MAKE A FORTUNE INVESTING IN STOCKS & DAY TRADING WITH IAN DUNLAP

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All right guys, welcome back. UIL, yeah, exciting. Another exciting episode. Another one. Yeah, yeah, for sure. We're going to jump right into it. We covered, um, investing a few times, stock market investing. And, uh, shout out to Trapper. Shout out to Travis. Shout out. Shout out to Quinn. Shout out to Quinn. Q, what up? That's our guy. Yes. So this is going to be the third installment of investing, and we're going to talk about some things that we didn't talk about, um, the other two times. Um, futures market, day trading, some other stuff because it's important for people to get a full range of investing. There's a lot of stuff being given out that's misinformation, people being misled. So we're going over it. Hopefully, we're going to clear up some things today. Yeah.

So we got our guy Ian Dunlap. First and foremost, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate you guys for having me. Yeah, brother. Ian is an investment expert. As you can see, looks the part. I'm trying to make my mom proud. He's an investment expert. He's been featured on Huffington Post, Rolling Out, uh, magazine. He's, uh, spoken on the same stage with, uh, Eric Thomas. I got E.J.T. Yeah, yeah. And he has a whole platform called Red Panda where he teaches people how to invest, and he has personal clients as well. So it's going to be an interesting conversation. As I said, we're going to talk about some things that we haven't spoke about yet, and, um, it's important for people to know. So, um, yes, we, the first thing I want to talk about is day trading. But before we get into day trading, um, how did you get into the investment space? Like, how did you get into this space as far as investing yourself, first and foremost, um, and then taking that and then teaching other people to invest?

Yeah, I first heard about it from my seventh-grade teacher, Mr. Smolin. He was an older white gentleman. I didn't listen to him. I wish I would have because at the beginning of class, in math class, he would go through the newspaper and take us through the highs and lows. And I was like, I don't care about that. I was too busy listening to Mobb Deep. Yeah, we could relate. Mr. Smolin, if you're still living, sorry I didn't listen. Um, but fast forward to 2007, during the recession, uh, one of my buddies, Art, he's from Birmingham. Um, one of my friends, like, we need to talk to this guy that I went to school with because he just made a killing in the market. And I'm like, and he's black. Yeah. And he was like, yeah. So I talked to Art, and Art was like, man, I don't know what you're doing, but I need you to put every dollar you have into the market. Told you that. Yeah. Okay. 2007. Tom Fanning Kramer was on TV screaming. Yeah. I remember in the Midwest, a lot of my family members like being out of work because the recession hurt everybody. I didn't listen. I was like, I ain't gonna listen to this dude. What the hell are you talking about? But meanwhile, he's working at one of the biggest investment companies in the country. But every dollar you had into it, he caught City at a dollar, and three months later, he was up 500% from that. So once I saw him do it, with him being black and acting black, being proud of who he is, I was like, I need to listen to this guy. So he took me under his wing, and he threw him in the deep end of the pool. He was like, if you're serious, you are going to do everything I tell you because I already know what to do.

What's the age difference between you and him? 12 years. 12 years. Okay. Yeah. So like, he's the OG now. Yeah, he's OG. All right. I love you, man. I appreciate it. So I think it's really important for us, um, to share our stories, especially being black, because we underinvest, we under-save, we're undercapitalized. But yeah, he gave me my start in investing and introduced me to it. Then you just took it and just ran with it. You had to. Yeah. Was it, was there anybody in the family, like maybe mom or dad, that had a background in business? My dad. My dad, I was the one who inspired me to be an entrepreneur. So my dad's had a construction company since '22. So all of my work ethic, I get from him. Uh, how strong and like directing to the point I am because like business is tough. And then he was on business in the '80s and '90s. There was no internet, and they did well, um, in their industry with Yellow Page ads, follow-up, direct mail. So it was harder. So when he sees it now, he was like, you can text people and get business. Get your ass up at five o'clock and just text two, three hundred people. I had to get out and buy TV ads for $25,000 and didn't know where they were going to be placed. Yeah. For our younger folks, Yellow Pages was a yellow book that was mailed once a year with numbers. Way easier now.

Are you from Indiana originally, right? Yeah, East Chicago, Indiana. East Chicago. So that's like right outside of Gary, five minutes away. Yeah. Shout out to everybody. So I didn't grow up in like some amazing financial ecosystem. Um, and we were poor for a long time. Like the reason why I don't even like the Bulls to this day. Like we got WGN programming with Chicago programming, but when the Bulls were one of the titles, like our lights were off in the winter. So like, most of my family is still to this day, like lower income and poor. So like, a lot of me giving back is because like, I want to reach them and show like what's possible if you apply. Because everybody, I think, in every hood knows what to do. They're not given a direct path to be able to use that talent or work ethic to be able to make money because we all know people in the hood that are like stars and have potential but just went down the wrong path. So yeah, so it's all about information. That's why we're here. So all right.

So the futures. Futures market, right? Yep. Because we hear about this a lot. Like CNBC, if you ever watch CNBC, they talk about the futures market. Yeah. And they talk about futures. Um, so not the rapper. Yeah, yeah. Not the rapper. We don't know Future. Rappers' life is good. Shout out to that. What is, what is, what is it? What's futures? What are they?

Yeah, futures is the highest paying asset class that no one knows about.

What are the asset classes? Um, so you have, um, you have stocks that you can invest in. You have ETFs. You have mutual funds. But futures pays the most out of all of them. So for every one dollar that you can invest in, let's say getting the stock, the ES, which is the S&P 500, pays 125 times more. And bonds pay 312 times more. So if you go to CNBC in the morning, like you said, that sets the tone for what the market is going to do because it's open 23 hours a day.

So what is, so what exactly is it? Like, what's the futures?

Futures, basically, is it's, uh, you're making a guess or a bet whether the market is going to go up or down. But with certain asset classes, like, you know, the market is going to go up generally. Gold is going to go down until something bad happens like the Iran attack. We know crude is going to be volatile. So it's what institutional investors use to gauge for what the market is going to do. And so like, for example, I'll say, okay, who do you think, or do you think LeBron is going to average 10 points this year or more? Definitely more. Do you just place the bet on LeBron averaging more than 10? Right. That's all the futures market is.

So the futures market is like after-hours trading? Yes. And it's pretty much like, it's a, so it's like calls and puts on options, but it's worldwide. And then it's 23 hours a day. So at the open, the American open at 8:30, that's when you have the most volume on it. But most of us, especially that are black, don't know about it because we were the asset class that were traded.

Why 23, not 24 hours a day? Um, because it has our rests. And then the way the cycle goes from America to Asian market and London market is like a little breaking between. Yeah, I got like that. Like if you have like files, you get like these channels from Asia. Yeah, they show the future. Yes. So I'm going to actually, what you just said, I'm going to elaborate on that. But before, so all right, just for everybody to understand. So stocks, I'm buying a stock, regular stock. Yep. And I'm just buying it at that price. Yes. If it goes up, I make money. If it goes down, I lose money. Yeah. Futures is, for lack of a better word, is like kind of a guess where you're kind of predicting it's going to go up. Like you, it's $10 now, but you think it's going to go up to $15. Yes. So it's the future. That's why it's called futures because it's like you're guessing the future. Guessing the future. Yeah. And you can, you can guess the future if it goes up, or you can guess the future if it goes down. Yep. Is that correct? Absolutely. And then you can make money whether the asset goes up or down. Yeah.

