, especially when it comes to trading, it is so important to realize that trading is a business and a journey. It takes a healthy amount of time and effort. The slow and steady approach is the real way to improve upon yourself and your trading and Ben is a living example of this. Quotes: "I decided instead of a 1% savings account to try my luck in the market and I'm not too upset with what's been going on." tweet this quote "If I can replace a day's worth of work in 4 hours, I got my whole day to do all the things I want to do." tweet this quote "I was so completely ignorant to the way that everything worked that you couldn't even call it trading." tweet this quote "I'm definitely a option trader now. In doing so it helps me avoid pattern day trader. I like that I can get more bang for my buck." tweet this quote "Even though you don't want to you start to put the stop losses in. Sometimes you were just wrong and have to deal with it." tweet this quote "Spend a little more time getting educated before you start burning through your money." tweet this quote

I'm sure some will look at this trader's journey and think it was filled with "boring" at the start. Our guest, Tim (alias in the chat room, "EarlyDawg"), may not have come out of the gates with guns-a-blazin', but he did come out of the gates the way it is supposed to be done. In terms of "how do I start to trade?", Tim lays a great blueprint for the steps to take. With that being said, even when you take the proper steps and go about the journey the right way, that does not guarantee complete smooth sailing either, but it does give you the upper hand in many regards. Notes: Tim's introduction to the market was trading a small amount of penny stocks based on a family suggestion (from a newsletter). While the trade worked out for a 300% gain, his future trading would not be as successful. He has a large family and needed to focus on providing for them so he put the market aside for many years until he felt more stable. His wife saved up some money on the side and got back into the penny stock market and while her intentions were good, she got caught in a pump and dump. After heeding Clay's warning that it would be foolish to trade without any education, Tim invested in himself and spent many months digesting the content before he even began to paper trade. He wanted to see all the options available to him and find what works for him personally. Everyone trades differently and Tim realized this very early on. Tim focuses on selling option premium (covered in the Advanced Options course). This is a great way to swing trade and essentially be 'the house' of a casino. He uses a blend of weekly options and monthly options to take in credit throughout the month. While he has only been live for 6 weeks now, Tim has already identified some problematic areas of his trading. He is slowly becoming comfortable not doing 'something' every day. The real key to credit spread trading is letting time pass and to trust his initial analysis which entails his risk profile and his profit targets. Quotes: "Bought an oil and gas company, let it triple and sold it. That was about 20 years ago and haven't done much since." tweet this quote "It took me about 3 to 4 months of just pure listening to the courses and podcasts before I even started to paper trade." tweet this quote "Knowing that everybody is different, I have to figure out what works for me. Since this is my money, I don't want to just jump in." tweet this quote "I've got a capped loss, a capped gain, and if I lose I'm willing to lose that because I know all my other trades will make that back." tweet this quote "I need to trust my initial analysis. If I just trust in the charts and the probabilities, I'm right more than I am wrong." tweet this quote Links: Course: Options Trading: Advanced

This person is one mentally tough cookie. Our guest, David ("David from Columbus" in the chat room), took quite the tough-love-beating during his first few months as a member of the community. He was doing many things that we tried to warn him about, but he was... stubborn. To his credit, and why I respect him so much, he took the tough love like it was meant to be taken and factored it into his journey in an appropriate fashion. David is a smart guy, but like many, he's got some great battle stories already... which of course he shares with us! Notes: David's introduction to the market was when he was 17 via his employers who made a majority of their income from trading and investing. They primarily focused on fundamental analysis but he felt like this was a lot of research work. Even though David was relatively young, he recognized the opportunity of being a contrarian and would buy strong pull backs and sell strong rally's. He did not have any concept of risk management at this time and would just wait until he made his fixed profit target, one hundred dollars. Unfortunately, buying the dip does not always work. While he avoided one big drop by getting out at his fixed target his next trade was him maxing out his account while averaging down for months on an oil ticker. The interesting psychological point is that regardless of the big drawdown to his account, David was very sure of his position and the fact that it would bounce. The worst about about all of these practices is the fact that it is engrained in David's head that he can always buy the dip and sell calls against it and make money. After some reflection on this, he realizes that if just one of the companies he was trading went under he would have lost his entire retirement account. This opened his eyes to risk management. David wanted to day trade to avoid the risk of gap ups or downs. After having a long winning streak day trading, David suffered a large loss that wiped away 3 month's worth of gains. He recognized that he needed to learn from a professional in regards to risk management. He joined Claytrader University and is paper trading the strategies taught in the program. Perfect practice makes perfect. Quotes: "I was going to go against the trend and buy when people were selling and sell when people were buying until I made $100." tweet this quote "It went from 30 to 20 bucks. So I kept buying and buying and averaging down until I was down around $3,000." tweet this quote "I was just thinking 'wow this cannot go any lower.' I also learned about covered calls and sold against my positions to generate income." tweet this quote "I first started with 50 shares and then moved up to 100 shares. Then in August I built into a position and lost $1,650 in 30 minutes." tweet this quote "Going into the trade plan with a real good plan and has a high probability of success is really important." tweet this quote Links: Video: How To Average Down Video: All Wins Are NOT Created Equal Article: How My Rule Break Spanked Me For A $1500 Loss

Having capital to trade with: check. Having a large cushion fund: check. Clearing away all debt before starting: check. Talk about putting yourself in a great spot to succeed, and that's what chat room member Jon (alias "ttJon") did. There was something else that occurred too, which would seem like a good thing... he made 300% return on his first trade... but was it a good thing? Did this big gain jump start his trading journey into make cash hand over fist? Sit back and enjoy a trading journey from a different perspective than we're used to, and I mean that in the most complimentary of ways! Notes: Jon's introduction to the market was an economics class where the class would choose tickers to buy and they would compete every week against someone who would throw darts at a board with random tickers on it. Similar to many others, Jon's introduction to trading was once he secured a job and had to pick his mutual funds. It wasn't until years later when he had no debt, large savings, and extra money on the side did he decide to open a trading account. This is an extremely crucial point because if the worst case scenario happened in which he blew up his account, it would not impact him or his family in any way. After finding initial success selling his wife's stock options on a big move up, Jon's interest was now really piqued. He made 300% on this trade and now this was his target for all his future trades which led to him holding way too long even when trades would move in his favor. Jon let a hedge fund manager takeover his retirement account and while he did make a gain for the account, he kept 66% of the profit. At this point, Jon said he would never let anyone else manage his money. While looking for some trading education, Jon stumbled upon Clay's live trade videos and after seeing an interaction between Clay and his daughter, he realized that this was the community and training he wanted to partake in. As he moves through the courses, Jon recognized the importance of trade plans and being wrong small and pushing your winners to their logical conclusion. Quotes: "I only opened my trading account after I had no debt, very large safety cushion and this was strictly play money in case I lost it." "So I became a bottom fisher from 2011 on. Some of them did well but I wouldn't sell because they didn't hit my 300% target." "I would make some big gains, big losses. Then I would just leave it all in cash until I could figure out how to trade it myself." "The money isn't the issue. I don't want it for the money. I want it for the time. I want my time back in 5 years." "So it's not just the price action. Not just the level 2's. It's getting to understand how they all work together." Links: Videos: Live Trade Videos

