Transcription
This man turned $12,400 into $8 million in verified trading profits and at the time ran the number one short-bias hedge fund on all of Wall Street. I don't care what happens on any trade. If I stick to my rule number one, cutting losses quickly, I can afford tons of 1-2-3% losses. There's always going to be another play where I can make 5, 10, 20%. But can I protect myself on the wrong place? If you structure your trading properly, you can be the house. You can be the casino. If you don't structure it, then you're basically the victim.
Introducing Tim Sykes with a fully verified track record for 25 years. Famously known for donating 100% of his trading profits, building over 133 schools all over the world. In this episode, Tim reveals why penny stock trading is actually one of the most overlooked ways of trading for a beginner. And we had the honor of one of his best students joining us on this episode who's made more than $25 million trading penny stocks.
You guys are not using prop firms. So, when someone's starting up with 5K, the first thing is don't blow your 5K. What is the approach in the initial phases to at least protect and at least compound that initial amount?
So rule number one for me is always if you get stubborn, you double up, triple up, quadruple up, it can be a very slippery slope. You can lose 20, 30, 50%. So newbies need to learn to take those 1-2-3-4% losses. It's not fun. But this is all just small steps to getting the experience of dealing with the volatility so that you can optimize. Most people give up before they ever really optimize. So they're judging their trading based on plus or minus 50,000. It's negligible in the long run. You have to be willing to break a few eggs to make an omelette, but most people don't want to do that. They just want their omelette to be perfect. No eggs broken.
A lot of people focus on strategy, technicals, fundamentals, psychology, and it's frameworks based. Whereas what stands out with you guys is more so you chose penny stocks, which is the less chosen arena to trade in. Do you think it's your strategy and edge that was the key player or actually the arena you chose to trade within?
Um, I think it's both. I mean, I think that there's a lot of edge in penny stocks because.
So there's a Warren Buffett uh famous saying and he was basically it's more important what vehicle you're in, not how hard you row. What boat you're in, not how hard you row. And from that, I want to throw the idea that is a lot of people focus on strategy, technicals, fundamentals, psychology, and it's frameworks based. Whereas what stands out with with you guys is more so you chose penny stocks, which is the less chosen arena to trade in. Do you think it's your strategy and edge that was the key player or actually the arena you chose to trade within?
Um, I think it's both. I mean, I think that there's a lot of edge in penny stocks because most people are either like scammers or idiots. So, if you, if you delve in the middle, right, where you're like, I'm not a scammer, I'm not an idiot. There is a structure like you said, actually, I have a seven-step framework where a lot of the penny stock moves follow the seven-step framework that I came up with. Um, and it's just based on human psychology. But trading has gotten harder in a lot of niches because of algorithmic trading and big-time traders who use amazing technology. Penny stocks, there's not huge amounts of opportunity. Like no one's like, "Hey, I want to be a penny stock trader." Right? You wanted to go into forex, like there's options, there's a bunch of stuff where you can make tens, hundreds of millions of dollars. Very tough to even make a few million dollars in penny stocks. So there's lesser upside, but there's lesser competition. So that's what made me gravitate towards them.
Why did you get into penny stocks?
I just kept winning when I was trading penny stocks. When you go to the casino, like you want to be the house. Like when I was trading OTCs, like I was the house because there's no, there's no algos allowed. There's no high-frequency trading. Like it's, it's literally just human versus human. So I could dominate the game because I was working harder than other people. Like I can't really compete against these algos and these high-frequency traders. When I was trading OTCs back in 2020, like I was making 10 times the amount I was losing. My profit factor was 10 times. So if I made a million dollars, I'd only lose a 100K to make a million. Now if I want to make a million dollars, I'm probably going to have to lose 500,000, 700,000. My profit factor has gotten way down because the game's way harder. So that's why we gravitated towards penny stocks.
You had David Hanlin on too and he did very well with penny stocks and he gravitated towards this. I don't know. Did you tell a story about the burpees? The burpees challenge? I love this story. So, I always assign people burpees when they're like being like a degenerate. I'm like, "Oh, you lost $300. You owe me 300 burpees." You know what a burpee is?
Yeah. Tough. Yeah. That's tough. Yeah.
So, I say this to everybody. No one actually does them. David Hanlin, the psycho that he is, lost $83,000 on one trade. And I, you know, he tweeted it and $89,000.
$89,000. Sorry. $89,000. And I was like, "You owe me 89,000 burpees." The mad man that he is. He actually kept a spreadsheet. It took him a year, but he did all of them.
He did like 250 a day, I think. Two maybe 300 spreadsheet. And he actually did it. That's his amazing, you know, discipline. Now he's over, you know, he's over $14 million now.
I spoke to him a year ago and it was around I think eight or 11.
So he's hockey stick growth thing right now because of all the lessons you learn when you trade small. Like that's the beauty of penny stocks. Even if there's not huge amounts of money, you build your framework, you build your account.
You stay in the game, too.
You survive your learning curve, right? And then you can bet bigger. I mean, this guy's now betting bigger. He's having like million-dollar days. I've never had a million-dollar day. My biggest day, I made $200,000. It was a good day. But, you know, when you start to have a lot of experience, then you can size up. And I encourage everyone in the beginning to start small.
When you're starting out, which a lot of the audience would be in there for 6 months or year, as you said, it's about surviving and uh not building bad habits. Do and obviously people lean more towards prop firms just for the access to capital. Where where do you think is the best arena to get started? Would you encourage that is penny stocks?
Yes. I mean, I I think you want to start where it's easiest, right? Like if you're if you're going to school, you don't start in college. Like can you imagine kids like little babies in a college like professor like giving a lecture? The babies would be like asleep or whatever. Penny stocks are like for kids, right? That's obviously kids shouldn't trade. You need parental permission. I'm not saying that, but I'm saying like it's it's easiest where it's like, okay, these companies have no fundamentals, but if they get pumped up by a chat room or social media mentions or maybe they have a press release, they can really run. Like today, as we're filming this, uh, Rackspace signed a deal with AMD. And Rackspace is this tiny little company. It's a penny stock, but literally when the news got announced, it was $2.50 a share. It got up to three. It dipped down to two. And now as we're filming it just touched four. So like you have massive volatility all within a few hours. You can buy a 100 shares, you can buy a thousand shares and it's good practice and you get that education.
Are these are these uh first of all the product is the stock itself not necessarily what they're selling.
Correct.
Okay. So then it's more driven by psychology or hype or uh consensus and therefore supply and demand.
Yeah. So then you don't look into the technicals or fundamentals. Looking into community or you're looking into noise around what it is. So actually your framework would be totally different to someone trading uh big-cap stocks and or any other arena.