What, what are we basing that off of? Is there information that's tied to the price of the S&P 500 and the bonds market? Okay, so long-term, I tell people to invest in index funds, so SPY, DIA. And then I'm like, trade the future. Because if you buy it long-term, you can look in your account and see where it's going. Most days, the S&P 500 is going to go up unless Trump does something crazy, which is all the time. But that volatility even provides some movement. So if the market falls down 500 points, you can profit when the market goes down. You can't do that with stocks. I'm sorry. And the S&P 500, for anybody that doesn't know, it stands for Standard & Poor's 500. Yes. 500 companies, like a microcosm of different stocks. So a lot of time, you had a market that's up and the market that's down. They're not talking about every single stock in the stock market. They're using Dow Jones, S&P 500, S&P 500, Russell 2000. The S&P 500 is like 500 stocks from different sectors. And if all of those are moving in one direction, another, then pretty much the market is moving in that same direction. Yeah. I think the S&P is like the NBA. It's like the 500 best players in one basket. And then the Dow 30 is like the best 30. So when I tell people to invest in the index fund, I'm like, imagine we was at the park and you had to pick five people, and I'm like, okay, you can get Giannis, LeBron, Curry when he's not hurt, Harden, and Westbrook. And we play against five other teams, five other players that are just regular players. Who do you think goes win? All-star team.

So you said that, um, black people was traded. Yeah. Can you talk about that? The financial markets, unfortunately, was based off of slavery. So we were the first commodity actually traded. So most insurance companies got their start from slavery and insurance slaves. And then futures contracts, they would make a guess about how many slaves would actually make it, um, across land. And so that's why most of us don't know about it because we were the thing that were traded. We're not supposed to know.

You said futures contract. What, what is that? And how do you buy it?

So let's say hypothetically, you had a thousand slaves. The companies would guess that maybe 560 to 700 of them would end up dying, and they would have a contract on it that if they died, they would still make money off of it via insurance.

It's funny, it's crazy that you say that because it's like, um, yesterday I went to Schomburg. You ever heard of Schomburg? So the Schomburg Library is in Holland, and it's, um, world-famous. And it's like, African-American museum type, but it's not a museum, it's a library, exhibition, stuff like that. So long story short, just yesterday, yeah, I went there randomly, and I was in the, I was in there, and I was looking at different things. So I looked on the wall. So I saw the contracts for, um, the company that predated New York Life. Yeah, I forgot the name of it, but it showed, um, the contracts, the life insurance contracts on slaves and the ships. Yeah. So I thought, so I'm gonna get to that. So then in the book, it's interesting because in the book, it has like causes of death, age that they die. So there's all kinds of stuff like that. Like a lot of people die from inflammation of the stomach, diarrhea, all kinds of stuff. But it was, so it's a book, and it's like a lot like that's how New York Life Insurance got started. Yeah. Um, that was the, that was before they changed the name, and it was based off of, um, ensuring, yeah, slave masters on their slaves. Yeah. And I hate to say it, but racism is America's first startup. So the country is built off of us. But of course, when we died, like he just said, they profited heavily. Like when you lose that many quote-unquote commodities, you have to have an insurance policy in place to be able to cover it. So everything is tied together. Insurance, Wall Street. I mean, Wall Street was one of the biggest slave markets before it turned into like the economic center that it is now. Like slaves were traded on Wall Street. Yeah. I actually took, um, our summer group to the, uh, black burial ground in Manhattan. Yeah. And I give a detailed explanation of that whole, this whole situation. It's heartbreaking. Yeah. And once you dive into the information, it's fascinating, but heartbreaking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the ships too. It's like, I saw it on the ships where it's like they have people just like lined up. So it's like the, a lot of people not gonna make it because you, it's like a month to get from Africa to America. And if you're in a ship lined up with 300 people right next to each other, like people going to bathroom on themselves, it's like, it's, it's not really an efficient way to travel. So half of the slaves, even more, die. Just from that. Like, I mean, just like you can't. So like you said, like, so that all comes into like the insurance. Yes. But it's interesting as far as like the commodities, because it's like, okay, like how many is actually going to make it? 30, 40? We could put bets on that. Calls and puts on it. And if you make money, yeah, people make it. And also, in during times of travesty, like when crude shot down, you can make money as the market has fallen. So unfortunately, whether we made it across the seas or not, they had a plan to be able to make money. And that's one thing I have to tell people when it comes to investing, like whether the market is good or bad, you have to be able to make money. We all have kids. Kids are not cheap by any means. And we have to invest more so we can have a future for them. But even when a market falls apart, like luckily with futures, some of my biggest days, like August 24th, 2015, the market dropped 500 points. I had one of my best days. I had a 100 gainer that day. Um, Brexit, like I made a ton of money on Brexit when that economy was falling apart. I was able to take advantage of it and then ride the ES down, which is the S&P 500, and then ride it back up. So regardless, in stocks, you can only ride in one way, but futures, you can play both ways.

So what are some markets that you can actually buy futures? Or, um, you can do it through TD Ameritrade. Um, I use NinjaTrader as well, out of Chicago. Um, because it's $500 per contract. At NinjaTrader, if you did it through Thinkorswim, $500? Yes. Okay. $500 per. But if you bought one future contract on TD Ameritrade, it would be $62.50 because most African Americans don't have $6,000 laying around to invest one contract. So they're a discount broker. And that's how you end up buying more contracts and then to make more money. Okay.

So all right. So day trading. Yep. Day trading, or as I call it, short-term investing. But short-term investing, uh, because there's a lot of traders out there, and most of them don't make money. Okay. Very true. It's all right. So how do you make money day trading? Because you said, so day trading, for anybody that's not familiar, is that you're trading intraday. That's why it's called day trading. Yeah. Um, so you could trade anything. Crypto, which I hate. Crypto. We've learned to hate it too. All right. Yeah. You could day trade Forex, which I hate. We'll talk about. Talk about that. You could day trade stocks. But you said that stocks is not the best way to day trade or intraday trade, or however you want to call it. Well, stocks weren't originally meant to be day traded. They were meant to be held for long-term periods. So like 30, 40, 50-year periods. Like if you, if you had Apple and you traded Apple for one day 10 years ago, you may have made $1,200, $2,000, $3,000. If you would have put $2,000 into Apple 10 years ago, you would probably have more than $150,000 right now. So for long-term wealth building, it's absolutely amazing. But futures, you have a 30-day window to trade them, and then the contracts cycle over. So, and I tell all of my students, I'm like, go for shorter targets so you can get in, out, profit. But the hardest part for most people is they don't have discipline to walk away. They don't want to overtrade. And like, well, I've been broke the majority of my life, so let me try and get 10 trades in a day. But you can't make up for the time in which you were not previously.

So how do you day trade? What's the, what's the, what's some tips on the day? Like, how do you day trade?

First, you have to open up a brokerage account. So that would be through for futures, like NinjaTrader. And then the most important thing, you have to know where the direction is going. It's a simple way to know if the market is green, it means the market is going up. If it's red, it means it's going down. We've all opened up Yahoo Finance. Another bad day. Yep. So I was right. But most traders, they are buying when it's red, and that's a good investment strategy. But intraday, you end up losing a lot of money. So if the market is going up, ride the market up or buy. And then if it's red, you want to sell. But you have to have a predetermined target. So like if you have 50 shares of let's say bonds, and let's say you get two pennies worth of movement, you can make $12.50 in less than 14, 15 minutes. But then after that, you have to stop because you only allowed a certain amount of trades per day because you don't want to gamble. That's where the gambling part comes in that's associated with trading. It's like, well, you don't know whether it's going to go up or go down. I'm like, you know what the S&P is going to do.