I'm not sure you could start out a trading journey any better than quadrupling your initial account. Trading chat room member Mike ("JustMike" alias) did exactly that when he first began. With such a strong opening act, was it all just rainbows and sweet old ladies for Mike, or were there some bumps to come? Thanks to Mike's openness about everything, Chezz and I were offered up many friendly reminders on what should be and should not be done as a trader. There is no doubt in my mind this interview will entertain and educate you. Notes: Mike's introduction to the market was a stock picking game that he participated in for college which sparked his interest in speculating in the market. After attending a seminar with a friend of his, they decided to get involved in Investools stock program they were offering which opened up Mike's world to charting. He was fortunate to never have to go down the road of penny stocks. Even after being able to consistently achieve 10% returns on his trades, he was unhappy at the amount of profit and this would lead him to holding and ultimately losing on the trade. Unfortunately Mike struck some 'fools gold' which led to a big win on earnings. Now that he has quadrupled his account, he is trading all his newly acquired money. After thinking that earnings would be his 'holy grail,' Mike's account went back to zero on one bad earnings trade. He started back with a small amount and decided to avoid earnings. Him and his family then relocated for a different job and it sparked his desire to get back into the market. While his technical analysis skills are pretty good, his risk management was not up to par yet. Mike and his wife moved to Chicago right before having their first child. He utilized the time he had while his wife was on maternity leave to paper trade for a solid 4 months before returning to the market on his live account. This led to him focusing on strict risk management. He has a very high win rate but his losers would wipe away those wins until he remedied the problem. Quotes: "We went and saw their pitch. It was a 'follow our system' approach. It was all charting from the beginning." tweet this quote "The problem I had was that I would buy and even though I know 10% is a good return, I'd hold it and it would go down to zero." tweet this quote "I got back into options, growing the account and taking some out whenever I could. I realized that I can do this." tweet this quote "You just need to get used to pushing the buttons. You need to get used to seeing red on the screen. You have to get used to that." tweet this quote "If I'm winning 4 out of every 5 trades, that 5th trade I refuse to admit being wrong. I would think I'm right it just hasn't happened yet." tweet this quote Links: Video: All Wins Are Not Created Equal

If you are a member of the community and spend any amount of time in the chat room, I'm confident that you are at least familiar with our guest, Parker. He absolutely loves his technical analysis charts and is always posting them in the chat room so other members can "visualize this thoughts" in regards to a trade. In fact, while we recorded this interview, he posted a few charts in the chat room - haha! Where did this love of charts come from? Why is he such a believer in them? How exactly does he go about using charts in his trading? We cover all this and much more in our talk with Parker! Notes: Parker's introduction to the market was his roommate when he was younger. He would get home from his night shift and see him investing in the market. This opened his eyes to the opportunity of the market which led him to saving up money for the market specifically. Parker was able to make a significant amount of money from the marijuana penny stock boom. His string of 'lucky' winners led to overconfidence which led to him completely blowing out all the profits he had accumulated up to this point. He took 8 months off to focus on school before returning to the market. He started to paper trade in a realistic fashion and develop a good methodology. After saving up $5,000 again, he returned to the market and really emphasized respecting his stop loss and treated trading as a business. Realizing that he could get a greater return on capital utilizing options, Parker has mainly transitioned to trading options and occasionally using equities. He mainly day trades but has no problem swing trading while accumulating positions and scalping around a core position. Parker is extremely adamant about utilizing multiple timeframe analysis and really attributes his usage of this principle in his success. Quotes: "I looked for some really cheap stock to load the boat with and hit a homerun." tweet this quote "Maybe it was the worst and the best thing that could happen to me by just getting lucky. Complete luck." tweet this quote "I started respecting my stop loss which was groundbreaking for me. Sometimes that's a part of the learning experience." tweet this quote "I was religiously prepared for every single trade I would get in. If I hadn't drawn up every single time frame I would not enter." tweet this quote "If I only had that one source of income starting out there's no telling what I would have done because of emotions in the trade." tweet this quote "Mentally you have to be ready to lose a few dollars. You have to be okay with taking a loss. Nobody wins every trade." tweet this quote Links: Video: Trading Review: Binary Options Video: How To Trade Penny Stocks on Steroids

Working for the world famous sports broadcasting company of ESPN, I can see how that would be a "dream job". Our guest from the community, Hamlet, through hard work and dedication was able to achieve this goal of his. One would think that he had reached the pinnacle of his ambitions and would just continue to build from there; however, this all lead Hamlet to the world of trading and the markets. Huh? Yeah. I thought that too! Luckily for us, Hamlet is an open book and we get to go alongside him through this exciting and interesting journey. Notes: After Hamlet graduated from college, he landed what he thought was his dream job at ESPN. Unfortunately the job was extremely stressful and led to him figuring out what would be the next logical step in his life. This led him to wanting to get involved in the market. While doing his due diligence on Claytrader, he stumbled upon a review of someone who actually didn't like Clay very much but did his research and investigation and concluded that Clay was indeed genuine and truthful. This led Hamlet to invest in Robotic Trading and join the community. Hamlet exhibited some great risk management by purposely starting with a small amount of his overall capital. He got his 'feet wet' by keeping his position sizes small and ensuring that he was developing good habits up front. You can tell very easily that Hamlet had always treated this as a serious business and didn't treat it as 'funny money.' He took $15,000 out of his 401k to start trading larger size and was able to make a pretty sizable gain. However, he does say that in hindsight he should have never taken a position that large. A month later Hamlet changed his approach. His use of a mental stop and averaging down led to a large loss which devastated him. After reviewing his trading and spotting his pitfalls, he has been extremely consistent since then. Hamlet excels as a day trader and enjoys not worrying about gap risk holding multiple days. He's actually been doing so well he was able to use his trading profits to launch his own ride sharing rental company. Quotes: "It was a really intense environment. I realized it was going to take me so long to get to my long term goals in life." tweet this quote "I looked into fundamentals. With all the information, how am I ever going to trade with all of it? I knew there had to be another way." tweet this quote "Many people have said in past podcasts, the chart never lies." tweet this quote "It was almost like an easy trade right in front of me but there is no such thing as an easy trade." tweet this quote "When I get stubborn, I just don't want to lose. Everytime that happens I lose money. You have to let those losers go." tweet this quote Links: video: Penny Stocks On Steroids blog: How To Make $51,000 In A Single Day