Yeah, a lot of it is based just on momentum trading, right? So like we're using the VWAP. Like can the stock hold the VWAP? Can it reclaim the VWAP? Can it squeeze enough shorts? So how is it acting at the high of the day? Is it holding the low of the day? Like I said, very simple stuff. There's only a few key metrics, but you have big moves intraday. So, a newbie who plays with a 100 shares, 500 shares, a thousand shares, you literally can make a few hundred in a day and you get that lesson and then you do it over and over and over again. My average trading profit over a quarter of a century is just $1,500. That's it. My average trade, okay, think about that. I've made millions of dollars, but $1,500. So, do the simple math. If you can make $1,000 on one trade and you do that a thousand times, that's a million dollars. Obviously, you're going to have losses, too.
His win rate, what is it? 50%.
Yeah.
Think about that. This guy's made 25 million, his win rate is 50%. I've made 8 million, my win rate is around 70%. But he's learned to size up because in the beginning, he learned the proper way. I never had a teacher. I never had a mentor. So, I didn't learn the proper uh foundational uh metrics that he did. In the beginning, he was plus or minus $100, $200 over and over again. He's got a journal of like every single trade that he's done. I never even journaled in the beginning.
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Did you journal?
Uh, yes. I think because of my scientific background, doctor, I was always the more by the books kind of person. But I've got a question. So,
I want uh Jack, you answer it first and then I want the the mentor, the teacher to, let's say, give a bird's eye view on it. So when you have uh many students and I'm sure you've had a lot of successful students, a lot of failure students and with the same inputs. So same inputs, different outputs, obviously it's down to the individual and how they navigated the information. What traits do you think you have that maybe others didn't or whatever trait you think that you have that made you excel in an arena where most do fail?
I think a lot of people just get demotivated over time because like Tim just said a minute ago, my win rate's like 50%. And trading like you just have to deal with like being disappointed like all the time and it's hard to stimulate the perfect trade. And when you do like a lot of things in life, you're always like chasing the perfect trade or you're you're chasing a lot of perfection. So with trading like you're never going to be satisfied whether you made a bunch of money or you lost a bunch of money. So, it's all about managing that perfection and staying in the game, too. So, if you can get those two things, like you're just going to stay in the game. It's just repetition over time. Like I like I said earlier, too, like in OTCs, I made a million, I'd lose 100,000. And that's all it is. You're just you're just doing the same thing over and over and over again. And if you understand at the end of the month, at the end of the year, at the end of the decade, if you just execute your strategy, that's proven profitability through data tracking, through history, uh, and you just do it over and over and over again, like you're just going to make money at the end of the time. And if you stay disciplined, you're going to stay in the game. And people, they get demotivated. People are, uh, say, you know, their parents are like, you're not going to make money, or, you know, you shouldn't do this, or whatever it is. People get in their heads, they quit. They take too big of a loss. They don't have proper rules. So many things can get you out of the game. You can get pregnant or someone can get pregnant um and then you have a kid like on the way. Like there's so many things. But if you can stay devoted and dedicated and just follow your system, you're going to make money.
I agree. And it's the losses and it's the the expectations and it's the negativity. All of that influences you. And in the beginning, it's especially tough, right? So like when you don't know what you don't know, it's very scary. Sometimes you'll have a big win, but sometimes you'll have a big loss and you'll just be like, I don't I don't want to risk this, right? So you need that structure. Like I said, you need to survive your learning curve. It's best to trade small in the beginning. Like all my top students make and lose a hundred or $200 at a time. Like Tim Gratani, have you had him on? You should get him on. He's made 16 million. He made nothing his first year. Jack, literally his first 18 months, he lost $10,000. So, how do you get through that? Because if you understand the game, it's not just about the wins or losses in the beginning. If you're trading small enough, you you start learning, you start iterating, and you start optimizing. But if you have too big of a loss, if you go all in, if you use leverage, if you listen to the negativity outside, you start to say, you know, trading sucks. Like 90% of traders lose. You'll probably fall into that without the proper perspective and structure in your trading.
I've I've had a lot of retail traders on the show and some of the bigger names have maybe done a couple million and some of the other names are maybe floating around 500,000 but that's kind of the ballpark of what I see as the elite traders that I've come across uh that are retail. What have you done different to scale way beyond the the average success story that I've spoken to?
I would just say that I just start compounding really well once things start flowing. So, one thing that I've stayed away from, uh, is just leverage over time. Like, I haven't really used leverage. Um, which sounds crazy, but leverage keeps your when you're not using leverage, you're keeping your wins and losses smaller. But there comes a time in the market when you just start to like just win and win and win and win and win. And there's two different markets, right? Right now, um, we're kind of in this market where you're just making money and like you're just surviving. And then right when these uh right when COVID hits, right when you know, Bitcoin spiking up like 50% in a couple months, like there's just so much opportunity that it's it doesn't become about, you know, how much money are you making? It's like how much money can I make in this market? It's not even about winning or losing anymore.
Can you push it?
Can you push it? And when that market hits, I've done an excellent job at just pushing it and growing my accounts like hundreds and thousands of percent in such a short period. And then like at some point like it stops and you just have to like protect your downside. And that's why I use like a trailing stop-loss on my overall profits. And once it starts to turn down, I just take the gas off a little bit. But you can profit in any market. You know what I mean? Like any with strategies, you can profit in any market, but you're not going to be able to make hundreds and thousands of percent all the time. But if you can hone in on when it's that market to push, that's the only difference. So if we're navigating without leverage or little leverage, the levers I can see that you could pull to really scale up and go go or push it as you said is you either modify your win rate, so better quality setups. Maybe it's your trade frequency, you just place more bets. I guess you size up uh could be another one. What what variables uh how do we, you know, turn this a bit more objective to to actually um chase and push?
It's just as your account's growing, you're using bigger position sizes. So, the last like super hot market that I can remember was the end of 2024 um when we had Micro Strategy spiking like crazy. Then we had um SMCI in February. Like a lot of these stocks were just going absolutely crazy. And pretty much every single day, like I was just buying stocks at the close every day and the next day they just go up like every single day. Especially on the weekend, like on the weekend, like every single day, like I'm I'm buying stocks all in every weekend. Next day they're up 10% every single day, every single weekend. And I'm just doing that every single day, over and over and over again. And if I have 500K in my account, it's not going to take long for me to get to a million in my account, then 2 million, then 3 million, then four million, and then you see what happens. Then you lose whatever 500,000. Take your foot off the gas, adjust your strategy, and then take some money out of your account, put it, you know, safekeeping, and then just trade the small account. And that's what Tim has really uh taught me is like you don't need a ton of money to make massive amounts of money. Like never like at one point have I ever had more than like $10 million in my accounts like ever. Like I always size them down and then restart because once you start winning, your accounts are going to grow like crazy and you're going to make a ton of money. And it's just about staying in the game every single year and just being ready to go at that point. So I would just say it's just compounding over over a good market. And I think it's it's about being ready for those windows of opportunity. Like Jack said, like when something is working over and over again. I don't know if you're a sports fan, like I watch the NFL. If if there's an NFL team and they find like a weakness, do you watch the NFL?