What's the number of trades you can make a day? You can do unlimited, but I advise people, only do one or two. Okay. One or two because anytime you do more than that, you are, like I said, subconsciously trying to make up for the lack of money that you have in your life. Because we know most people that have money don't take huge risks. And I like to keep my risk capped to like 2%. But every time you get back in the market, you are assuming more risk on a particular trade, and you don't want to do that.

Yeah, can we just go back for a second for the contracts? I know you said this is the expiration of 30 days. Is that the standard? Are there other ones that are 60 or 90 days? That's the standard for futures. So every, every 30 days, um, they'll end up rolling over. So that's a max window that you can have to trade them. Okay. And you could lose or gain money during that process, right? Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. But you can have a stop loss in place that mitigates your risk, and then you can have a predetermined target. A lot of people, they'll just hit buy and hope that it goes up. And I'm like, hopefully it was a great strategy for Obama, but financially, that's something we can't do.

So what's the S&P right at right now? Uh, it's back in, in the close to the three thousands, um, thirty-five hundred range. And yeah, so all right, so I, thirty-five hundred, let's just say thirty-five. Yeah, because we don't know when it'll come out. So let's say thirty-five. 500 S&P is right now, right? So I get up. Yep. I buy a future on it. Yep. And I have a, a target of 3501. Of 3501? Yes. I have a stop loss of, let's say, you can put it at 29.98 for easy numbers. All right. So the stop loss is, once it, if it gets, if it goes, I stop my losses. That's why it's called stop loss. Stop your losses. So you don't just, it's not like a nosedive, the market just starts to tank. It's like, okay, oh yes, because then you can lose all of your money. And you're sold at that point. That can go down to a thousand. Yep. Okay. But when it gets to the point where you're actually comfortable buying, selling it, then it's sold. Absolutely. Automatically. Okay. So, but now it's like, if it goes past that, what if it just keeps going? I can't have FOMO. You have to be, think of it as the business. McDonald's doesn't sell, uh, number one for $10 to one person, then $25 to another. All the prices are the same. So you want to run it like a business where I'm like, okay, when I approach the market, anytime that I hit over a certain number, I'm happy. A, because I remember when I was broke and had no money. And then B, it's not in my business plan to take more than a certain amount of trades per day. A lot of people will get in, they'll start in, like, oh, I want to take 14, 15 trades. I'm like, that's not in your plan. So we have, especially our people, we have to exercise a lot of discipline in the financial markets because we're so far behind. And people trying to get caught up with trading. And, um, it's like, you should have been investing 10 years ago. I mean, even me, knowing what I know now, me not putting every dollar into the market when Art told me to cost me $12 million. Wow. So it's like, wow. That's why I tell him, I'm like, damn, I should have listened to you. I'm sorry. He was like, but you're further ahead than you were and could have been. But I'm like, yeah, but I want 12. But he was like, but you have to go all in when you get the information. And we all sit and wish we would have invested. We talked about it before we started, uh, recording. Could have bought City, Bank of America, Apple was super cheap, Mastercard was cheap. Definitely. We sat on the sidelines. And then, but you know, some Js came out, we went, got the Js that we partied or went on vacation. We have to put our money here first.

And you said it's only like two hours a day where you should actually be an hour. Yeah, two hours maximum. The open and the close where you should even, uh, would you don't like to coach? They did hurt. What is it? What do you call it? Short-term investment. All right. So only two hours a day where you should do short-term investing. Yes. Opening, which is 8:30 in the morning. Yeah. 8:30 to 9:30. 7:30 AM. Yeah. And closing, which is 3:30 to 4:30. Uh, yeah. 3:30, 4:30. And then you should be done. Just wrap it up. And that's Eastern Time. And wrap it up because in the middle, that's where a lot of the amateurs play. There's not as much liquidity. So think of it as if you own the store, or your highest volume, let's say if you own a restaurant, would be breakfast and dinner time. Right. In the middle, there's not as many people buying. Like, you literally can see volume get cut in half. And I'm like, don't trade in the middle because there's not enough people because all the market is, is a bunch of people agreeing to buy and sell at a particular price. Everybody goes away at lunch. So come back at the close and then just be disciplined and stick to your hours.

You said in one of your rules that never to give up more than 1.6% on any trade. Can you explain that?

So you have to have like a predetermined, like risk to reward ratio. And so like, let's say if we were playing ball outside, and if we hit two three-pointers, we got $50,000. Great. I think anybody in this room, no matter how often we play, we can hit two shots. Right? But most people, when they trade, they're they're risking 50% of their capital. So if you miss the first two shots, you lose all your money. So if you cap it at 1.6% or 2% maximum, if you lose two trades, you're only down 4%. Your wife or your lady won't kill you. You're not messing up the kids' college fund, and then your emotions aren't messed up. Whereas if you're risking 50, man, two trades, your lady hates you, you messed up the bag for the kid, and now you are beating yourself up because we, as black people, have so much trauma tied with money and not having it. Any losses hurt us more than than other races, I've found out personally. So yeah, you know, you don't want to get wiped out. You take out the game. You don't, one, one, one bad day could take you out the game. Yeah. And we've seen it. And of course, during the recession. So like when people were overleveraged, a lot of the banks went under because they had assumed too much risk. But a lot of it is psychology too, because like, if you, so it's all synonymous with gambling. And I always tell people that investing is a game of knowledge. Yes. Gambling is a game of chance. But, especially short-term trading, highly speculative investments. Yep. It, it very, it's synonymous with gambling. Yeah. And you get the same feeling as a game. Like if you gamble, you get a euphoria, you get a feeling. You never look at when you, if you gamble and you win $10,000 on the crap table, you don't look at like, you won $10,000. You look at it like, you could potentially win $100,000. Yep. And if you stop playing, you don't look, you look at like you lost $90. I'm high. Yeah. I stress the same thing. It's the same thing with short-term investing. So that's the dangerous part for me is like people, you, you go down because you, you start to make money very quickly and very fast. So if you make $500 in an hour, it's a, it's like a, it's like a high. Yeah. You feel like, you feel invincible. Yeah. At that point. But then you just have to stop because after you lose a certain amount of money, and we've all been there, we made money, gave it back, or spent it. But once you, you have to have a higher purpose for what the money's for. For me, being broke, like I need freedom for myself and then also for my son because I know what it, when I have a conversation with my dad, I'm like, if you would have put away $10,000 in 30 years, would have been $1.2 million. My dad didn't have clarity. My dad's smart, been in business for a long time. He was, I just didn't know. Like, it's not that I wouldn't have put the money away for you. I just had no clue. And of course, in the '70s and '80s, this information wasn't flowing enough. Yeah. At all.

Nice. All right. So the next time we're going to go into some more, some more information. But, um, yeah, the day trading or short-term trading, how much short-term investment, swing trading, the same thing? Yeah. So you can hold it for multiple days. So for like a 30-day period. So you're holding it. So then you have a higher probability because you can hold it for multiple days. But it costs more. Okay. To do that. So even that, so if you swing trade the S&P 500, it costs almost $7,000 because most of us are blocked out from being able to do that. Because the, the win ratio is higher with, um, swing trading because you're holding it over multiple days. You may get a bad price on the S&P Monday, but then by Thursday, it's back up. So you're fine. Yeah. And, yeah, and listen, investing is risky, especially on a short-term side, if you are not disciplined. And I always say, like, if you don't have $10,000 put into the market, a $10,000 saved, you shouldn't. Because most people want to treat this like they are going to flip money. I'm like, flipping doesn't work in the streets. Like, you either get jammed up, have to get a lawyer, or you end up giving it all away. So we have to, I want us to take that drug mentality away around my market. Even though I love the Wall Street Trapper name, I love like, I love the content. So I got it. No, no, share with that because I love your material. I want us to start to think bigger about what we can achieve and long-term pass on money and to be able to even help our friends. So all right. Um, okay. So in the next segment, we're going to talk about some more things. When I was investing, okay.