Chezz and I once again are venturing to the southern hemisphere to talk with a trader from Chile. I say "once again" because this is actually the second trader we've talked to from the country of Chile... pretty cool! Nicolas (chat room alias "Sazu") takes us on a wild ride which starts with him basically knowing nothing about the market (which includes him thinking penny stocks are a "good idea") and ends at a place many people want to be: trading full time from his own home. Notes: After going through college and getting into his first job, Nicolas realized right away that he would not be making enough money to make him happy. This led him to explore other options to supplement his income. He started to research value investing similar to how Warren Buffett decides what to buy. Realizing that fundamental research was a very slow and laborious process, he was unsure if this was the best for him. Nicolas spoke to a friend who steered him toward a shorter term trader who recommended checking out Claytrader.com . Nicolas took the Penny Stock Survival Guide and recognized right away that there were many downfalls and risks associated. This led him to follow Clay's recommended course path and he then continued to invest in his education to become a trader, not investor. While Nicolas did take a string of losing trades, the most important part is that he kept them all extremely small! This allows your winning trades to easily wipe out many losses sometimes all at once. Nicolas' workplace was also not very conducive for trading. He would constantly have people hovering around him asking him questions about it and he was kind enough to speak to them about it. However, this is an incredible amount of distraction which is not helpful for trading. Nicolas saved up a good sized account (and a year's worth of expenses) and decided to work from home and trade for a living after that. Quotes: "I started researching Warren Buffett. I watched 3 course videos and read 3 books on value investing." tweet this quote "This guy sent me lots of emails saying 'get rich soon.' I thought, get away from this guy and went to your website instead." tweet this quote "I took my time and continued being patient. I just continued learning and watching videos imagining I was trading." tweet this quote "I was waiting for the home run. I wrote down my mistakes and what I had to improve on after that." tweet this quote

We love to preach about forming good habits around the community, and this interview gives us a shining example of 'why' that is the case. Thanks to Donald's (chat room alias, "Speedster47") openness about his journey, we get to see not only how bad habits can creep into a strategy, but more importantly, just how annoying/difficult they can be to get rid of. If you take anything away from this discussion, I hope it is realizing how careful you need to be of avoiding forming bad habits. Notes: Speedster's original introduction to the market was similar to many others, through his Economics class. Many years later following his college education and full time employment, he had a friend who worked in the finance industry and was day trading for small profits. This piqued Donald's interest in taking his trading future into his own hands. Donald recognized very early that he needed to get educated. He decided to try to soak up as much free education as he could but as we all tend to find out, free education is usually all over the place and while bits of it may be helpful, it's lack of structure ultimately does the trader no good. After not finding much success to begin his trading career, Speedster decided to start trading penny stocks. His strategy was to buy and hold energy penny stocks as an investor. He was smart to recognize that he was still trending down (losing money) and was able to lower the amount he as losing incrementally. This is always the first step to becoming profitable. Since Donald focused on self educating himself and had no support system at that time, he had developed bad habits that he has been working on ever since. Right now he is focusing on maintaining discipline. As you hear in the podcast, Donald is super hard on himself but he is still profitable for the year including covering the cost of Claytrader University! Trading always leaves room for improvement and maintaining discipline is without a doubt that hardest piece of the puzzle. Quotes: "I wanted to get some shares of my company, sit on them, hopefully take the rest of that money and potentially grow it." tweet this quote "I figured I would learn by experience. Once I finished those books I wanted to put my toe in the water. That was the wrong thinking." tweet this quote "If you think you're going to be a penny stock investor, you're just wasting your time." tweet this quote "I was in the kool-aid camp. I was believing the pump and just thought it would come around." tweet this quote

Trading journals are a part of the markets that can be very beneficial, especially to those people who are beginners in trading. Max ("Maximus" in the chat room) shares with us just how his trading journal has been preparing him to go live with real money. We discuss many other interesting topics too, but the part that really stuck out in my mind was how organized he is in tracking all his trades. Whether you're a new trader or a veteran, I'm confident you can garner at least a few bits tips or tricks from our talk. Notes: Max's introduction to the day trading the market was spurred by Clay's 10k calorie challenge. This led Max to spark up a conversation with this resident advisor to which he found out that he was day trading the market in the morning before classes. While Max did the right thing by paper trading, he did not treat it seriously by any means. He treated it like a video game by not utilizing realistic figures that he would be using when he went live. Now that Max has gotten his feet wet trading speculative biotechs and technology companies along with countless hours of working on his craft, he now is involved in a co-op program though his school to trade full time for 6 months with advisors from JP Morgan and others in the finance industry. Max brings up a great point about how everyone trades differently and while his resident advisor trades successfully one way, it doesn't particularly jive with him. There are many ways to make money in the market and everyone has to find what spot they fit best. Data is extremely important for Max. He strongly suggests that everyone use detailed journaling techniques to keep track of progress and spot potential trading issues that will impact long term profitability. There's no argument or justifications to foolishness when you have the data logged and presented in front of you. Quotes: "I got some good information. I thought I knew what I was doing but I was really just Googling stuff." tweet this quote "I don't want to admit how many hours I stared at charts from January through June. I thought that would fix me." tweet this quote "Journaling as a beginner gives you power to recognize your mess ups. I like to have a guideline of how I've been performing." tweet this quote "Looking back I would tell myself that 'I don't know anything.' Work a little bit smarter but just as hard." tweet this quote Links: Video: 10,000 Calorie Challenge

We decided to celebrate episode number 75 by bringing on a well known member of the community, "h00ch". There was not any agenda predetermined for the show as our goal was to stumble down as many different rabbit holes as possible. The one topic that we got stuck on for quite a bit was full time trading. Trading full time is a goal that many people have, and while it is certainly possible, there are many dynamics that go into it. If you're end goal is to become a full time trader and work from home, then this episode is definitely for you. Notes: This episode we have a round table discussion with community member h00ch. We start off talking about how trading isn't something that changes very often since charts are a reflection of human emotion and human emotions generally make the same mistakes over and over (which provide great trading opportunities for us). The fools gold dilemma presents many problems for newer traders who are attempting to take shortcuts. There are no shortcuts in this industry just like there is no 'holy grail' indicator. Do yourself a favor and take this seriously. We discuss the reasons that led us to the market. Whether it's to get out of a dead end job, to increase income, etc., there are many opportunities available. This ties into the pressure of HAVING to make money and how it can negatively impact your trading. An unfortunate reality in trading is that people view education as something to just check off the list. Just because you bought a course does not mean you should be trading live yet. You have to practice and find your edge to prove that you do know what you are doing. Quotes: "With trading, because it's just human emotion at the end of the day, humans are humans and emotions are emotions." tweet this quote "You need to be educated before you dive in. They're just setting themselves up for fools gold." tweet this quote "Some people are thrown for a loop when they join and we say 'you probably shouldn't trade with real money yet.' " tweet this quote "It's been the biggest fight with myself. I have only just now felt like I finally have things in check regarding size and risk." tweet this quote "You don't realize how much outside stress can affect your trading and mindset." tweet this quote "95% of society just wants to throw money at something and wants their problems to be solved." tweet this quote Links: Nashville Meetup: Register Video: Are You A Puppet Trader Video: Full Time Trading and Dirt