No.
You should. It's fun, right? But like if they find a weakness in the defense, if there's one um defensive player who's maybe like tired and they they keep hitting him, they'll run the same play over and over again. Same pretty much any sport, right? Like if you find an inefficiency, you push through it. And that's what Jack is talking about. So you have to survive your learning curve. You have to be optimized and be ready when there's something going on. Like literally right now as we're filming this, the US equity market keeps going up. You have crazy plays like Sandis keeps going up. The chip plays keep going up. That's a window of opportunity. Meanwhile, you have a lot of people who are obsessed with crypto. Crypto's not really budging that much. If the crypto people just went into a hot market, now it's a little too late because chip stocks have spiked so much. But like, you have to go where the money is. And when you find a play that's working, you push it and push it and push it. So, every single person watching this, you have to get in the game. You have to start learning, get the right broker, optimize your process, and then when you find something that works, that's when you push it. And it's not going to be all the time.
You guys are not using prop firms. It's uh it's all self-capital. So usually someone's starting out with around 10K or maybe less.
5K is the average.
So when someone's starting out with 5K, the first thing is don't blow your 5K. So what what is the approach in the initial phases to at least protect and at least compound that initial amount?
So rule number one for me is always cut losses quickly. I have a YouTube video where I just say cut losses quickly for 30 minutes and I send that to everybody and it's annoying. But over the course of my career, I have so many 1, 2, 3, 4% losses because I'm buying breakouts. I'm dip buying crashes. If for whatever reason the momentum doesn't last, I cut it. I'm okay with that. A lot of these penny stocks, they're scary because if you get stubborn, you double up, triple up, quadruple up, it can be a very slippery slope. You can lose 20, 30, 50%. So, newbies need to learn to take those 1, 2, 3, 4% losses. It's not fun, right? Like, this is the thing where it's like, how'd you do today? And you have somebody in your life who's doubting you. Oh, I lost 3%. That sucks. You could have just made money, been a a Starbucks barista. The next day, how'd you do? I lost 3%. The next day I made 1%. You're like, "Trading sucks." But if you understand this is all just small steps to getting your experience account, right? So like if you have 5,000, 10,000, 20,000 or even if you're using a prop firm, you need to get the experience of dealing with the volatility so that you can optimize. Jack has done a good job optimizing. David Hamlin has done a great job optimizing. Most people give up before they ever really optimize. So they're judging their trading based on plus or minus 50,000. It's negligible in the long run. You have to be willing to break a few eggs to make an omelette. But most people don't want to do that. They just want their omelette to be perfect. No eggs broken.
So I'm I'm starting to understand that your edge is in understanding the other player. Kind of like a poker. It's not necessarily on the market itself. It's on who who are the other participants. So the key word maybe here is psychology. Just to give a quick example that I'm sure you guys all resonate with is that if if you enter a trade and it starts to go in draw down, you're going to feel hopeful, optimistic that it turns around, you maybe move the stop loss or wrong behaviors, but that's driven by psychology. The moment you're in a winning trade, you're thinking it might reverse on me. Let me cut this early. You go pessimistic, but the price action is maybe the same. It's just where your entry was. So here it basically shows that the price is an amplifier of emotions. And that's just one example. Cuz I want to understand more deeply when when you're saying player versus player or understanding psychology and other people's psychology. How can I put it a bit more tangible?
I would just say do the opposite of what everybody is thinking. So that's another key trait that I've done really well is like Tim was just saying it's just once things start to go against you like just that's kind of what he instilled in his students and myself and that's why he's had so many successful students is because it's just opposite thinking. When a stock starts to go against you, just like get the [ __ ] out. Excuse my French, but just like there's kids watching. No, just like get out of the trade, get out of the trade as fast as possible because it's not working. Your best trades, I promise you, are going to start working right away. And then once you're in a winner, like I just have fun with it. Like I'm just like, how how long can I hold? I got to keep holding. I got to keep holding. And like I'm having fun with it like with my friends like my dopamine spiking. I'm just holding like all these things. And then like I start to see it slow down or I start to see like a trend shift and then I'm just like getting out and I'm just I'm stopping. Right. So like that's like the reverse psychology of being fearful and hopeful. Like just do the exact opposite psychology and you're going to do so much better.
A lot of the top stock traders that I know and traders across all different verticals, it's you versus you, right? Trading is very much about discipline. The best traders have it, the worst traders don't have it, right? So like when Jack has a 50% win rate, but now he's making 20 plus million. Like most of my top students have a 40, 50, 60% win rate. Not 100%, not 90%. But when you're disciplined, cutting those losses when for whatever reason the play is not going according to your plan and then trying to let your winners run. I have a terrible time letting my winners run. That's my biggest flaw as a trader. Very good at cutting losses, but I can't tell you how many 5, 10, 20% wins I've had where they could have been 50, 70, 100%. Like you said, like you know when when you're feeling the dopamine like and he's trying to hold, even when he's holding and I see him holding, I'm like, "Don't forget to sell. Don't forget to sell." And he's like, "Shut up." Right. Like the student has become the teacher. For me, I'm more conservative, but I've seen so many traders fail because you know the odds in this industry, most traders fail, most traders lose. I would rather a trader learn to take singles, as I say, over and over again rather than go for home runs. But Jack, David Hanlin, Kyle Williams, uh, Lance, uh, Lucas, some of the biggest traders I know, they're very good at getting those home runs to stick, and that's how you really grow your account, whether you have a prop firm or not.
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So I guess the key to compounding is letting the winners run. Would it would that be an accurate statement?
And controlling your emotions, right? And sometimes like doubling up or tripling up when something is working. Like I know a few traders who have been riding like AMD or Intel or SanDisk. For me. I mean, if I'm up 20, 30%, I take it. Like, that's my biggest gain. I would never be up 100, 200, 300, 500%. But when you have these huge home runs, I mean, some God bless some of these swing traders who have just been riding SanDisk all the way up. And uh, you know, Carvana, like there's there's been many plays like this where these plays just go what I call supernova. They call uh, you know, it's also like parabolic, but like when you have those huge runs, you can really extend your gains. But for the vast majority of traders, I would just take singles and learn to take singles. Build like a foundation of knowledge and wealth. Then you can get more aggressive later on.
What would you say is the reason you struggle to hold trades longer or you know as long as you would like to? The reason I ask that question is because I'm trying to understand is it nature or nurture? Now we could sit here and talk about psychology and the frameworks you use and is it the pre-market routine? Is it meditation? What makes you so stoic or calm under pressure? Or is it that we're just two different individuals and no matter the frameworks you add on top, you play to your strengths and you play to your strengths. Which side of the fence would you say it is? Is this nature or nurture?