So as far as, um, trading, right? Whether you're trading, um, commodities, whether you're trading stocks, whether you're trading futures, like you said, it's, it's practice makes you perfect, right? And, um, like you could become good at anything if you, if you have good habits and if you apply yourself. Yeah. How can somebody become a good trader? Like, what are some tips to improve somebody's trading?

That's the best thing. Um, when you sign up with any platform, they let you practice for free. Most people want to start making money right away. And a short-term investment is more like a sport. So I can't expect to go to the league if I'm putting up two jumpers a day. I don't care how good the two jumpers are under different conditions. I won't be able to perform well. So I tell people, like, start off practicing and take a hundred trades. See how it goes for you. Then take. That's before you put one dollar. Simulated. Similarly. Yeah. Simulate it. But because then you'll get comfortable and say, okay, either I do have the discipline to do this, or I don't. For me, coming from East Chicago, Indiana, a poor area, when I got introduced to long-term investing and short, it clicked for me right away. I'm like, wait, so if I put in a hundred shares here and I get four pennies up in movement on the ES, I can make $12.50. I'm like, I'm sold. Yeah. I'm like, but most people may not have the discipline because they may not believe in themselves. And we see it with business owners all the time who should have more growth. They are the limitations or the governor in their own business. But you can start with any brokerage platform and then just practice it. So on the broker's platforms, they have actual simulators. Because that's a good thing to know, especially when we're trying to teach kids. Yeah. To actually do the decision. Oh, and for kids, they have a game called ChartCut. So it's a game that you can download in the app store, and you literally can, if you think the market is going to go up, hit buy. If you think it's going to drop, sell. And you can practice there. Yeah. Simulated trading. I'm glad you said that, especially for children. Yeah. Is, um, extremely, extremely valuable. Yes. Because spot, especially trading, it's, um, it's a competitive sport. It is. So like, a lot of schools, even for teachers, a lot of times, I always recommend like, if you want to do like an investment club for your class, and you can start with like fake money. You think of a prize, whoever wins. Colleges do that all the time. All the time. And it's like, hey, you're learning. Yeah. But it's always good to have some kind of competition in place. And then you realize like, it's actually exciting. Like, I mean, like anybody that really is involved with like trading stocks or investing on a high level, they, Dave, it's like a sport. It's a game. Yes. Yeah. So, um, simulation is something that, and like you said, it's, it's, you're not making any money, but it's, it's like, you have to practice this. Yeah. It's the same as, it's like the pre-season. It's like the pre-season. I think it's dope because like I said, in our summer program, we teach stocks. So we start, we teach them about the market, but then like they do a simulator, and then they actually get to go down to Wall Street and see how it is. Incredible. Um, so that's important. Yeah. But after we do the simulation, though, right? Now it's time to get in the game. Like, is there a certain amount of money we need to have? Or like, yeah, I would say start with $2,000. But before you get to intraday trading, like you have to invest long-term. So even though I love investing on the short term, I made my chops and reputation on long-term investing. So the foundation is indexes. Second layer is technology stock. So start there. And then start with a thousand or $2,000. Don't put everything you have into it because then when the money's involved, emotions come out. Absolutely. And then now you have to stick to your rule of one or two trades a day and not 45 trades and not trading Forex and crypto and everything at the same time. Like you have to be very disciplined. Start small and then earn your way up to put it in more. Most people just want to throw in $10,000 and hope it goes up. And I'm like, you can't hope. You have to practice your way through this to be able to do better. Yeah.

One of the things you said too, I heard an interview was like, people just throw money into an investment and they just leave it there. Yeah. Like there has to be some discipline where you have, like, all right, every month I need to go this certain amount. You want to talk about that strategy a little bit?

Yeah, so you want to set goals in place. So even if you only, let's say you get one penny worth of movement on bonds, and you max out your contracts, you can get 6.25% growth on one penny worth of movement. You don't have to be great to do that. So I tell my students, you have to have one small target you can hit every day because, let's be honest, you have to produce. Even if emotions are there, you're having a bad day, you've been fighting with your significant other, you still have to make money because bills are going to come in. And then go for a longer target. So that's when I tell them to do like a 15-point target. So if you lose one trade, let's say you even lose five, when you hit that 15-point target, it erases all the previous losses and now you're in profit of 10. But it's a sport. There's no, no different than playing basketball, MMA, which my son loves to do. Hey Xander, I love you. Or, or we all went to school with people who were really talented and then end up not doing well because they were just lazy as hell. Like we look at James Harden, of course, in Houston. LeBron, regardless of what you think of him, man, the kid works hard. Works hard. Puts a lot of money into his body in the off-season. So you have to treat the investment part the same way. Yeah.

So all right. So you said the first layer should be index funds. Yes. The second layer should be tech. I'm glad you said that. I want to talk about tech a little bit because I'll tell people all the time, like, if you don't know anything, just invest in tech. Absolutely. Because, um, technology is not the way for the future. It's right now. It's now. It always has been. Yeah. Every industry is affected by tech. Like, there's a mutual fund called the Diamond Tech Fund, Franklin Templeton. Yep. And it's up like 16% a year for the last 10 years, easily. And it has like all of the, the big tech companies in it, like Google, Apple, Amazon. Yeah. Um, so it's like, it's a dummy's way to invest. Like, absolutely. I mean, because our lives are ruled by technology. Even back when that assembly line, before that, was the technological innovation that made Ford great at that time. Then IBM, of course. Now Apple and Microsoft have been on a great run. Netflix, Facebook, Google. I mean, and I tell people like, and that's the major tech companies you've heard of. If it's a biotech company that you never heard of in Delaware, don't touch it. We all have heard of Facebook, Amazon, Google, Net, Netflix. So those are easy. And like you said, an easy way to invest. Because we, because I ask entrepreneurs, if I can walk you into Steve Jobs' office when he was alive, and he would give you a grant for your business, which you take the grant from Steve? Everybody says, yeah. How much money have you invested in Apple? Then because it comes down to who's the better entrepreneur. I'm not better than the CEO of Google, no matter how much ego I have. I'm not, I'm not better than Zuckerberg. But I can tie my money into him and their performance and make money off of them. And especially in our community, we know who the hottest players are, who the hottest rappers are. We make it that way. Yeah. And we make it that way. So even when I went to EC Central and talked to the kids, I'm like, who's hotter, Cardi or MC? Like, most of the kids, like, who is MC? Like, yeah, they're probably saying that right now. Yeah. It's like, it's like Cardi's hot. Okay, cool. Cardi is Apple. And that, okay, who's hotter, Drake or Rock Him? Peace to the God. But he, Drake would be like Microsoft. Right? So these are easy bets. You have like top five performers in every industry, and just tie your money into them, and you'll be okay right away. Yeah.

So why are you so big on indexes though? Because, um, this is, it's a debate between like, um, indexes. Warren Buffett is a believer in index. Huge believer. He's like, just put it in my index fund. If you don't know, then I know. She's putting my index fund. And a lot of people like that. Yeah. But then people want, are you anti-index? I'm not. Okay. But, um, I'm just interested to get your perspective on it. Like, why, why is index funds the top level for you?