It's not a new topic of conversation by any means; however, it is one that is always worth repeating given so many new traders believe certain things that are NOT true. This is especially true when it comes to smaller accounts and penny stocks. Our guest, Keith (chat room alias, "KrazyInTheKeys") talks about his experience with this very topic. He stumbled into penny stocks believing it was where he "had" to be, but is that where he stayed? Let's find out. Notes: Keith bought into the idea of getting rich quick based on a stock tip from a coworker. A good thing is that he limited his risk by only deploying a small amount of capital since he was very skeptical of the idea to begin with. Even though he lost some money attempting to trade penny stocks in the beginning of his journey, Keith reflected on the idea that education pays dividends. This was the exact case for his job in the medical field so he knew it would be wise to invest in his market education the same way. After a few weeks in the community, Keith went all in and joined Claytrader University and has been going through the courses since April 2016. He realizes that with proper training, trading can and will be his next income source as he slowly winds down his work and transitions toward retirement. Keith immediately realized the benefits of options over penny stocks and has completely focused on them. Instead of parking his money in penny stocks that sometimes rarely move and exhibit very low liquidity (and horrible spreads), Keith can focus on a basket of high volume optionable stocks that provide opportunities on an everyday basis. Quotes: "I wanted to sell it when it was trading higher and buy into it when it traded lower. I noticed it always had this wavy trend to it." tweet this quote "I made a huge time investment and monetary investment in my career and it paid off. Clay made me realize the market is the same." tweet this quote "That was one of the greatest thing I learned from the courses was to stick with paper until I feel totally comfortable." tweet this quote "When you buy a penny stock you hope that one day it will reach a gain but with options you can trade them day in, day out, every day." tweet this quote "I feel a lot better about my trades just checking in on them every once in awhile instead of sitting in front of it all the time." tweet this quote

Thanks to a popular Hollywood movie, chat room member Devin was drawn into the stock market. His first pit stop in the markets was the wonderful world of penny stocks where he wandered around surrounded by sharks and wolves. Devin was given some money by his Dad to assist in his trading, so did having more money at his disposal make trading any easier? The crazy thing is, Devin hit some good solid home runs, yet, despite this, his account kept bleeding in the southern direction. There is lots to learn in this trader's journey. Notes: Devin's introduction was actually through his father. A good thing about this experience was his dad was never obviously upset or overjoyed by the positions he took. He remained even keeled from what Devin could observe. After watching the Wolf of Wall Street, Devin started to research penny stocks and ended up in a penny stock chat room. Using a tax return from the previous year amounting to $500, he began to aimlessly gamble as many do when first starting to trade. Devin's father gave him and his twin brother some money to help aid them in taking their financial future in their own hands. This is a double edged sword because even with the best intentions, Devin could now trade the same way he was in the past but with larger size. As time progressed, Devin transitioned to trading a small basket of stock utilizing their options which is very friendly to a smaller size account. He has found more consistent success swing trading advanced options since it requires much less management. This works well for him as his day job responsibilities have increased greatly in the recent months. Quotes: "I wanted a place where I could find stocks. I would just sit in there and wait for someone to say something." tweet this quote "I convinced myself that I was learning with each loss and I was going to get better from it." tweet this quote "I was always hoping for that home run. I started to realize for every home run there is 3 strike outs. Slowly my account dwindled down." tweet this quote "I was being much more careful but something still wasn't clicking but I was disciplined enough to cut my losses quick." tweet this quote "One issue I had with penny stocks was buy and hope for the best. I didn't even think about what would happen if it went against me." tweet this quote Links: Video: Trade Penny Stocks On Steroids Video: Getting Romantic With Options Trading Video: The Most Effective Order Entry

Thanks to the Canadian government and technology, our guest was introduced to the trading markets, and has essentially never looked back. Vincent (chat room alias, "trader-vic"), as many do, became addicted to the markets and simply put, "just wanted to trade." This lead him to the whole mindset of learning on the job... and... well... I'll let him tell you how all that went. Oddly enough, his day job ultimately played a large role in helping to get his head screwed on the right way. Vincent was very open about his journey, especially the addiction part which I can totally relate to. All-in-all, it's an eye opening account of just how dangerous the markets can be if you let them be. Notes: Vincent's real introduction to the market didn't occur until he got his iPhone 5. For the first time he felt that he was able to fully control his access to the market and wanted to put some of his money to work. Canada gave its citizens 100 shares of a stock and while most people forgot about it, Vincent's interest was piqued and this led him to start getting interested in trading more names. After opening an account he put some of his cash into gold mining companies. Vincent eventually went down the penny stock route and had the typical experience of buying the top and selling the bottom. He also noticed that his success rate was very high when the market was rallying and then dropped significantly as the market went sideways or down. This led him to believe he 'lost his touch.' He unfortunately continued to trade with real money while learning how to trade with charts which created some sizeable losses. It wasn't until he was able to pull himself away from the market (with his day job) to reset and start applying what he learned correctly. With his newfound knowledge after going through the training, Vincent recognized that he really needed to get his platform set up to his liking and paper trade EFFECTIVELY. Effectively in the terms of keeping his paper trading as real as possible. He will find what works first on paper and then apply it with his real account. Quotes: "When it came time to sell I had to telephone them on a rotary phone, go down there and sign some papers downtown. Lots of rigmarole." tweet this quote "I didn't know anything at all about charts. I didn't know the difference between a bollinger band and a bean bag chair." tweet this quote "I was so frustrated following analyst reports. I then turned to Youtube and found Clay posting his charts. I signed up the next day." tweet this quote "I was saved by my day job. I had to out and work long hours day after day for a few weeks and that broke the losing spell." tweet this quote Links: https://claytrader.com/videos/trade-penny-stocks-steroids/

We've interviewed some members of the community who do not talk much in the chat room (totally fine, variety is a good thing!), but in this episode, Chezz and I get to hang out with a well known member, "Mr. Bee". Unlike many other traders (myself included), Mr. Bee never struggled with the concept of admitting he was wrong and cutting a loser fast, but he found himself challenged with the other areas of trading all of which he shares with us. Along with this, he shares a very nice Jedi Mind Trick he uses to motivate his psychology to keep working hard. Mr. Bee was very open and honest creating an action packed interview with many gem learning points. Notes Mr. Bee had an interest in the market at a very young age but had a 15 year gap between that interest and his first investment in his education. With his current account value, Bee was forced to trade lower priced stocks until the options trading courses came out. This really helped show who in the community was disciplined in taking small losses and those who 'held the bag.' The good thing is that he has never had an issue with cutting losses fast. A great outlook on his trading concerns the idea that a trade is merely money gained or money lost which makes it easier for him to book losses quickly. Mr. Bee also believes in treating himself with his hard work from trading. The use of money earned trading helps solidify in his mind that his hard work is paying off. He is currently trading part time with his job but has aspirations to go full time in the next year. The beauty of the financial markets is that if you are proficient at trading them, you have the freedom to spend your time as you choose and Mr Bee. would much rather spend time with his family than at his 9-5 job. Quotes: "Trading is the same feeling as golf because it is something I don't think anyone can master. But you can keep trying." tweet this quote "All of us take losses and losses are a huge part of it. This is definitely not a game." tweet this quote "I know that I've put the work in and see what is going to happen. My biggest struggle to this day is being patient." tweet this quote "It's always nice to fantasize about how big a win could have been. That's where I kick myself more than a losing trade." tweet this quote "I don't personally like to keep the money in there like it's a trade vault. I have to be able to reward myself with it." tweet this quote Links: Course: The Trading Freedom Pathway