Strengths, I would say.
I mean, he's meditating now too, right? I I fall asleep meditating. Like it's it depends on on who you are and what your goals are. If you can be aggressive and you learn to like nurture your aggression, fantastic. I've actually never even really tried to be more aggressive. I'm just trying to teach people the basics. Some people are like, "Why don't I trade options? Why don't I trade other markets? Because now I have 25 years experience in this niche. So, I'm trying to pass down those lessons. I'm kind of like this stunted trader. Like I don't know if you saw Interview with the Vampire, you know that movie or that book where like the you know like vampires like once you get bitten you stay that age forever. I'm like this child vampire trader, okay? I've been bitten by the conservative vampire. Now I'm always going to be conservative for the rest of my life. I'm never going to be like, "Let's be aggressive. Let's go all in." Because me as a teacher, that's not my goal. Jack is trying to maximize his trading profits. Most people watching this are trying to maximize their trading profits. So you have to know your goal and try to reach that.
I want to ask some advice from both of you that may be different perspective. So I'd been trading for a decade last year and around that point I it was around the Trump tariff drop. So I just coincidentally I realized I'm using leverage and therefore my total account balance I'm only using a small percentage of it as active margin. And the rest of it is just dead weight, let's say. So, coincidentally, I took it out and I put it around the time of the Trump drop and actually had a V-shaped recovery and everything went great. So, then a part of me thought, you know, what's the point of me waking up every day, London session, New York session, all of this time, effort, and yes, I'm carving out an edge, but then with enough capital also just exposure to the market, the indexes, gold, etc. is also meaningful. So when you're sitting at the the larger amount of capital that you both are, does active trading make sense or at some point should you transition or at what point is it transition or is it just diversification? Just you know the next the next stage what is the better approach?
What do you think?
I'd say there's always like you could always say like you're investing your cash like the best but it what really matters is how you feel emotionally because that's how you're going to you know actively trade. And the thing is too, like if you've made uh $10 million doing one thing and then you take all this money out and you try to invest it and then you lose a bunch of money trying to do something that you're not doing, like you have to really weigh your your situation. Like I've tried doing like investments over time, which I have like made like a little bit of money on whether it's like real estate or private credit or all this little stuff. And I've made some money doing it. I've lost some money doing it. But the thing is is what I've developed through like trading stocks like it just doesn't even compare. So for me, it's more important to protect your mental capital and protect um yourself and your discipline and everything that you got going on and just continue to do what you do as long as there's liquidity for it. And you know the stocks that I trade and stuff that I do like you could size it up to 100, 200 million and that's you know what I mean? Like you only need so much money too. So once you have the money like you got to protect it too because I'm I don't want to be doing this till I'm 70, 80, 90 years old. I want to retire at some point and just relax and just have a family and just, you know, just chill. That's all I really care about. So.
I saw this clip and it was from a movie and it was basically saying this guy was relieved. He's like, "I made it to 5 million. My net worth is 5 million." And the older guy says to him, "5 million is the worst." He's like, "Why?" He's like, "Because you're too rich to work, but you're too poor to really be free." And he was basically like, "You're the tallest dwarf. You are rich, but you're not the richest guy in the room when when you play in the big leagues." Um, now you are, let's say, well beyond that. The reason I ask this question is because at the 5 million mark, you might be thinking, okay, should I push it further or if I blow this all this is a big amount to blow, but you're you're right in that goldilock zone where neither is right or wrong. I think when you're sitting at 20 or 25, I would be more concerned about what if it goes wrong, what if I have a bad moment? What if it go tilts? What what if I think the market is hot? I start sizing up, but the market wasn't hot. I would be more thinking about the downside. I guess you're not. So, what's uh what's your thought processes here?
Well, like I said, I take a lot of money out of my account um and not risk at all at one point. And it's just like the age, too. So, right now I'm 28 years old and I told myself like I'm willing to go to 30, 35, like push it a little bit longer. And obviously, like we discussed before we started like going to Puerto Rico, like saving on some taxes. And I do have the downside risk in my mind because I don't want to I've worked really hard over the last decade and I don't want to lose what I have. So, it's just all about like managing it and also having like your max stopouts and your max losses on like where I'm how much I'm willing to risk of what I have, right? At some point when like you lose too much or your training is not going well, like you can just take a break and reset because sometimes all you need is a little bit of time off to clear your head. Do some hypnotherapy, do some meditation. um you know, travel, walk the beach, whatever it's going to be, and just reset. And then as you lose more, you should be decreasing your size. And as you're making more, you should be increasing your size. And that's what's also helped me too um compound my wins over time. So if I'm not making money, I'm not going to trade a lot of size. I'm going to trade smaller. And then if I'm winning, I'm going to size up and try to keep pushing. So like that's kind of where my mind's at.
You mentioned the last time the market was hot was around 2024. Um, and I guess this is where you really compound, but even throughout the year, would you say there's moments of I mean, I had a trader on Basley one time. He said that 80% of my profits come from 20% of the year. And he's like, I just got to know which two months of the year I've got to size in. Would you say it's cyclical throughout the year, too?
Yeah, I'd say it's I'd say it's like that. And I'd say too, I'd say um I'd say over my 10 year decade, the 10 year decade that I've been trading, it's been two years as well. Like 2020 and 2020 like the end of 2020 and the start of 2021 is uh in three months I made six or seven million in three months and then in 2024 to 2025 I made another I don't even know how much it was maybe like 6, 7, 8, 10 million something like that. So in two years I literally made 15 to 20 million and the rest has been just 2022 was like one or two million, 2023 one or two million um this year 1 or two million. So, it's like it's either one or two million and I'm just containing my size and waiting or I'm trying to make 5 to 10 million.
Tough life. One or two million. He always says like this he gives webinars now and he's like this just isn't my year. I was like you're up like a million dollars in the first four months. And he's like exactly, it's just not my year. So like he's he's made a lot. But then also going back to like how much should you risk? Trading gives you that freedom. He has the freedom to choose whether to size up or size down. And I like what you said about sizing up when you're making more money, sizing back down. Trading is all about going back and forth.
You had your era of materialism. What changed? So that'll be There's no watch on your wrist anymore.
No watch. I got these. This was given to me in uh Bali and this one is in Thailand. So we had some new schools.
Um.
I'm up to 133 schools now worldwide with my charity. That gives me much more fulfillment than the materialism. I don't regret the materialistic phase. I had all the cars. I had the Lambo. I had the Ferrari. I had the nice watches. My second Lambo got delivered. First Lambo was a childhood dream. I'm like just jumping up and down like driving it too fast. Second Lambo I felt nothing. I was like, "What's wrong with me? Why am I not happy? I took like a $10,000 cancer test. I thought I had cancer." I was like, "There must be something wrong with me." I didn't have cancer. Okay.