Because it provides a certain level of safety. So let's make it a comparison. Like the next GM has had a lot of opportunity to draft some good players. He has not for the longest time. Yes. So let's say we're going to be in GM of picking stocks. Okay. So we can either pick one individual company, which we may have a bust on. Or an index fund is nothing more than an all-star team. So if I give you the Eastern All-Stars to go against Orlando, who do you think is going to win? I think, yeah, the All-Star team is going to win. So like, when you pick index funds, you're taking the best of the best companies. And even if you miss a great company, by having a collective there, or a basket, it'll be able to go up. And then this year had an amazing run. Like it was up 27%. Like to this year was a great year. Um, and I know some people don't like them, but it's like, Buffett does it. A lot of the major hedge funds. And then if you want to get more technical, like all the money they've been pumping into the market, or quantitative easing since the recession, that's another reason I always tell people the market is rigged to stay up. Because when the market happens or a recession happens, people die, divorces are at a higher rate, businesses never recover. So it's the economic engine that keeps pumping. Um, and we have to tie our money to where the money is and where it's flowing easily. So.

So, all right, all right. Another thing with the index funds is that you can actually invest. Most retirement plans, most 401ks have an option where it's like the S&P. You can invest in an index fund inside of your retirement. Which brings me to my next question. So you, you, what, what stocks should people invest in for retirement?

The two biggest technology companies. There are. Keep it simple. My plan is very simple. Two indexes, two techs. Because if you make, if you invest in 25 companies, you made your own mutual fund. Why now? You can talk from an asset allocation standpoint, is you should have bonds and tech. Tech runs our lives. Whether Amazon takes over or Apple takes over, it's going to be two tech giants. Always tie your money. And you can go back and look at IBM. So with tech giants, like right now, I've always advised Apple and Microsoft, not Google. Well, if you can afford it, Google's too pricey for most people. That is true. Yeah. It's too pricey. If you can do Google, absolutely. But I know most in our community, they can't afford where Google is. I mean, I recommended Amazon and Google in 2015 and 2016. And Amazon, before I got to a thousand a share, once it hit a thousand a share, most people was like, I don't have enough money to buy one share. It's tough to buy one slice. Yeah. Amazon's going to keep going up to infinity. They are the king of retail. So if you guys can afford it, do it. No stopping. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Um, and that's just, that's a retirement strategy. Yep. Because those companies are never going to fall. Never. And if so, someone's going to overtake them. So even with Microsoft's, like I'm 37. Microsoft was pop, Windows 95 was popular, and Bill Gates had that company doing well in the mid-'90s. So even like $20,000 or $10,000 back in the '90s now would be several hundred thousand dollars. Great companies tend to be great for a long period of time, and shitty companies go out of business really fast. So even you take Oracle, any of the Silicon Valley tech giants, they've been around for a long time. Salesforce, with that ticker. Yeah. It's serious. Yeah. Like they've been around forever. So that's what we're like, fly-by-night stuff comes up like Bitcoin. I'm like, why? We'll get there. Yeah. Why touch it? And if you don't know how to properly invest it, like start with the big boys and think of it always, you're drafting. So you want to draft the best players. So I'm going, whether you like LeBron or not, I'm LeBron's going.

To be one of the first people I pick, like Duran, is like a sales force. Like, slowing, steady, gets better every year, underrated. But then a lot of people are like, "Well, I want to get a weed company." Like, that falls through the floor. And I'm like, "Why? Just because you smoke weed, right? That doesn't make you an expert." And that feels like just tie your money to what's working.

So we got two tech stocks. And what are the two indexes? Uh, SPY is the easy one. Or you can do VOO, which is Vanguard. And then the Dow Jones, which is DIA. And keep it very, very simple. Keep it very simple because you don't need 25 stocks in your retirement plan because once you have so many, they'll start to weigh down your portfolio. Well, you may have a winner that's up 25%, but the loser, man, lost 12%, and now you've cut your retirement in half.

And the number that we actually need for retirement is 5 million. And our community, that's a hard asset. Why? You say, "I said, 'Wi-Fi?'" When you look at inflation and then also how many kids you have? One? You got one. Two? You have two. Yeah, they're not cheap. No, it adds up. And then also, when we get in this position to be fortunate financially, we also have to help other people. So it's a heavier burden on us. And then, of course, cost of living going up. I mean, you guys are living in a pricey state. It's not gonna be cheap to leave. You can't, there is no four or five hundred dollar mortgages here anymore. So we just need more money.

And then it's the 4% rule. Yeah, go ahead. 4% rule. So if anybody's not familiar, that's what most people say, like, you should only take 4% of your retirement account a year, um, to make sure that it stays better. Yeah. So 4% of a million is $40,000. Yep. When you look at it like that's not that much money. You had break even, pretty much, right? So maybe. So then, yeah, maybe so then 5 million. 4% of 5 million is $200,000. Yeah. So if you look at it from that standpoint, especially with inflation and rising healthcare costs, not really a lot of money at all.

I got Russell. So my grandmother gave all of her life savings away trying to get back healthy when she had cancer. Like, my grandma probably went through 200 grand, maybe in eight months. Wow. Like, going through chemo. And I'm like, there with her. So the businessman in me, and my dad has seen it. He's like, "There's 40 chairs in here, like, and they're charging $2,500." They are following this is a business. Yeah. So it's great for the healthcare field. But for us, well, if we ever have any disaster, or because we are going to have a downturn at some point, something will happen. And that's why we need more money put away. It costs a lot of money. And look at all the bankruptcies that happen because of high hospital bills. Like, I have a friend that had a $200,000 bill last year. It's like, you can try and write it off for five bankruptcy, but it's like, it's gonna dig a deeper hole for you. Absolutely.

So, so Forex, which is, we're gonna do an episode, we're gonna do a whole episode on Forex. Stop asking. We appreciate it. We got it. We, we're coming soon. Coming soon. We heard you had some thoughts about, but, um, yeah, currency trading, Forex. So why don't, why are you not a fan of Forex? Um, the regulations are tough. So if you do, it's gotten better. So there are brokers here that are regulated. Finally. Can we just say it's not a new thing? No, it's old. You know, like, I work around kids all the time and they, they'll try to approach me about it. I'm like, "Guys, yeah." It's like, it feels like a new fad that's going on. But it's not because of Instagram. It's no, it's no. On social media. On social. Exactly. Yeah. And when people mention, they'll be like, "Well, one time an investor took a trade and made two billion dollars." I'm like, "He wasn't trading on MT4." Like, that was a bank play that he actually made. So that's different. Currency trading from a bank standpoint is good. But A, you have to deal with regulation. Two, the brokers are shitty. So a lot of them take your money. Like, I have friends that invested in Forex and then literally all their money was taken. You aren't going to be able to gain at the best spots. And then when you look at the major news outlets, nobody talks about Forex. First, I'm like, "Follow where the money is." I've never heard three hedge fund managers ever mention Forex on TV or in writing. It's just not a good thing to invest in because you're trading against other people. And let's say you do get 25 pips a day because we all see the posts on Instagram, y'all are making 14, 15. I'm like, "I don't know how your bills are structured, but that hundred dollar win is not gonna do for me and my kid." Like, it's not. It's an amateur's market. And it's a good place to start. Have there been people that make money? Yes. But they're not a lot. More. It has a 95% loss rate. Yeah. I feel like this thing like hit college campuses and hit social media like, wow. And then the multi-level marketing companies took over. And I'm like, "If you can actually trade, why do you need to recruit people?" And I tell people all the time, whether you join me or not, I'm cool. Please. Like, you don't have to join. But that's where the financial freedom, having no debt, yeah, having money comes in because my, I'm trying to be less damn dashes and approach and be kinder. But I feel the energy because it's like, if you're financially free, you don't need to chase anybody. Yeah. It becomes like, you know what? Like, what's the fastest thing to get money right now? Especially for a kid who's in college, they're having no money. Yeah. It's like, "I'll do this." And I was that broke kid in college, so I understand it. Damn near all fast money is bad. Anybody I knew who was making fast money in any endeavor, they lost it because when you make it too fast, you don't appreciate it. Kids, listen up, please, please. Or you can lose it and then say, "Hey, you were right," two or three years later. But please, don't touch Forex. And I know some of y'all love Forex. That is trash, though.