I really enjoy this interview as it takes a different approach and gives us a very valuable lesson. Many people think if they understand that trading is not a "get rich quick" venture, they're already on the path to easy success. Don't get me wrong, understanding this principle is extremely important, but as our interview with chat room member Kent shows, there is much more to trading then simply acknowledging riches are not made overnight. Kent is a very systematic guy, and I really found it intriguing and insightful to hear about how he is preparing himself for trading. Notes: At the young age of 15, Kent was introduced to stock options. The interesting thing is he was also able to watch them bleed a $40,000 account down to $2,000. Kent was smart enough to not buy into the 'get rich quick' nonsense that this industry is filled with. He tried one other chat room but quickly realized that it was a toxic environment that he did not want to be a part of. After checking out what was offered here, Kent decided to jump headfirst and join Claytrader University since he enjoyed the free content and found value in the lessons provided. As he continues to go through the courses, he is practicing and seeing what he is strong at and what he is weak at. There is no sense in putting your hard earned money on the line if you are unsure where your particular edge is and he realizes that. Kent understands that trading is not about getting rich quick and is putting in the effort to make this a long lasting income source in the future. Quotes: "They didn't have any stop losses at all. They were trading completely emotionally. They were straight up gambling." tweet this quote "I realized that you can really make a life from this. Not this 'you can be rich beyond your wildest dreams in 2 minutes.' " tweet this quote "The education is just awesome. It is horribly redundant which is fine for an old army guy. It's dummy proof." tweet this quote "Even if I think I'm ready, I'm still going to take a minute to go through it all over again and continue to work on it." tweet this quote "I would have jumped on the education sooner and been really regimented about it. It really is what makes the difference." tweet this quote

If you've traded for any decent amount of time, and are being honest with yourself, I'm sure you can probably relate to our guest in at least one regard. Tim (chat room alias, "Toggs") found himself using the strategy of "hoping" a stock would go in his direction, after it already had not, instead of just cutting the loss. This strategy is one of the many interesting rabbit holes we wander down with "Toggs", and as always, through some of his painful experiences, we are all able to learn something... free of charge! Notes: Tim's introduction to the market was the talking baby eTrade commercial during the Super Bowl. He limited his risk by only deciding to start with $500 dollars. After doing plenty of Google 'research' to find his stock picks, Tim ended up on Stocktwits following the recommended tickers that he read about. Tim went on to learn about options in a very basic sense and started trading some larger, more known names now. Unfortunately, he got blown out on an earnings trade which led him to have to reload his account. Realizing that he needed to get educated from someone with experience, Tim jumped in and joined ClayTrader University. He listened to Shawn's podcast and got his options account up to $250 to begin putting to use his new knowledge. While a 'brain fart' led him to losing $120 of that account, the 98% of the time he is trading he continues to develop good habits. While making $10 does not seem appealing to many, with proper risk/trade management, these gains can further be compounded in the future. He is laying the groundwork that will pave the way for future gains in Tim's account. Quotes: "I think it was just finding that Robinhood app and deciding to try this again. See if I could learn a little bit more." tweet this quote "I made a second trade and it went against me. I thought, maybe if I hold on to it that it will bounce back. That was my strategy." tweet this quote "I felt like I had to look at myself and realize how much I do know and realize I have a lot left to know." tweet this quote "I just want to get good at visualizing the chart and knowing what movement I can expect it to go." tweet this quote "If you're losing in a trade don't wait for it to bounce. Just get out, cut your losses and find a different entry point." tweet this quote Links: Course: The Trading Freedom Pathway

"No guts. No glory." That's definitely the attitude our guest took when first entering into the markets. Romeo (chat room alias, "YankeesVsBoston") has some very bizarre luck when he first started trading, leading to a very false sense of confidence. Enough confidence in fact to give him the guts to take a loan out to fund his trading account! Like I was saying, "go big or go home" was his philosophy early on. How'd that all work out? Was it a wise move on his part? Let's find out... Notes: After graduating from college, Romeo decided to set some money aside to speculate in the market. He was not happy with the returns of CDs and savings accounts. This led him to the world of penny stocks. His initial penny stock purchase immediately went to 0 but to Romeo's surprise, a few months later this ticker had a flurry of volume and tripled his money. This led him to believe he was the king of trading but continued to fuel his interest in the market. Romeo took a $5,000 loan to add to his trading account now and tried to utilize it on 2 trades but luckily for him, he could not get a fill and essentially avoided two massive pump and dumps that would have wiped his account out. Unfortunately, he went all in at the top of his next trade and sold the low to cover his first loan payment. This event led him to realize the importance of practicing his craft so he spent months paper trading to find what specific type of strategy worked best for him. After chatting with another member he decided to join CTU and further his education. His dedication was only further compounded by having his friend believe in him and give him a generous loan to help kickstart his trading attempt. At the time of this recording, Romeo is now trading full time and has almost completely cleared out his old debts. Quotes: "As soon as I bought it, it went straight to .0001 the next day. I thought 'Wow, that's it. It's gone.' " tweet this quote "I finally got filled and it was at the very top. I held and sold at the bottom and barely had enough for the loan payment." tweet this quote "I probably spent 6 hours of my time a day studying and studying. I had zombie eyes. I was really focused on what worked for me." tweet this quote

Wow! That's really all that can be said about the perfect storm that hit this trader. I won't spoil anything, but a lot of weird and crappy things happen... all at once, leading to a not-so-ideal spot for our member Chris ('xzbt' is his alias the community chat room). He was backed into a corner and had to change things up quite a bit, but he did what he had to do to keep himself engaged in the markets. This journey is definitely one of the more unique ones we've heard, so sit back, relax and enjoy the ride! Notes: Chris had a few family members and friends who were quite active in the market. His uncle had the foresight to go to cash before the 2008 crash. Unfortunately, Chris listened to his CFP advisor and was caught in the melt down. His first introduction to Clay was actually during the first iteration of Robotic Trading before the website and community existed. It was presented to iHub which is where he found Clay initially. While all of this was happening his business was also in decline so he became quite aware that he would be unable to trade actively for a while so this led to a multi-year trading hiatus. However, his interest in the market did not wane and during that hiatus he continued to check the various charts and industries of interest. Even though Chris' 'hand of cards' has been quite rough over the past few years, his passion for the market has never wavered. Regardless of the fact that he is not live trading currently, he is practicing his craft and paper trading realistically which will only serve to help him transition back to the live market with good habits. Quotes: "It was a perfect storm of a market crash and massive unexpected expenses and literally wiped out my savings." tweet this quote "I try to live my life with the philosophy that I try to learn from my mistakes and not make the same mistakes twice." tweet this quote "That was a mistake I made. I did mental exercises looking at the charts but I didn't write it down." tweet this quote "I still battle with the fear of missing out. Sometimes you just have to take that split second to think about it." tweet this quote "If I see an alert I actually research it to decide if that is something I would trade. If I'm too late, oh well." tweet this quote Links: Course: Robotic Trading Video: How To Paper Trade Video: How To Paper Trade With a Purpose Course: The Cash Flow Creation Guide

