Transcription
Heat. Heat.
[Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music]
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Investing with IBD podcast. It's Justin Nielsen here, your host, and we are coming to you live at 5:00 PM as we typically do on a Wednesday. Uh today is October 29th, 2025, and we've got Halloween right around the corner. And uh uh instead of a trick, we're giving you a treat. We've got Mark Minervini uh on the show coming back. Uh Mark Mervini, of course, two-time US investing champion. um author of Trade Like a Stock Market Wizard, Think and Trade Like a Champion. Um gosh, what am I missing? The Mindset, what is the mindset one? Mark, help me out.
>> Mind Mindset Secrets for winning.
>> Mindset Secrets for winning. So yeah, there's just so many books that are so great. And then of course, he's the founder of Mini Private Access. Welcome back to the show, Mark.
>> Hey, thanks for having me.
>> Absolutely. Um let's let's get right into it. Uh we just had a a Fed meeting. Um, you know, everyone was expecting the quarter quarter rate point cut and um the I guess the the thing that people are trying to get a handle on is what this does to December. Um, let's talk a little bit about again I know you have all this experience and all this uh macroeconomic analysis that you do, but a lot of times you've said well gosh it really depends on what the market does. What what does the chart say? So tell us a little bit about how you're viewing the the current rate cut situation.
>> Yeah, I mean over the years I've been pretty good at reading the overall market based on macroeconomics and actually timing the overall market as far as the general market. I've been short most bare markets or at least been completely out and missed uh getting any, you know, damage. Uh but when it really comes down to it, that's really not what guided me into those situations. almost always uh is just the individual stocks. Um that's as a matter of fact sometimes those macro tea leaves or the general market itself will look quite healthy when beneath the surface you're seeing a deterioration and it takes time for that to actually end up showing up in the indexes which in this particular instance it's very much that case through pretty much the entire bare bull market. I've called this a reverse stealth bull market.
>> Right?
>> Yeah. Where, you know, where you've got the indexes are moving higher and higher, but there's really not much participation. We talked about, you know, the concentration in the market is just getting more and more concentrated.
>> Yeah. And, you know, one of the things just at least recently to kind of, you know, really kind of hammer that point home is I'm going to show SPY right now, the S&P 500, uh, ETF. Um, and even some of these days that were very strong for SPY, when you looked at RSP, which is the equal weighted S&P 500, it was kind of a different picture. You know, even today, um, you know, closing below the 50-day moving average line. So, it's like your average S&P 500 stock is still in this sideways action, um, even though SPY is is is bolting to new highs. So, What do you use as kind of your indicator?
>> I shorted the spy today. So, I'm actually short right now, but I have a very tight stop. I've shorted it maybe three or four times throughout the year and was been wrong uh pretty much every time. One time I was right for about a 5% move. It wasn't much of a move, but um even now, you know, I'm expecting maybe, you know, a normal pullback, maybe one that's been a little bit bigger than we've seen. Uh but if you compare that to the average stock, you know that >> breakout names and you start looking even broader base, not just 500 names unweighted. Um, you know, you're comparing it to itself just un unweighted. Um, it it's a much much more grim picture as far as the the underperformance. But you can see the R our RS line plunging to new lows recently there. Um, so again, you know, the weight the waiting of the of the um of the indexes. You've got 10 names that account for 40% of the entire index. Um, you know, you have the same type of situation in the NASDAQ, too, where you've got just a handful of names account for a big portion of the market cap. This is akin to the Nifty50. Um, I pointed this out recently, but if you don't know what the Nifty50 is, you're pro, most viewers are probably too young and that weren't in the market, but um,
>> it even goes back before I was in the market. I started trading in 1983. Nifty50 goes back even before that. Look it up, you know, go to Google Nifty50. This is a very much a Nifty50 type market where the where the where the money's chasing a small number of names. Now the the argument is there's a very good reason for that and that is that we've got a monopoly right now with these companies that hasn't existed since you can go back to maybe the rails and the oils and the Carnegies and the and Rockefeller um, you know, Google, Apple, Amazon, Netflix um Nvidia even, you know, these companies have an incredible incredible competitive advantage and quite frankly the regulators The government doesn't know what to make of this. These industries are it's like the wild west and they just have the run of the joint and they just buy everybody up. They've got so much cash and it's a real you know you go back again if you go way back to uh Ma Bell uh AT&T and how they broke they broke up the phone company because it was a monopoly. These companies would have been broken up a bunch a long time ago I think if if
>> yeah people really under the regulators really understood the businesses. Um, but you again that's not for me to decide.