Can we talk about bonds for a little bit? Yes. Um, so bonds. All right. You hear about stocks and bonds a lot. Yeah. We've covered stocks. We're covering stocks today, but we haven't spoken about bonds yet. So bonds. So, all right. So stocks, you buy ownership of a company. And you buy stock in Apple, you're part owner of Apple, right? Yes. Bonds, kind of like the reverse in a sense, where you're loaning a company, yes, or a municipality, or a country. You're loaning them money. And for you loaning them money, they're paying you a dividend. Yes. Um, over a set period of time. It's a coupon. It's called a coupon, right? It has a maturity. Maturity is like 10 years. So that's when it matures. Yeah. So you put $1,000 in, you have a 10% coupon, then you get $100 every year. Yeah. Two times a year, like $50, two times a year, right? Semi-annually. And then at the end of 10 years, you get your $100 back. Yeah. That correct? Yes. Okay. You're good at making it simple. You're correct. I always say it, but if, if, uh, an eight-year-old can't understand it, I, I, it's too complex, too complicated. The litmus test is always my son, too. So like, that green means up, red means down. Like, I drill Xander on that all the time. And he's like, and as you know, kids get it. Yeah, they get it like super easy. And they love it when they get it. Yeah. Because adults, we are so fearful because we made so many mistakes before. Yeah. Because we all wish that we put more money in Apple 10 years ago. Um, I mean, when Google first came out on the stock market. Yeah. I remember all of that from 2008. Everything. Yeah. We invested. I, before they even announced the iPhone, I had Apple. Yeah. And, um, I got, I got nervous, man. Yeah. And that's a good tip to like, if you want to know if, if a company is a good thing to invest in, click on the 10-year chart, and it should go up. Yeah. And be green. And physical. And the same thing is like, if you're in a relationship or a marriage, after 10 years, you know a person. I'm glad you said that. I'm glad you said that because I said, I do that all the time. Okay, what's the five-year rate of average, 10-year average, and since its inception? Absolutely. Since its inception is when it was created. So if it had like, Franklin Diamond Tech Fund going back today. Um, so since its inception, 1968, is average 9.7% a year. That's incredible. So odds are, yep, it's averaged almost 10% a year for 60 years. Yep. It's not going to fall off the cliff. And you're 61. Highly unlikely. Yeah. You know what you're going to get. Yeah. If something is up 47% for one year, but if I look in 10 years and it's minus 1%, I can't trust you. Yeah. So you could look at 401ks, that all of them, same one, same thing. It's like, that's the easy way. That's the easiest way to look to see if it's a good investment or not. Yeah. Look to see what it has done. The future is always dictated by the past. Absolutely. Absolutely. And then because if you look at all the legacy companies, and to make the analogies with players, Brian has been good since he came out. LeBron's not gonna. And that's why the Wash King thing is funny. Like, AD's been good since he came in. The players that were terrible five years ago, they're still terrible. And that's, that's true of companies as well. So you look at 10 and 15-year periods, and like you said, since inception, like Apple's been a rocket. And I make the joke all the time, but Forrest Gump talked about Apple. Like, there was a whole scene carved out about how he invested money and how much it grew. And Apple's continued to hit all-time highs after all-time highs.

So we spoke about dividends when you spoke about bonds. Yeah. What are your thoughts on stock dividend-paying stocks? It's tough. There's only a few that I like. Um, Apple, Microsoft, mine. Delay. But my thing is, I want you to pair a dividend play with a company that is growing. So you still want to see that chart go up. A lot of dividend plays, they pay because they're a bad company. So I always tell women, it's like having a shitty boyfriend that'll buy you a Gucci bag and pay you for bad performance. Is that something that you really want to hold long term? I like for the, the company to grow. Yeah. And they're going to pay less. Like Apple and Microsoft are going to pay a smaller dividend, but the growth is incredible. Opposed to a company that may drop 15% in the quarter, but they're giving you a $2 dividend. It's like, am I really doing anything for you when your retirement is being dragged down? So, but we didn't, we didn't talk about bonds yet because I wanted to. Okay, going somewhere with that. The bond. So how do you make money on? So we explained what bonds are, but how do you make money on bonds? Because you said bonds is actually the best thing to trade. Bond futures. So, yeah. How does that, how does that work? So, uh, there's a unit of measurement called a tick. Think of it as a penny. So anytime that, um, the bonds go up or down, because you can make money whether the market goes up or down. And it pays $31.25 per tick or per penny. So if you get 50 contracts and you ride it down, you can make money really fast there. Now, from a long-term investment play, there are some different theories of whether you should have bonds in your mix or not. You can. But from a future standpoint, since it pays the most and it moves slow. So the thing about trading, what's the cost for each contract when you're trading bonds? $500 per. Same thing. Yeah, same thing. $500 per. So you can get four pennies down with 50 contracts and you can make a few thousand in a day doing it that way. And then this is the most important thing. After you trade, you have to take a good portion of that capital and then put it back into your long term and not go right to bottle popping and vacations and tearing down the mall and Galleria where I'm in Houston. So, yeah. Are there any costs for anything like commission calls, anything for that? Yeah, their costs. You can buy a lifetime license and you can lower and reduce, reduce your fees. So any financial transaction, you know, there's going to be a cost associated with or fee. But, um, NinjaTrader has cheaper fees. And I don't have any affiliate deals with them. Um, but the fee structure is like a dollar 45 round trip, which is, oh, it's entry. And then the dollar 45 out, which is pretty good. Because after you net profit, you're still walking away with probably 28 bucks per purchase. Is there a difference between a commission cost and execution cost? Yeah, but they, they put them all in. So, you know, most brokerages are going to have the different level of fees. So there's an entry cost, of course, this looks like a data feed and other things associated with it. But, um, and the aggregate, like, is it worth it? Because if you went to a bigger platform, like, like I said, TD Ameritrade, for the S&P, you'll have to pay almost $7,000. And then for bonds, you have to pay $3,500. I know most Black people don't have that sitting around readily available. But for like, um, and futures are for work for mostly institutional investors and private investors. So that's why I've tried to wake people up around it because I see so many people going to Forex and Bitcoin and Ethereum. And I'm like, invest where, like, Paul Tudor Jones isn't going on CNBC talking about Litecoin. Like, stop. Invest where the money and big money flows. And then you can argue it. And this is my litmus test for everything. I'm like, "How much money are you making from it?" You can theorize how good something is, but I'm like, "If bonds pay the most, invest there." And I always tell people, okay, if you did your same job and I told you you can make 100 times more at the same job, would you switch companies? Yes. Then I'm like, "Okay, then leave Forex alone. Leave crypto alone." And then just play. But like you said, you have competition from day one. So when you trade futures, you're trading against every top trader and every top hedge fund day one. There is no biddy ball. You're going against LeBron, Kawhi, KD day one. So that's where the practice part comes in.