Thanks to a very open and honest sharing of his journey from chat room member Andre, we all get a behind-the-scenes view of the chaos emotions can create. Throw in the fact that he did not really have a plan either, and the snowball (he's from Canada, get the joke? haha) of chaos becomes that much larger and picks up that much more momentum. Andre had a few key events that caused him to stop the snowball, and then reanalyze a different way to go about this whole trading business. What were these events and what steps did Andre take? Let's find out... Notes: Andre's introduction to the market was a stock picking contest through a newspaper many years ago and while he didn't do well, this contest had piqued his interest in the market. After doing some Google research, Andre began trading based on tickers he would read other people talk about (Stocktwits, iHub, etc.). His trading was very unsteady at first and even when he made money, he was trading US stock with Canadian currency so he would also get hit with conversion fees every trade he made. He did end up opening a $10,000 account with much lower fees and began trading again but still had no real strategy at this point. He had a successful strategy of buying toward the close and selling into any pop in the morning but he would then give back all those gains in the afternoon. While going through the courses, Andre realized he was trading very emotionally which led to most of his losses. Now he is planning out solid trading plans with proper risk versus reward. Even though he is not comfortable swing trading yet (since he does work a full time job) he plans on working through the Advanced Options course to see if it would be viable for him. Quotes: "I opened up a $1000 account and blew it immediately. I came across some penny stocks and just threw some in." "I didn't fully understand the market back then. I hoped it would climb and just keep climbing." "If there wasn't any major sell off at the close, I would use that as an indicator to stay in. I'd then give it back in the afternoon." "I usually just jump in and then put my stop. I'll use my risk vs reward ratio and continue to work on my entries." "Don't run at it. It will come to you in due time. Take your time and don't get riled up."

It's an odd thing to think about, but in all reality, it's a logic worth discussing deeper: if you are going to do something wrong, at least be wise about it. This is the overarching theme of our interview with chat room member Garrett. I realize it seems like a contradiction, I mean how can something be "wise" if by definition, it is already "wrong". We talk about that and much more with Garrett, who very well may be one of the more skeptical people we've had on the show. I don't say that in a bad way, but it created some great conversation pieces and perspectives. Notes: Garrett's introduction the market began by having a friend tell him that he should let someone else manage his money. Being skeptical by nature, he figured that he could manage it better than anybody else and keep his best interest in mind. He was smart enough to limit his risk right off the bat by only funding his trading account with $500 of his initial $12,000. After putting this in 2 stocks that were household names, he immediately took losses to the tune of 50% of that initial $500. These losses led Garrett to realize that he needed to get educated to compete against the professionals in the market. He was smart enough to be skeptical of penny stocks and didn't think he could compete in commodity futures so he settled on indices futures. Considering he opened a small account, he once again took more strings of losses that led Garrett to pursue some paid education vs the free Google and Youtube trading videos he had watched prior. After stumbling upon a day trading 'guru,' he quickly realized this person's style did not mesh well with him and eventually he found Clay. After going through the courses Garrett realized he needed to go to paper trading until he had a firm grasp on all the techniques and risk management. He's currently in the break even stage of his option trading and that's where he will most likely hone his edge in the market and continue to improve as time goes on. Quotes: "I just went ahead and put 500 in eTrade. I did absolutely no research at all and just bought a couple stocks." tweet this quote "I really wasn't paying too much attention to the chart. I just bought into the stock and was hoping it would go up." tweet this quote "I've done so much research and if I still can't become profitable, I still need to go do some more research." tweet this quote "I'm not going to give up and I recover well from losses. I don't let it ruin me." tweet this quote

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

This guest is the youngest to get started in the markets. Thanks to parents that were open to showing him the power of the markets, Tony ("Tony Tan" in the chat room) began his journey at only age 13! He was feeling under the weather for this interview, but we appreciated him toughing it out and making it through the entire interview. Nice mental toughness Tony! Notes: Tony got his introduction the market at the young age of 12 after overhearing family members speaking about it. After finding some initial success trading based off of the talking heads on television, Tony took a short break and resumed trading his sophomore year in highschool. Tony tried to game the system by trading ex-dividend dates thinking he could make easy money buying before and selling after he collected the dividend. It only took him a few trades to realize that there are many computer models that already arbitrage this when available which led to him getting burned before changing strategy again. Eventually Tony joined the Inner Circle and tried to reverse engineer alerts to learn without spending any money on education. Tony recognized that there is no holy grail out there and is now keeping it simple. He has his timeframe and his methodology for entry and exits and this keeps his emotions out of the equation. Quotes: "I started trading in 2008. I opened up my first brokerage account when I was 13." tweet this quote "After the ex-dividend date, the stock dropped 6 dollars so I cashed out on that and looked for a different strategy." tweet this quote

A key aspect of trading success is realizing that it is a business. Because of this, you better be ready to step in as the CEO and operate it as such. Community member Joe ("JBH" in the chat room) gives us all a shining example of exactly what this looks like. He has built businesses before, and now he's in the business of trading and he's doing exactly what needs to be done. He's a great reason why I love doing these podcasts... he had me fired up and inspired by just how serious he treats all of this. There are way too many jokers out there that don't take trading seriously enough, only to complain "it's all rigged"... this is NOT the case with Joe! Notes: Joe had taken a long road trip to clear his head and when he arrived back home he realized that he did not want to start another company so the stock market would be his new income source. An EXTREMELY rare thing happened with Joe. He falls into one of the rarest categories because he did not do any live trading until he got educated first (which we usually never see). Since Joe has started multiple businesses from scratch he understands that any successful company requires lots of preparation, research, and overall hard work. He gave up the chase for quick riches a long time ago and recognizes anything of worth requires serious concentrated effort. Joe also realizes the importance of not lingering on previous losses and gains. After each trade it is important to learn as much as you can but remember, there are more trades to be made the next day and if you carry those previous trades with you they will certainly impact your performance. A strong trait to master is the ability to recognize your own strengths and weaknesses. Joe has identified those pesky voices that generally cause a trader to lose money and with that recognition he can see what is to be ignored and what is to be acted upon. Quotes: "I was googling, I was hash tagging. I'm kind of a nut when it comes to research. I was an investor, not a trader." tweet this quote "Robotic Trading says it is not an emotional thing. That's BS. If you're a sore loser like me that's an emotion. It's hard to take that away." tweet this quote "If I keep adding all these other indicators then I just cloud my judgement with more opportunities to screw up." tweet this quote "You don't need to risk a lot of capital to make a bit of money. The pendulum is swinging closer to gambling when you risk a lot." tweet this quote "You have to have an exit strategy and not get too greedy with a loss or with a profit. Don't ever think it's going to bounce back." tweet this quote Links: Video: Live Day Trade: How to Make $185 in 2 Minutes Video: Avoid the Pattern Day Trader Rules