But it just didn't fulfill me, right? Like it was you have to find what motivates you. Now, every school that we build, every community that we help, that motivates me. There's 33,000 kids around the world in 30 plus countries who go to my schools now. Amazing. That's the difference between life and death. Like a life of like manual labor versus a life of potential. Um, so you have to really find what motivates you. And now teaching too, like 20 plus years ago when I made my first million, literally it's been 20 plus years. It was just crazy. If you had told me that you would have a charity and you would spend your life like teaching, I'd be like, screw off. Like I'm a trader. Like I don't want that. There's still some traders who are like, "Oh, traders shouldn't teach. Like traders should just trade." Like why? But there's no rules. You can do whatever you want. So I think that you have to always be introspective and be very honest with yourself. What motivates you to get out of bed every day? If you're not happy, if you're just doing it for money, if you're doing it for watches or cars, I think that you have to re-evaluate.
A lot of young traders, they start off and they have exactly that image of the Lambo and the lifestyle, whatever. I wonder if you did also. But I think that comes from a place of identity because even in my own path, I had a path in front of me from my parents. It was medicine, dentistry, and then I think we're all non-conformists to an extent because we're veering off the towards the less trodden path. And I think part of that comes and you mentioned your dad is like proving to someone or proving to others. I think therefore that materialism becomes a symbol or a trophy of like see it was worth it. But I think as you said once you scratch the itch a couple of times it's no longer itchy and then you look towards something else. So in your situation now, what is at 25 million almost as many millions as your years in life? Uh what is your why? Because we have the schools and philanthropy on this side. What is what is your continued why?
Um, I just like the game honestly. Like I like I like how hard it is, right? I like how it's always changing and I don't know like I'm just in love with like trying to figure it out every day. You know what I mean? And it I know like in the future like it's going to pay dividends for my family for like I can do anything that I want because it's giving me so much freedom. But I haven't necessarily decided 100% like what I want to do with like all this capital. Like for right now I'm just focused on just playing the game every single day and figuring it out and mastering my emotions and continuing to learn how to size up, how to size down, how to learn different strategies, messing around with all this different kind of stuff. And I just want to be able to be the best at this niche. And you know, there's way better traders out there than me right now. They've made so much more money and they're more disciplined and they've done better stuff. But I can try to just be the best version of myself every single day. And if I can do that, I'll be happy with um whatever the result is.
Annie's teaching now, so he's giving back. Annie's newly engaged to Mari. You'll meet her later tonight. She's my first female millionaire student. They met at my conference. So like he's like gonna be like a family man. He's teaching and that's that's the dream. Like you you try everything and again you see what makes you happy. So everyone's like, "Oh, don't go into trading. 90% of traders lose." Yes, they lose due to lack of preparation, lack of structure, lack of rules. But like once you break over that, it's not like it's guaranteed money. There's always going to be some difficulty. But you have endless choices. And these choices are the true luxuries of life. It's not just watches or cars. When you have financial freedom, that's the goal. Because I get so many messages from people like, "I hate my job. I'm in debt. My parents want me to do this." They're stuck and stuff is getting more expensive. The job market is more complicated.
AI in the mix now. Who knows?
Exactly. No job is safe. So all your training, all of your rules, everything that you think like I see this with AI where some people are like this is so heartless. Like this company is cutting people. Welcome to capitalism. Okay. Welcome to innovation. There will be new jobs. AI will create new ones. But like a lot of dead ones, like I wouldn't spend time learning a language right now. I wouldn't try to code right now because these are things that take years to learn and master and AI is going to do it like that. So you have to find value and then also find what makes you happy. And in in a changing world where AI is going to be more and more competitive and then you have fewer and fewer uh human jobs available, I don't want to be in.
That rat race.
Yep. You mentioned your first female millionaire student, and it reminds me of a topic that I delicately dance around, but it's the idea that trading is equally accessible to anyone, yet we do see a heavily male-dominated skew. Uh, why do you think that is?
Studies show female traders are actually better statistically than male traders. Um, there was a whole SACE Capital um, lawsuit where there was a guy taking female growth hormone to try to be a better trader. That didn't end well. If you want to look up some crazy Google uh searches. But I think that there's not enough females because they think that like Wall Street is like male-dominated. It doesn't matter. I mean, the internet democratizes everything. I think we need more female traders. Like Mari is getting into teaching now, too, now that she's like a millionaire trader. She has her own YouTube channel. She's trying to show like females that they can do it, too. Like, it's crazy. Anybody can do this, but there's a lot of stigmas and there's a lot of assumptions. And frankly, I mean, people on Wall Street, guys on Wall Street, they can be aggressive. It can like scare out some of like the timid females out there, but trading it can be for anybody. And I think more females watching this should embark in this. But again, you have to go through the grind. A lot of people aren't ready, male or female, in the beginning. They're not ready for the losses, the disappointment, the rejection, the negativity from your friends and family. So, you got to recognize that there's a lot of obstacles in the beginning, and you got to overcome that. You got to use that as a chip on your shoulder. You know, like when your dad said like you shouldn't be a trader, you didn't give up. That like motivated you more. Myself, like when I first got started teaching, November 1st, 2007, there's a Reuters article, failed hedge fund manager tries to get on the internet. I spoke to this reporter for three hours. I told her everything. Like, I'm good at trading. I tried investing. I sucked at investing. She didn't listen. She just said, "You're a failed hedge fund manager." My hedge fund actually finished up 1% per year over four years. It wasn't a failure completely. It sucked, but it wasn't a failure completely. But that motivation from that article, I still remember this. This was nearly 20 years ago. And I'm like, thank you. You know Tom Brady? You know Tom Brady. You don't follow the NFL. Tom Brady was picked 199th in the NFL draft. I don't know if you know that. Okay. He was also the fourth string quarterback at the University of Michigan. He wasn't the starting quarterback. He was picked like near the bottom of the NFL draft. And yet he used all of that as a chip on his shoulder to keep going. He became the GOAT like the greatest NFL player probably of all time. So use that negativity. Don't let it beat you. Actually use it to motivate you. That's the same thing that I would say to to female traders where it's like you're a female, you can't be a trader. Yes, you can. Screw that.
Yeah. I wonder if it's related to risk and and maybe men are more towards heading towards risk. But as we're on sports analogies, I saw this guy basically say that, you know, everybody says 90% of traders lose, but he was like everything in life, 90% of people, like how many kids play high school basketball, but don't make it to the NBA or kids that want to be doctors that don't make it to med school.
So, should you never start in the first place? Right.
Exactly. It's just the barrier to entry is free, whereas in others, you need approval or a degree.