All right, so in the last segment, we're going to talk about your, your Red Panda platform and, um, some other tips for investors. All right. So this is the question that everybody wants to know, like, how much money, what's realistic, how much money can you make? Um, short-term trading a ton. Um, so when I first talked to the guy, um, that introduced me to futures, I'm like, "How much can I make?" And he was like, "Well, how much money can you put up? Because that determines how much you can make." But on a short end, let's say you can trade 100 shares of the S&P 500 and you only get one penny worth of movement up or down, that one penny represents $12.50. So if you get four pennies, how much? $12.50. $12.50. So if you get four, that would be $5,000. Now, on average, the market will move anywhere from 70 to 90 pennies in a day. I'm telling people, only go for one or four to start. That's why I used to have, invest first thing in the morning and right before close. Yep. Because then you have all the volume coming through. And then with bonds, since bonds pay more, you can make three, four, five, six thousand. So even with four ticks, if you do 50 shares, you can make $3,125. How much money invested? $12,500. $12,500 invested? Yeah. You can make how much? $3,125. Yeah. And so the more you put in. So people always ask, "How much should I start with?" I'm like, "$10,000, $25,000. If you can do 50, great. If you can do 100, better." Everyone's at different levels. I'm like, "But if you don't have 10, you should not be intraday investing at all." Long-term investing. Yeah. Yeah. Just start there. Like, if you don't have 10, put away. Start with that because Apple in 10 years is going to be great. And I think too many people, like you said, try and gamble because they're behind. But I'm like, "Start with the basics." The first level is index funds, second is technology, and then you can go into short-term investing after that. You have a strategy to make $3,125 in a day trading bond futures? Yeah, that's a very specific number. So, yeah, because each penny is $31.25 per. So you guys can do the math. If you do 50 contracts, you get four pennies times $31.25, that gives you $31.25. $31.25. So is a day? Yeah, in a day. How do you do that? Um, so you'll place the order. So let's say I think bonds are falling, I will place the order, let's say at 56.25. The market will, um, there would be a tag. The way I have an exit point for those four pennies, I would buy 50 shares of it, and then if it drops that four, it automatically takes me out. So you don't have to worry about, "Well, what if it goes down eight and comes back?" Once your stop loss? Yeah. Oh, yeah. And then you have a predetermined target. Okay. So on every trade, you need a predetermined target or a target that you're going to hit. So think of it like a sales goal. Like, once you hit that goal, you have to stop. So a lot of people when they trade, they want to leave the money in all day. It's not designed for that. You have to have a predetermined target in which you exit. And that four penny or four tick target is, is the easiest one that you can hit. So you put it in. And then what's the sales target again? Uh, four pennies. Four pennies up. Yeah. So if you're buying, you want four pennies up. If you're shorting, which means you profit when the market drops, four pennies down. And then you're golden. So what's the stop loss? All right, four pennies up. I got that. But what's the stop loss on that? You can set it at eight. Eight pennies down. Yeah. Because you have to give us some room to breathe. And then when you get into a more advanced, higher targets, then you would have a four-penny target and then now you, um, excuse me, uh, eight tick stop loss and then like a 60 tick profit target. So now you're in like a positive risk reward. Because I can see the wheels spinning as an advisor, it's a negative risk reward on a smaller one. But I tell people, like, if you have a higher risk to reward, you don't have to win as many trades. Um, because if you have a 15 to 1 or 10 to 1 ratio, you can lose seven, eight trades. And on your ninth trade, make all the money back, wipe away your losses and all your losses, and then be in profit. One of your strategies is having an 11 to 1 risk ratio. Why is that? Because you're going to perform bad some days. Like everyone isn't able to be emotionally disciplined. You may have a fight with your lady, your kids may bother you, you may be tired. So if I tell you to invest in the S&P and it goes up, your first two trades may be bad. Your third one will work out. But if, and you can't outperform math, no matter how much willpower you have. So if you have a one-to-one risk to reward, you only have one trade to win. Two to one, you can lose two trades before you're negative. We don't want to risk 50% of our money on two trades because that's like playing roulette almost at that point. Anybody in here, I think, can win one trade out of 11 and still be profitable. It just, it's a financial, um, assessment that you'll be able to make to know, okay, even if I only make one out of 11, I can still be able to profit. Most people are doing one-to-one ratio, so they'll risk $100 to make $100. And then they lose, and now they're automatically. So, all right, so it's like, you got a thousand dollars to invest. Most people putting a thousand dollars on one investment. You shouldn't do that. And they just roll the dice with it. I mean, we've all heard, "Don't put your eggs in one basket." And then when it comes to financial stuff, this is like, this all hindsight. Yeah, goes out the way. You're saying if you have a thousand dollars, you should never put 90%? No, yeah. More than 90? No, yeah. Because you want to cap the risk on every trade. So if you lose the 90 on a thousand, it's not going to ruin your day. If you lose 850 out of 1,000, we're in trouble. You're going to be pissed. Yeah, you're going to be pissed. And that's what's true of every business. So we know we need to bring in customers at a certain rate. There's a certain amount you can spend on ads for that. These numbers are true in every business. So support on a good week, right? The market is up. If we're doing the $31.25 strategy, we're talking over $15,000 a week. Yeah. At that point, we're doing this full-time. Yeah. At what point do you become a master and you can now do this full-time? It depends on what your, what your financial targets are. So for me, what's made it easier is like being really disciplined. So my grandmother used to say, like, "Baby, pay down all your debt. Yeah. No credit cards." Shout out to Grandma. Yeah. I know. And then Dave Ramsey got super popular. And I'm like, "This is all the stuff my grandma taught me." Yeah. I wrote one of her quotes. She was like, "Negative thoughts have negative actions with these negative results." The same as reversal. Positive. And I didn't want to hear it. See, like, "Altitude determines your altitude." I'm like, "I do not want to hear that." But as an adult, it's very true. And then we have so much stress in our household because financially we're upside down. Like, I remember when we were broke, our family would fight about everything. The remote control, who gets to watch the TV, when we will go out. Having financial freedom takes that away. So a lot of times people think they need to earn more. I'm like, "You need to knock that damn debt down and quit overspending." And that's a hard part. And we all know, as you get more money, the income creep happens. And then now it's like, "Okay, I don't want the Benz anymore. I want the Bentley." But the cost associated with it and repairs are tough. Upgrading the house. So you have to keep the debt down first. And then you won't need to make as much. But you can go full-time after you're disciplined and you constantly have hit those same numbers over and over again. Dave Ramsey made a half a billion dollars by telling people not to use any debt. That's it. But look, number one, he got watching. Seven step system. Yeah. He followed the same system over and over again. Yeah. Over and repeated the same message. So it goes back to the same thing with trading. You got to follow the same plan. And Dave's been saying the same thing like 30 years. Very few changes to it. So most importantly, like, take what I'm saying and to everyone watching, like, follow what the top five companies do. Apple's systems are down. They only have a few products. Manufacturing's incredible. They are following the same blueprint. That's why everyone jokes like, "Man, they just putting out the same phone again." But I'm like, "If 3 million people are buying them, and I bought the new phone when it came out, why change it? Why change it? Stick to the script." Yep. So.