As weird as it may sound from a logical perspective, making money can actually be one of the worst things to happen to someone new to the market. We sit down and talk with chat room member Dave ("TracknPennies") and he discusses some very insightful aspects of his journey... including of course how his early success turned out to be the "worst thing that could happen: he made $3,100". Why was this the case and where did his journey go from here? Sit back and enjoy. Notes: Dave's introduction to the market came back while he was in high school in the 80s. About 15 years later he started to get re-interested and decided to start doing some research. Like many others, he didn't want to outlay too much capital and this led him to penny stocks. The message boards and huge gains were extremely appealing considering the small amount of capital required. After having a few small wins and losses, Dave made a really good profit and now thought he had 'figured it out.' These thoughts always lead to prematurely sizing up. After having mixed success trading shorter term time frames, he started looking into the companies 'stories' and now swing trading them. On more than one occasion Dave was up $30,000 in unrealized profit but more often than not would end up only walking away with $5,000. The power of greed is something many people underestimate. Eventually after watching huge gains diminish to small gains or even losses, Dave decided that he was going to take some time off from the market. When he returned, he realized that he needed to invest in his education. The penny stock market eventually went lifeless and that is when he decided to learn how to use his technical analysis to trade options like many other traders in the community. Dave realizes that his risk vs. reward is not where it should be yet and that is his primary focus for 2016. Quotes: "When the economy took a dump the money wasn't coming in like it had been. I had to start looking for other sources of income." tweet this quote "The worst thing that could happen happened. I made $3100 in an hour. So now I'm a professional." tweet this quote "The chart was screaming sell but I was drinking the Kool-Aid. I was up $30,000 and I still didn't sell." tweet this quote "You can lead a man to knowledge but you can't make him think." tweet this quote Links: Course: The Penny Stock Survival Guide Video: Live Day Trading Reality Check

We all have different amounts of motivation that we require in order to give us a "wake up" call, and in this case, it took a loss of 75% of their account. Thanks to his honesty and transparency, chat room member Chase gives us a fantastic look into his journey... including needing to lose the majority of his account before realizing and acknowledging he needed to make some changes. Chase has been around the community for a long time and is a asset to the community, so I'm excited to be able to have him share his story with the rest of us. Get ready! Note's Chase's parents had purchased stock for him at a young age. He let these shares sit until he was an adult and somehow in passing he was reminded of this and started to investigate how he could make money in the stock market. After extensive research, Chase decided to join the Inner Circle because of the low cost. After spending some time in a few communities, he decided to stay here because of the environment. He however did not invest in his education at this point. While going through free content on the internet and giving him a sense of knowing the basics, he then would place trades from his phone in the bathroom before returning to work and then check on them again in 20-30 minutes. When Chase took his trading account from 2000 down to 500 dollars he realized he needed to spend more time investing in his education. He took 2-3 months to get through every single video and every course. He also rewatched multiple courses to hammer home the principles taught. Chase is a big believer in logging his trades via a trading journal. He writes down information concerning his mentality and attitude both before and after his trades. This detailed log provides a good amount of data for him to review when the market was closed. Without a real passion for the markets, it would be truly difficult to maintain the amount of practice and good habits that Chase exhibits. He understands that this is not a get rich quick scheme and recognizes that without consistent effort there is no way to succeed. Quotes: "I just wanted to have a really relaxed life. I hate the 9-5 jobs. I didn't even know trading was a thing. I thought it was investing." tweet this quote "The best way to describe penny stocks in general is just 'a dump.' When I got in there the big hype was Ebola." tweet this quote "Instead of being on the momo train like I am doing now, I was just getting hit by it." tweet this quote "My paper trading account is setup exactly like my live account. I'm still just focused on the process. tweet this quote

Where has the time gone? I swear it was just last week that I was sweating bullets awaiting doing the first ever interview... and here we are, now at episode 50! Chezz and I take a look back at the history of the show and discuss some common themes that have arisen time and time again. When multiple guests have made mention of the same general concepts, we figured it was worth taking note of and mentioning so that hopefully you can learn from multiple people's mistakes. Notes: In this episode, Clay and Chezz reflect over the past 50 episodes and touch on some recurring topics that are 'rant' worthy. This includes: What do you think about ticker XYZ? The importance of paper trading realistically. Growing a small account.Reluctance to invest in education and willingness to gamble 'cautiously.' Buy and sell alerts (which create dependency). There is no need to rush. The market will be there in the future. Quotes: "The more and more I learn about trading, the less and less I need anybody's opinion." tweet this quote "If you can't buy 10,000 shares when you go to real money, don't go to 10,000 shares when you are paper trading." tweet this quote "You are a CEO. What are you a CEO of? Your personal finances. You are in charge of you." tweet this quote "You wouldn't go to a doctor for heart surgery who says, 'I googled some stuff. It's cheaper than going to school.'" tweet this quote "There is a big difference between alerting something that is in-play and how to play it. We all have different risk tolerance." tweet this quote "Just keep practicing because the market will be there tomorrow, in 6 months, in 6 years. Your financial capital is finite." tweet this quote Links: Video: The Worst Possible Question To Ask Video: The Surgeons Dilemma

For some people, they need to grow up fast and get the ax to the grindstone right away. Our guest from the chat room, Ricky, fits that description perfectly. Due to some rough patches in his personal life when he was young, he was forced to grow up and become "the man of the house" very early in life. This personality dynamic has given a very interesting outlook on not only trading, but life in general. It was very refreshing to sit back and listen to someone who has been through a lot, but never made excuses for themselves. There is a lot to be learned from this experience. Notes: Like many of our guests, Ricky was introduced to the market via his economics class with a paper portfolio.' Ricky was forced to be the man of the house at a very early age and this led him to find the drive to take his education and finances into his own hands and push forward into what interested him. While trying to accumulate education related to trading, Ricky realized very quickly that there is so much information spread out erratically across the internet. After frequenting lots of message boards and seeing the 'poison' of opinion, Ricky decided to invest in his education with his hard earned dollars. Ricky recognized that he is much better at taking logical trades on a higher timeframe. This gives the brain much longer to process and form plans that prevent you from taking a trade 'on a whim' or because you need the 'action.' With a set of criteria, Ricky is able to identify stocks that are aligned on multiple time frames and have momentum indicators showing an increase. He developed this system himself and the important part is that it works for him! Trading techniques certainly have an element of personal touch and what works for him may not works for others. Quotes: "I figured nobody is going to take care of my money the way I will." tweet this quote "In life, it's all about the process. It's not about being right. It's about doing it right." tweet this quote "I need to see things move up and down and that's why day trading for me isn't my strong suit." tweet this quote "Charts definitely can't see the future. You can see the indecision, the strength at support or at resistance with good chart vision." tweet this quote