It's due to perspective. People think like, oh, you can make millions right away, and then when you don't make millions right away, you're like, I suck as a trader. You have to have the right mindset, the right market, the right rules. But again, if you survive your learning curve, year one, year two, year three. Most of my top millionaire students, they really thrive in year three or year four and they're learning in year one or year two with a lot of struggles. Like, what made you keep going when you're down $10,000 after the first 18 months and you were trying to sell bamboo pillows in a Connecticut mall? He literally was he had like a little kiosk and he was failing at that. What kept you going as a trader when you're down so much?
I just thought that it was so cool. Like I don't know. Like it was just so it was so fun. It was so cool. Like I just loved every part about it. So I think that's another thing. Like if you don't have the passion for it, it's just it's too hard of a game because you're going to get demotivated and you're going to give up at some point because it's just it's so hard like because you're taking so many losses, especially at the beginning, too. And there's not like it's not 100% structured. Like you have to be so adaptable and people want structure in life. They want to be able to wake up every day. People would rather make a thousand bucks every single day than, you know, have one day a month where they're making $10,000 and the rest they're losing, you know, $500 or $200, $300. Like they're they're not willing to go through that and they they think that they should be winning every single day. Uh, so it's you just got to stay motivated and just stay on stay on the the grind. And um, like Tim said, like this isn't a get-rich-quick scheme. Like you got to put in the work and you got to figure out everything about the market. And it's it's so interesting. And if you don't love it, like you're going to struggle staying motivated.
You got to fall in love with education, with the learning of the everything, like the challenge of it. Jack still loves the challenge. I love the education, right? Like I think that you know, like YouTube channels like yours, I think that there's so much good information on the internet these days that make you think a little differently. When I first got started, there was no video streaming. There was no YouTube. There was nothing. My first chat room, there wasn't even chat software. I literally would write a blog post and then people would leave comments and they would click post in the comments and that was like our chat room. Like, it's crazy how far we've come in 20 plus years. Fall in love with the education, fall in love with the challenge, keep trying. But at the same time, you have to accept that this isn't about comfort. Like Jack said, like people would rather make consistent money. They would like, you know, hold up their their monthly paycheck or bimonthly paycheck. People I see videos uh of people celebrating when they their kid gets into college. I feel so bad for these families where they're like, "I'm the first child to go to college." And I'm like, "Congrats, you bought into that scam." Like, there's there's no point in going to college these days. Save your $40, $50, $60, $100,000, three, four, five years of your life. Learn everything on the internet. That's what I think. I finally have a special offer to share with all of you from the US or my futures traders which is over 20% of the listeners of the show and that is Alpha Futures a leading futures prop firm that is working with trade of eight and ninja trader that are compliant with CME regulations with the largest end of day balance draw down in the industry a 90% profit split and same day payouts and with the most competitive pricing in the industry with accounts starting at just $79. On top of that, just by being a viewer of the show, you get up to 40% off all evaluations. So, why not get started with an evaluation right away? Trading $50,000, $100,000, and you already know the power of prop firms and larger capital. So, go ahead and use the link in the description or code toot for the best prices in the industry, plus the best discounts in the industry to make this a home run offer. If you are a futures trader, you started at a time where it was pre-internet basically, and now there's so much abundant information. I wonder is it a better time to be a trader now back then?
Better now. You have so much opportunity, so many tools. You didn't have that many tools. I was I literally when I made my first million, I thought I was like the best trader in the world. I had no perspective. I wish that I had somebody like Jack or Tim Gratani or David Hanlin or Kyle Williams or anybody to say up. Like in the beginning when I was buying OTC pumps, I was buying boiler room pumps. I didn't even know. While I was just, you know, buying into the close, selling the next morning, inadvertently riding these boiler room pumps. I was winning 95, 96% of the time. Nobody said size up. I was making $5, $10, $20,000. I thought that I found like some inefficiency in in like life. There was like a tear in the universe. And I was like, "Okay, let me push it with $10,000." As a college freshman, I would bet like three random freshmen as a side bet that I could make $10,000 in the next hour. And I just followed my pattern. and I got like a $100 from each of them. Not once did I think about sizing up like Jack did. Why? Because I never had anybody saying that to me. I never had the perspective. If I had sized up once instead of making $5, $10, $20,000 in a day, if I had sized up once and made $50 or $100,000 on purpose where I'm like, "Okay, let me size up. Let me push it." I probably could have done that dozens if not hundreds of times. So, there's more information, obviously a lot of misinformation, but it's perspective and it comes down to who wants it the most, who's willing to study the most, who who really will challenge themselves. Like if if I was just starting right now, I would get very little sleep because I would be obsessed with like finding a niche or a strategy that works for me because there's endless opportunity right now. So people should be very excited. I know people are like, "Oh, spend less time on social media. Go out and see the sun." Screw that. Okay? The sun is dangerous. Watch out for the UV. Seriously, stay inside. Use social media properly. Don't just watch cat videos, but like study life-changing tactics and then change your life. And then once you make enough money, then you can go out in the sun with proper protection.
There we go. Do you use uh in all of your trades, are they segmented into trade models or is it confluence based and each day is a little bit different?
Each day is different. So like with penny stocks, it's like okay, sometimes there's a theme like AI stocks or chip stocks right now. Sometimes it's crypto or weed stocks were good runners. Uh, when there's a sector on fire, I focus on that. Sometimes like right now there's earnings winners. This is earning season. So every day different companies are reporting earnings. There's usually a 10, 20, 30% spiker. I'm always following big percent spikers because they tend to have legs either for a few hours or a few days. Uh, sometimes when there's no big percent gain, when the market is is slower, I don't even need to trade. So, it's really about every day taking a new and I put out a watch list like Jack puts out watch lists. Um, and you're just trying to find the best patterns with the best odds. Penny stocks when the product is the instrument itself and not the company. I I watched one of your videos and you were talking about how you just search on Google and you see the registered address is a barn and like all kind of weird kind of antics. Um, but it's it's insider trading. I guess people are buying it up and then it's a pump and dump in in the true sense. So therefore the edge becomes can you sus this out uh and read between the lines. The question therefore becomes obviously this was manual and you have to have your eyes across everywhere and and kind of find these snipe these opportunities. Now with AI can you scrape the data you need and and pull out what you need.
So we have AI tools. I've got Oracle Iris XGPT. My team and I developed these AI tools. You know he's got power signal indicator. All of these tools are scraping the market trying to find different things. And again, whether a company's based out of a barn or not, if you expect the worst, you're never disappointed. A lot of people short sell. I made millions short selling. He's made millions short selling. So, like some of these scams collapse. The problem with short selling these days though is even if it's an outright scam, it can still squeeze. I don't know if you saw like even Avis Renar, ticker C, went from 100 to 900 inside of a month and then in two days crashed down to what 150 like crazy. Crazy pumping up on a real company. So you have like all of these patterns. It can be on fake companies or real. I actually prefer fake companies because I just I know that they're crap. I know that they're going to go to zero. So you can kind of see what they're going to do. A lot of these companies put out positive press releases. Then they do a toxic financing at 40 or 50% discount same day or next day. So you can understand that the shorts are going to get squeezed and then it's going to crash. This is where my seven-step framework comes in. There's a different play for every part of the chart.