>> Yeah. And and and sometimes it's tough for the regula uh the regulators to keep up with all the innovation that's happening with with all these companies.
>> I've said this before when Zuckerberg went went to testify in front of Congress. The congressman looked at him and said, "I I don't understand. Can you tell me how does Facebook make money?" And Zuckerberg was like, "Uh advertising." like like they didn't even understand that part of it, let alone deep into technology and now AI and all these other things that have decades of of runway um, you know, and implications.
>> Yeah. No, absolutely. And you know a little bit earlier I did show FNGS which is the micro sector's fang plus um, you know, whether you look at that the the mags, you know, the the round magnificent 7 um, to your point these have a very different look again these were all closing near their highs today and have been, you know, almost gapping up each day. Um, whereas again when we look at the average S&P 500 stock very very different picture, you know, the advanced decline lines, there's all these other breath indicators um that are are not showing such a rosy picture. Do you have a favorite for yourself? Uh what what what gives you that sense of um breth or are you just looking at a lot of charts and saying hm I'm noticing that some there's a pattern here.
>> the main yeah my main read is from the individual charts of going through the charts each day and looking at the stocks that are setting up in bases if there's a lot of setups and how well the setups are working. You could still have a lot of setups but they don't necessarily have to be working from from the breakout levels and also some of in this particular market you've got many that work but there's a lot of volatility around the buy point so getting in on a low risk entry is difficult to stay on board. I often say, you know, your goal is if your goal is to get from one side of the corral to the other and you jump on a horse, but he bucks you off three steps in and the horse makes it to the other side of the corral, well, that doesn't do you any good cuz you need to be on the horse. So, the horse might get there, but if the risk is too much and it throws you um and you get stopped out of the position, now you could say, "Well, don't use stops." Well, now you know when when the horse runs the other way, you're you're stuck on there um as it's galloping the other way and you got to leap off the horse and break your neck, right? So, you have to manage risk. So, it's a it's the market doesn't have to just be where things are working or they're not working. There there's there's some gray shades in between. And I think this particular market has been one of the more tricky ones as far as getting in on some of these opportunities, but keeping the risk low.
>> Mhm. Well, and I want to get back to something that you mentioned earlier. You know, it might surprise people when you said that you're you're short spy right here, but I think this is a good, you know,
>> 2% stop.
>> Right. I was going to say this is a good time for you to talk about that whole managing risk and how you can go into something and as you said, you can be wrong a number of times, but if you're keeping your risks small, you know, you're not you're not going to get hurt.
>> Yeah. the three or four times that I short it this year and the if you added up all the losses I don't think they even add five add to 5%. Um, you know, with this one maybe it'll be five 6% or so um if I got stopped out on this one. So I'm coming I'm trying to time it like really to the day. Um, if if you're going to short a freight train you got to do it from very low risk. You can't Yeah. You can't allow it to run over you and drag you uh down the tracks. you have you have to do it where you have to realize okay if I get this wrong I move on I try again and the reason why you keep the stops really tight is so you can have multiple tries then when you finally get it right even if you're stopped out three four I've been knocked out four or five times uh trying to get the market top right and then when I got it you know it paid for all those uh times in just a couple days and then I'm in a really good position. So yeah, it's all about losing the least amount possible and just waiting to be waiting to be right.
>> Mhm. So you you mentioned how you're kind of starting with a smaller position. So of course your portfolio risk even if you take let's say a 5% loss if it's a small position the risk to your portfolio is just
>> Well, I actually don't take small positions. Let's I'm going to correct that one.
>> Oh, okay. Okay.
>> No, I didn't say that.
>> Okay. I'm not one to take small positions. I usually take
>> No, on the shorting side for for the short
>> I take huge positions. Yeah. I I'm I'm usually going in very large, but that's the reason why I keep the stops really tight. So, I want I want to get paid when I'm right. Okay? So, if I'm right, I want to be in big,
>> but I also I don't being that means I have a lot of exposure and I have a lot of risk, right? So, I don't have much overnight risk with with an SPY. So, I can go big with that because it's not going to gap up tomorrow 20%. Like a stock might, you know, and maybe even much more. So, I'm I'm willing to go really large. I'm if the names are liquid, um, but that the way I I manage the risk is of course going to be with keeping the stops tight and I'm going to be admitting defeat very quickly,
>> right?
>> And and then, you know, and trying to rettime it again, you know, as opposed to just hanging in there and and taking a big loss.