We have almost done 50 episodes, but this interview is a first for both Chezz and I. Our guest, Tony ("elkhuntn" in the chat room), had his journey start by literally working for a penny stock company that was in the mining sector. Can you say "shady???" By getting an inside look at penny stocks, this gave Tony a very unique start to his journey which contains many twists and turns. It was an enjoyable interview that includes what I find to be very valuable nuggets of wisdom that can only be gained through experience. Notes: Tony worked for a very small mining company that was publicly traded and this is what led him to get interested in penny stocks. After losing a little bit of money, he decided to invest in his education and learned about penny stocks from Clay. After moving away from penny stocks, Tony hit some fools gold trading options right away but as most fools gold goes, he gave it back relatively fast. Even with some nice size gains on a few trades, just a few 100% losses in options completely wiped out his gains and then a majority of his account. Recognizing that he needed to focus on his strategy to emphasize consistency, Tony now has a set basket of options stocks he watches and utilizes the same setups over and over when he is able to be at the computer trading. Tony has time to trade in the morning before he starts work so he can focus on strictly day trading. With some self diagnoses, we determine that if he had only traded the morning session and skipped the rest of the day he would go from being red on the year to green. Less really is more in trading. Quotes: "Working at penny stock company, I pretty much quit trading penny stocks after better understanding how they worked." tweet this quote "I have a hard time paper trading but if I take a really small positions I can at least be honest about it." tweet this quote "I denied the losses at first. It didn't slow me down like it should have. It should have been a red flag but it wasn't." tweet this quote "If I would just trade the first hour of the day, I would be green for the year." tweet this quote Links: Course: The Penny Stock Survival Guide Video: About Pattern Day Trader Rules

At this point, hopefully I don't need to say much because you are already "in deep" with this member's journey and looking forward to hearing the conclusion. If you're not aware, this is Part 2 of our interview with chat room member "MR", so if you have not listened to Part 1, then be sure to go listen to Episode #46. Without further adieu, let's get right back into the action... Notes: When he arrived at the Inner Circle, MR was blasted for talking about fundamentals. His biggest use for a chart was to see where all time highs/lows were and if he was close. After going through CTU, he started to focus on smaller timeframe equities to apply what he just learned. This eventually led him to trading the futures market which meshed with MR's appreciation and study of the overall market movements. MR went from a long term tech supply chain investor who used fundamentals to a trader who is capable of trading time frames as small as the 2 minutes. This is a shining example that if anyone is willing to put in the effort to learn how to trade with technical analysis they can do it. Quotes: "I've made trades where I made $1600 bucks. Well actually, we lost $200 bucks because it was $1800 in commission." tweet this quote "In stocks, I see value there and I find it hard to short sell that value. But in the market indexes, I just see it as bulls and bears." tweet this quote "As soon as you lose your plan and won't admit your plan is going wrong, you're going to lose it. You'll get buried." tweet this quote "Be realistic, don't be greedy, stick to the plan, don't listen to anyone but yourself and when the market isn't safe, get out." tweet this quote Links: Course: The Trading Freedom Pathway

This was supposed to be a single interview, but as we chatted and got sucked into the story, we had no other choice to be break it up into a two part interview. Chat room member "MR" breaks down his journey with us which is truly fascinating. He's been around for a long time and has seen multiple Bull and Bear markets, including some epic "bubble pops". This included oa "pop" that took his seven figure portfolio down to below zero... in other words, he owed his broker money! Get ready for a wild ride! Notes: At a young age, MR was able to witness his parents retire at a very young age and started to wonder how we would achieve a similar feat in his lifetime. After graduating high school and college, MR joined the same electrical union many of his family members were in. While working in the field for 5 years, he had accumulated a good amount of money as he continued to live a very frugal life. MR was put in touch with an accounts manager at a brokerage house and after much resistance from this person, he agreed to take on MR's account. While MR ideally wanted to be very aggressive (considering he was a 25 year old), he decided to respect the manager's style of trading the market conservatively. To move toward something more aggressive, MR decided to open a smaller account at another firm and strictly focus on the supply chain for these major tech companies that were booming. Toward the end of the dot com bubble, MR suffered a huge portfolio swing which just about wiped him out. This has helped him recognize various topping patterns which serve as warning signs for him to close positions and stay in cash. MR went back to his roots and traded suppliers for various tech names and not only recouped his losses from earlier but took it to new all time highs. Quotes: "I asked my boss how he was going to retire. He said 'the working man is a sucker. You gotta be in the stock market.'" tweet this quote "I really knew nothing about the stock market besides it was a way to retire early." tweet this quote "I did not want to take the risk buying a '.com' website. I wanted to be involved with their suppliers." tweet this quote "This space was on fire and I had dollar signs in my eyes. I was margined heavily. Seven-figures margined." tweet this quote "On December's closing statement my account was over 7 figures then March 31st my statement was -20,000 dollars." tweet this quote "People don't understand how much of it is psychological. I believe I punished myself for all the people who got hit by not selling." tweet this quote Links: Blog: Most Effective Order Entry Blog: How To Make $51,000 In A Single Day Guide: Futures, What are They and How Do I trade Them?

The marketing out there is crazy. Fancy cars, mansions, beautiful women, exotic vacations... all intended to fill your mind with how the stock market can give you a life of pure perfectness. This is all twisted to imply that with the right strategy or system, it all "happens quick". So, how does the get-rich-quick hidden promise play out in reality? That's what we discuss with chat room member Exploerer76 ("E76" for short). He started out with this mindset and has since ended up with a much different view. Let's connect all the dots in between.... Notes: Explorer76 didn't get involved in trading until some of his coworkers told him that they were day trading during the work day (when it was slow). One of the members of Mike's band was heavily involved in the financial market and he looked to him for advice. His advice was to put his money into no load mutual funds since he could self direct his retirement account. After some big changes in his life (both work and personally), that retirement account had to be purged so now Explorer had to start fresh and was looking for a way to get rich quick. After investigating many traders who promised 'quick riches,' he came to the realization that when it seems too good to be true it usually is. In 2015, some old accounts that were locked came back into Explorer's possession and this would soon turn into his trading account (to which he was ready to apply his new found trading education). Instead of shooting for home runs, Mike is now trading advanced options and going for base hits over and over again with a high probability of success. Quotes: "Wow these day traders are so edgy! They're taking chances and that was so cool. I wish I could do that but never did." tweet this quote "I tried shorting the market but I couldn't figure it out with the mutual funds. Ultimately, I just held what I originally had." tweet this quote "I'm thankful I was smart enough to realize there are no shortcuts to learning how to trade stocks." tweet this quote "What's that saying? You'll never plow a field if you only turn it over in your mind. I wanted to get in there with real money." tweet this quote "Honestly, I look at the chart more than anything. I draw lines all over my charts and that's how I start making decisions." tweet this quote Links: Course: The Trading Freedom Pathway Here is a live video from that band playing a cover of a song from the band Killswitch Engage: youtube.com/watch?v=Eap1zTa8afI These are a couple live videos of the band I was in prior to the above band: youtube.com/watch?v=uuS5qDXfK3g - youtube.com/watch?v=4HogPZUlBzQ