Is there more in your experience? Did you make more money on the pump side or sniping the dump side?
The pump side for sure because there's way more opportunity to to ride it up than there is opportunity to ride it down because you just got to be so careful like short selling. So, I'll tell a little backstory. In 2022, there is a very infamous pattern of I don't know if you ever got a WhatsApp message from like a woman who claimed to be like this Chinese woman and she has like for any of the viewers and she has insider information blah blah blah and they get you to buy these um Chinese IPO scam stocks and they're like, you know, put your put your buy in at $10.50 and it's going to go up to to $50. There's, you know, insider news that my uncle knows on Wall Street. Like this is literally how crazy it is.
Trustworthy WhatsApp messages.
Yep. And then some people fall for it, unfortunately. And used to see like the bids get built and built and built and built and then the shorts would just come in and they would swipe the all the bids and the stock would just basically dump like 90% within like a few candles. and the the Chinese scammers found out that like all these shorts were getting in on the bid and you know dumping it and stealing the liquidity that they wanted to dump. So what they did was instead of having all the other people put their bids in, the Chinese people put their bids in and had the shorts hit the bid again, but instead of the stock going down, they just limit up, limit up, limit up, limit up, limit up, and the stock went up. Ended up going up like 500% within an hour and blew all the shorts out because people keep sizing up as the strategy keeps working. Like this strategy, you know, is this strategy is never going to fail because we know what's going on and then they flip the switch and they screwed the shorts. So, it's just a big, you know, psychological game and it's all about like figuring it out. And that's why I love it because it's always it's always something different and one side's always in trouble and it's about finding out who's in trouble and doing the opposite.
And it's not an exact science. You have to be careful. So even if something works again and again and again, it can flip.
It's going to flip flop at some. It always flip-flops. The market always is changing. No thing has ever worked, you know, forever. It's always about finding what's working in this current market cycle. Like right now it's the the chip stocks, right? The chip stocks are going crazy. I don't know if you've seen SOXL. It's a 3x semiconductor ETF. It went from like 40 to like 170 in like the since the market bottomed. And that's what's hot right now. That's what's leading the market.
In a few weeks.
In a few weeks. And at some point, the chip stocks aren't going to be hot anymore. Um, and something else is going to take off. So, it's all about, you know, riding that momentum. And the good part about it is I've missed this chip stock rally. I didn't see it coming. I thought they were overvalued. I missed it. That's okay because there's going to be another hot cycle, you know, right down the road. And all it takes is one, two, three hot cycles of catching it and compounding your returns. And that's all you need with the with the proper education.
And the key is learning from it. If you miss any one hot cycle, you remember it and then you try to catch it the next time, right? So like I did very well with COVID stocks because I was also there for Ebola stocks. The same stock spiked for Ebola and COVID. Obviously two very different diseases. Ebola was very small. COVID was very mainstream. Same exact stocks, same exact patterns. And because I actually missed the Ebola stocks, I nailed CO. Then there was also monkeypox which was just a small uh disease and I thought what a joke it was that actually worked and I my own bias against it like prohibited me from from trading it because I was like what monkeypox is such a joke those same stocks spiked again even though that didn't take off. So, what can you learn next time there's a disease? Whether or not it goes worldwide or not, the same kinds of stocks, the mass makers, um, you know, like the biohazard suits, the different vaccine stocks, they're going to double, triple, quadruple in a few days. So, learning from history, whether you capitalize or not, studying history, this is why I always say study hard. I have a 20-minute video where all I say is study hard, too. You know, I've got 2,000 plus video lessons on my YouTube channel. Some people are like, I'm not going to watch a webinar or a DVD from 10 years ago. Why not? It's like a history lesson. The same kinds of patterns pop up, although they're different tickers, different sectors.
How do you guys look at crypto, specifically memecoin trading, and is there a similarity or not? Really?
You take this one.
Uh, it all depends if the sector is hot, right? So, everybody was calling for the alt season to pop off when bit, you know, around last October. And unfortunately, the four-year cycle on Bitcoin, it it fell short and the market dumped and altcoins didn't do anything. So, it's all about like what's hot. Instead of trying to predict what's going to come, just react. You never have to be the first one there. You never never have to be the first one to buy anything. Just wait for it to prove itself. Wait for it to go sideways near the highs. Wait for, you know, a bunch of plays to start spiking and then join that momentum. And if you just catch a little bit of it, that's all you need. Right now, there's no altcoins, right? Um, I bought some stupid altcoin uh last year a couple years ago and uh it went up a bunch and then I ended up not selling and I sold it for like break even because you get into like these gamble mindsets with like these altcoins just because it's like the psychology behind it. And with crypto 50% off its highs, 30, 40% off the highs, there's going to be zero altcoin action. I would think maybe it changes and it surprises everyone and then you just join it late. You know what I mean?
What we've learned is like you don't need to hodl. You don't need to be prepared and be like, "Oh, let me try to position three months or six months ahead of time." You know, you don't have like a giant hedge fund where you have to take these massive positions. Most people watching this have a small account. You can like take some some uh positions in a sector within seconds, right? You're not like Renaissance Technology. You're not like one of these big hedge funds where you need to position. Oh, I see China doing this over the next six months. Wait for the big percent gain. I don't need to be first, right? Like for me the number one indicator is a 20, 30, 50% spike first. A lot of people say oh I want to find it before that. No I want to see the action. I want to see that it can spike because again if you have the right sector if you have the right catalyst the right market a 20, 30, 50% spike is just the beginning of a 200, 300, 500% spike. So I wait for that. You could wait all your life for a sector. You can have all your thesis played out and like nothing actually works. Nothing really happens. I've seen so many crypto people being like, "This is why in, you know, September of 2026, this is the month where it's going to all play out." Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. You don't need to play those guessing games if you wait for the action first and then play the reaction.
That's how I look at it.
I want to add one more thing to that too. So look at like the precious metals for example, right? So people were calling, you know, silver is going to whatever price over the past 10, 20 year. Like it hasn't done silver never did anything. All you had to wait was for when it broke $50 a share or $50 an ounce, the thing skyrocketed to 100. So why are people sitting in it at 20, 30, 35, 30, 27, 28? Like, yeah, they might have 100% better average, but they're missing so much upside in other stuff because they're sitting in this with a thesis that this is going to go up, right? And that's just not what we do. Once it starts breaking 50, 55, it literally went straight up for weeks to 100. And that's where all the opportunity is. How dissimilar because I'm I'm I'm trying to pull the stereotypes of penny stock traders and number one I have is Wolf of Wall Street.