All right, so can you talk about, um, your platform, Red Panda? Yeah. So Red Panda is, uh, my baby. That was birthed by accident because I never intended to show anyone my blueprint. So we have a couple different programs for people that are interested to learn how to invest. Um, if you're not financially stable, you should not be intraday or short-term investing at all. Always start there. So my foundation, of course, is long-term investing first. But I have a couple of different programs. Like Alpha is a more expensive program that teaches you how to make between $10 to $25 grand in a month. And then the 1K program is, uh, the program that's really, like, I probably have maybe 600 students in that program. And majority are Black women. So I saw a void that a lot of people were talking about investing, but not teaching us because they need someone like us that they can relate to to be able to, um, show them how to be able to do it. So, well, I've had an incredible run with the women in the program and been able to get some great results for them. But the 1K a day program is designed to help you learn how to trade futures. And when you do trade, you can make a thousand dollars in a day. And then you'll be good. So you got 600 students. What's the success rate? Are they coming to you like, is there a mastermind class where everybody's discussing their results or? Yeah, everybody says like, in pods of like 200, they'll come in. And then so it's the same 80/20 rule. Like 80 would do great, 20 won't follow the rules and then they won't do well. So nothing has a 100% success rate. But if you come in and follow the blueprint of playing, like you and I've posted this, you're probably 150 testimonials. And I'll tell people anytime, like, if you don't, don't believe me because I know from outside looking in and sound like some, yeah, but I'm like, if I was doing something wrong or they weren't women, it weren't winning Black women would tell you because most of them are Black women in the program. So the results have been posted year after year. Now, are they trading for themselves inside the program, or are you doing the trade? They're trading for themselves. So on our call, we have a daily call on, um, everyday chat, Monday through Friday. Like, I'll call out spots where they should not get in because they are either buying too high or they're trying to short the low. But they're doing it for themselves. So I even like, like Monica is one of my students. She took $700 and turned it to $12,000. Um, Angie's making $1,000 a day. She's been with me about six weeks. Um, and then one of my students, Carrie, who's from Home County, um, she's probably my best student in the program. Like, her win percentage is now is 89%. Yeah. For, for a month. So she's doing incredible. One of your rules is that you, you never want to buy in the middle. You can't. Because you, because a moving average literally tells you what it is, you're buying at an average price. I want to buy at extremes. So extreme low. So like when the Iran stuff happened, or any, there's a hard push down in the market, I'm like, "Buy stocks then." During times of crisis, because then they're going to shoot back up. Most people buy in the middle when the market is doing okay. Or Google had all-time highs and people like, "Why I need to buy Google today?" I'm like, "You're buying too high." So we all know on Black Friday, that's when the deals are. When the market falls apart, that's the time to buy. You don't want to buy when everything is, is at its highest price. And we all know to do that. But it's the emotion part. And then emotional discipline to actually do it. Because it's scary as hell when the market is falling 500 points. And I'm like, "Okay, should I buy today?" That's when it's on sale. I ask every woman, "If I can get you Louboutins for $250 instead of the $1,500, which you get them?" Yes. It's the same theory. But when we invest, we're buying them at $1,700 instead of $1,500. Out. You're overpaying. Yeah, you're overpaying. And the crazy, there's like many crashes that happen every month. So everyone's been waiting for a big recession to happen because they wanna recreate the Big Short. A crash happens every month. There hasn't been one month in where stocks and the index funds have not come down. But people don't have the discipline to wait and just say, "Okay, when we drop 500 points on a debt or a thousand, I'm going to buy." The day that's the time to buy because it's on sale. Buy low, sell high. It's the same strategy. Overnight. And most people buy. So you know, they buy high and sell low. Yep. That's what most people do. Yep. Some oceans. Nobody wants to FOMO, fear of missing out. Absolutely. Um, nobody wants to feel like it's like Bitcoin. Perfect example. Most people bought Bitcoin at $19, $18,000. And then they sold it at $3,000 because they thought it was gonna go to zero. And they didn't want to have like a complete loss. Yeah. Logic goes out the window when emotions come into play. And money's in play too. Yeah. And man, it's been a pleasure. It's been a great pleasure. Thank you. Thank you for rocking with us, man. Can you, um, tell the people, uh, how to contact your social media handles and all that? Yeah, my IG is the master investor. On Facebook, you can just look me up, Ian Dunlap. LinkedIn, you can look me up. The site is joinredpanda.com. If you type in your name and email, I'll add you to the VIP list. We'll be sending out some information. And then, um, if you put that you listen from Earn Your Leisure, I'll do a free webinar. While I don't sell anything and just teach for 30 minutes. So whenever this comes out, a month later, I'll do that. But I want to tell you guys thank you. I've been following you guys for a long time. I appreciate that, man. I appreciate you all for being cool and putting out the information that you do. I appreciate that. Um, and then also, we'll have the link in our YouTube if you're watching this on YouTube in the bio. And then, um, if you're listening to it on Apple, Spotify, whatever, um, in the description, we'll have a link. Um, so yeah, your platform as well, if people are interested in learning more about your platform. And I want to say this, soak up all the information that they put out because 10 years ago, it probably would have cost them four or five hundred thousand dollars to put the same material out. And I wish there were some more brothers I could have listened to in 2005, 2004, that would have put out this kind of information. So seriously, like, I'm not ass-kissing, and I really appreciate all the amazing content you guys have put out. So subscribe to the YouTube, podcast, listen every week because there's some gems in here. Like, even for a console, like, I charge $2,000 for a console. Like, I'm giving it for free. Like, Wall Street Trapper came on here, gave some great information. There's a ton of great people who are giving because we want to. So, um, once again, thank you guys. Appreciate that. Appreciate your time. Yeah, Houston. We'll be back soon. Real soon. Troy, some housekeeping items. Yeah, shout out to everybody on Patreon.com. We got a, a new one right before we came on and did this episode. Shout out to our hometown boy, uh, Chestnut Keon. Okay. Yeah, he joined on, um, Tier Four. He'll be UIL. Shout out to my boy. We went to school together, we worked together, play ball together. Um, so shout out to him. He's a Tier Four member. And as you can see now, uh, our Patreon has been revamped. So there's some new features that, that are there for you. And he has access to UIL University. And, you know, almost as importantly, as joining the Patreon. So that is our online school. You know, we do three courses a week. Monday is, uh, more, uh, real estate based. Wednesday is our guest webinar. And Thursdays is always myself and Shoddy doing something related to business. Um, so shout out to him for joining and everybody that's been on there kicking it with us and and asking questions and and doing all that, man. It's been fun. Yeah. Yeah, UIL University is an online platform, educational platform. You gotta teach your class for us. We bring, we bring different lecturers on. And it's, it's dope because it's in Zoom. So people ask questions in real time. Yeah, it's a dope experience. So it's something that we're really excited about. Um, and that's three days a week. We do different classes on all different topics, bring different people in. Um, so yeah, UIL University is an extension of the podcast, just a little bit more into, way more interactive. I love that. Um, so yeah, UIL University. And then the merch. Merch is out. Yeah. Assets over Liabilities. Yeah. Yeah. I need some sweatshirts myself. Oh, yeah. You guys got, you got it. We out of order right now, but we, as soon as we re-up, we got you. And, um, yeah, the book tip of this week is "Technical Analysis Explained." I thought that would be a good fitting book. Um, I read that book and that's if you're interested in about, you know, especially short-term trading. Yeah. Technical analysis, like reading charts. We even talk about that. But that's something, you know, to be aware of. Yeah. Should be aware of. Definitely. Um, and, uh, yeah, don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube. Yeah. Subscribe, comment, like, uh, write a review. The reviews are great. Share. Do all that. Tell a friend to tell a friend, tell a friend to tell a friend. That's a fact. And then, uh, yes, thank you guys for rocking with us. We'll see you next week. Peace, love you all. Thank you. Welcome to Alumni. Thank you, brother.