I'm sure you had the question before but regardless I'm I'm interested in the answer.
I was on his podcast you know like he barely knows how the market works these days. You have to understand he was pre-internet literally pink sheets like there were companies trading and you would write down the ticker and write down the trade on a pink sheet of paper. That's why they were called pink sheets. So he was completely pre-internet. I was actually explaining to him on his podcast how like pumps work these days and he's like oh really like he had no idea now he's just sold out for Hollywood and you know sell me this pen [ __ ] right so like for me it's funny that he created the penny stock market basically he also created like the seminar market so he's a genius marketer he came up with all this stuff but he's like just old news right like the market is always innovating but I'm glad that you know he came up with this I I feel bad for his victims he still hasn't paid uh his victims back you know, and there's a lot of people.
There's like 30 million or something back then as well.
More than that, right? And some people committed suicide. Like, there's a lot that goes into these scams. Um, but there's always going to be scams, whether it's him, whether it's somebody else. There's bigger scammers these days. All you can do is learn how this price action works and then try to find your niche and be educated. Never believe anybody on the internet. There's people who claim to be me and Jack on WhatsApp groups. We have so many imposters. We don't talk to anybody. We don't DM. There's a lot of crypto scammers. You know, people ask like, "What's my take on crypto?" Maybe it does well, maybe it doesn't. There's so many scammers out there. Unfortunately, crypto has enabled scamming galore because if you lose $5, $10, $20,000 in in crypto, who are you going to call? It's already like a sketchy asset. So, it's very sad. I like to stick with stocks.
You mentioned you had a story with our good mutual friends back in Dubai, uh, the guys over at You Funded. So, you you wanted to save it for the cameras. I've been curiously waiting the whole time.
So, this is crazy. I was in Dubai. I was flying back from Bali. We have um 67 schools now in Bali, actually, which is crazy. Like, I don't know if you know like you know 67, right?
Yes.
It's taking off in Bali. I was just in Bali. I have a video. We got to insert.
You're a bit late to that party, but okay.
I didn't know about this. Oh, no. I didn't know that it took off in Indonesia, right? So, like we had our 67th school. I was like, "This is our 67th school." and all the kids started doing this and there's a hundred kids doing this and so I just flew to Dubai right after that school opening and William saw me like I was like jetlagged. I was going to my hotel room and William calls out he's like Tim Tim and I was like well yeah and he comes over and tells me he's like he was my student like 10 plus years ago. He wanted to thank me like take me out for dinner. I love food. I love dinner. Dubai restaurants are amazing. We went to Dubai. That was his first time. He loved it. So I go out to dinner with Will um and you know uh Kevin and like it was amazing. These guys are so great. I was telling them about my schools uh in Bali and literally Kevin and William were like we want to build 10 schools. And I was like what are you talking about? Like a school is like $30,000. Like just build one. That's fantastic. They're like no let's do 10. And I was like okay sure. And I give them the wiring information. Like we go out to dinner. Didn't think anything of it. Literally within a few days wire for nearly $300,000. And I'm like, "Okay." So, we built 10 schools. They promised me that I would have to try surfing in Bali because they love Bali. William's a great surfer. Kevin's good at at surfing, too. And I was like, "Okay, I'll try it." I I tried it. Like, I slipped on the board. The board hit me in the head. I was like, "Okay, I tried it. I fulfilled it." But they have 10 schools with their charity foundation with me in Bali, which is awesome.
That what a story.
But it was crazy. What are the odds that literally Kevin sees me from across the way and he's like, "Tim, I was your student 10 years ago and I had never met him. I don't know who my students are. There's people all over the internet." And you know, it's pretty sweet.
There we go. Where where I want to end up.
That's a cool story. Right.
And also 10 schools as they're starting. I'm I'm sure they're not going to stop there.
Exactly. They're going to keep going. Their their charity foundation is called Higher High. So, we want to make higher highs.
Fair enough. Yeah. What I want to end up on is is uh uh let's pay homage to your dad. And uh initially he probably discouraged you because you were losing money and it was not working out and after a bit of time it did work out but initially I'm sure he said to you trading is gambling because all of our parents said the same thing. So where do you draw the line of what is the difference between a gambler and a trader? I think that's a nice way to end off.
Yeah, I love that question. I think that's what everyone tries to figure out because there you have to lose money to make money, right? And that's very similar to gambling. But with gambling, it's more um a lot of just like degeneracy and just like kind of knowing that you're going to lose and you're you're the other you got to think about it the other way. Like the house is also gambling that these small players are going to lose to them and they're going to make money because they have an edge. And it's the same thing in trading is that if you're a trader with a good strategy and you make money over time, you are essentially the house and you're playing against these people who are just coming in and just throwing money around with no strategy, with no edge. So don't be the person that doesn't have strategy, that doesn't have edge. Don't be the person that has zero education and they don't know what they're doing. If you can have the strategy and be the house, you're going to be able to make money over the long be long haul because that's what your stats show you. Even if it's a small edge, even if you're winning 55% of the time with a one to one risk-to-reward, if every time you're up 100, you take it. Every time you're down 100, you take it. If you win over 50% of the time, you're going to make money. It's that simple. And that's the same thing with the house. They have such a minute edge, but they have all the volume because people come in and they play so much. Turnover, turnover, turnover, turnover. And that's the thing with trading, too. If you can turn over an edge, you're going to be the house to make money.
And I'll add to that, even if you win less than 50% of the time, but your wins are five or 10 times the size of your losses, you win. So, it's literally a numerical study where it's like, how do you be the house? How do you be the casino? How do you get your wins bigger than your losses? And then you repeat that. That's why cutting losses quickly is so important because I don't care what happens on any trade. If I stick to my rule number one, cutting losses quickly, I can afford tons of one, two, 3% losses, there's always going to be another play where I can make 5, 10, 20%. But can I protect myself on the wrong place? Even when, let's say, I lose one, two, 3% and then the stock does what I want and I could have made 10%. I don't care because I have to protect my backside. That's the key. Most people can't do that. They're not going to take the one, two, three% losses. I have some students where they're like, I don't want to cut losses. They don't cut losses and then it turns around and they have a win and they're like, "Haha, PSYCHES. I DIDN'T HAVE TO CUT LOSSES." But maybe not this play, but the next play and the next play, it's going to get to them. So, if you structure your trading properly, you can be the house. You can be the casino. If you don't structure it, if you don't learn, then you're basically the victim and you pay for, you know, these casinos that are massive multi-billion dollar establishments paid for by the degenerate losers.
Yeah, pretty much. And that's the Marcus 2. Jents, a wonderful episode. You guys definitely brought the energy and here in Barcelona, we had an epic time. Thank you for joining.
VAMOS.
There we go.
Cheers, J.
Good to meet you, man.
There we go. There we go. to crack the microphone.