>> Um well, you know, one of the questions that came from uh Paul on our YouTube and again, thank thanks Paul for putting the question in. I'm going to I'm going to throw some of these at you, Mark, because I know you can handle it. Um, so, um, he's, you know, talking about, you know, a stage three top. And of course, this is probably, uh, you've mentioned Stan Weinstein a lot of times in your, um, you know, someone that you know very well. I had the pleasure of meeting him when, uh, uh, for your birthday event.
>> Stan is a very close friend of mine.
>> Yeah. So, um, is this is this something that you would consider a stage three top or, um, are you are you doing that level of analysis here on the indexes?
>> I don't think we have a stage three top formed yet. Um, I don't see that with the indexes. I'm not treating them like a stock. A stock I would be waiting for a stage three top and maybe even get into stage four and really have it the stock break and maybe trade under the 200 day moving average. With the indexes, I'm trying to trade them right off the highs. Like, usually they'll they'll be hitting all-time highs and then they'll be re a reversal or or a distribution day coming off the highs and I'm coming right in off the highs. So, I'm actually shorting the indexes when they're the strongest sometimes and everybody especially when everybody's bullish um and you got the sentiment really really high as far as bullishness concerned. Now, that's what we don't have right now.
>> Yeah, >> it seems like everybody's trying to pick a top in this market and I hear a lot of people talking about bubbles and AI bubbles and I've been talking about that too. I'm talking about it in a longer term uh time frame as opposed to being right now. I don't think that's in place just yet, but I think we're we're we're in the making of a potential bubble. If we don't have a good correction, we don't correct, we keep going higher and then everyone throws in the towel and you get that bullishness, that's where I would see I would start talking about the bubble. But usually when there's a bubble, everybody's not talking about a bubble. That's that's part of the definition of a bubble is nobody thinks it's a bubble.
>> So that's why, you know, I have to be careful with that. Plus, here we've got they say the trend is your friend, the Fed is your friend, right? We've got both. The trend is very strong. We have a long-term model, SPY model that's bully 100% uh right now allocation. It went bullish on May 8th, 100% into the spy. There's no signs of that right now um showing any uh raising any cash. You've So, the trend is very strong. The long-term trend is up and you've got a Fed that's bringing rates down in a nonrecessionary environment, which is the strongest scenario. And the fact that the Fed only has to bring rates down, some people are worried that, you know, they only bring them down little little increments, like that's not going to be bullish. Yes, actually is very bullish because if they had to bring them down in big increments, well, that would mean that because they're usually late, that means the economy is in trouble. We're looking at recession and they may have missed the mark. This shows that, you know, it's it we're in that Goldilocks situation where not too warm, not too cold, and they're just making minor adjustments and the economy is ticking along. That's an environment that a bull market can continue. You can keep continue to have a secular bull market corrections are cyclical and the the 12 months uh after the Fed starts bringing rates down in a non-recessionary environment, are are historically very strong.
>> Um, so yeah, you know, as we talk about the Fed, um again the there was no real surprise here in terms of the cut. Um, of course there is this balancing act between inflation and unemployment. Um, and it seemed like it was the bigger concern right now is a little bit more on the labor market. Potential weakness there um as opposed to inflation. So uh does that does that factor in at all for you?
>> The market moves uh the market historically moves inverse to the unemployment rate. So unemployment rate starts going up, market goes down and vice versa. CO and a lot of analysts feel this way that CO distorted some things. I think enough time has gone by where those distortions have worked their way out worked their way through mostly. Everybody said Trump's tariffs were going to cause inflation. They haven't. They haven't. And now rates are coming down and you've got the Trump tariff situation and inflation's not taking off. So that just goes to show you that inflation is not that big of a problem right now. Um, and there's a there's a lot of money slashing around there. I know there's always poor people, there's always rich people, and there's always someone who's going to say it's not good or, you know, it's good, but the a on average right now people are doing my friend just went on a cruise. He said he never saw so many people playing the the high dollar slots and, you know, you just see you go to malls. It was just out of mall, lines out of Louis Vuitton. And these aren't wealthy people. These are normal everyday people. pretty much everyday people, you know, that are, you know, brands are bigger than ever now. Um, and and you know, I don't see I don't see the recession, the depression, the type of environment that, you know, some people are are concerned with right now.
>> Mhm. Yeah. No, that makes sense.
>> Not yet at least. Not yet at least. Well, and and getting back to your point, there is that sentiment um that that sentiment side of things because you mentioned uh very accurately how there is still a lot of fear in this market. So, here we are at alltime highs breaking out into uh all-time highs this week and there's still this huge fear sentiment. Um, so,
>> you know, what are you using?
>> Trying to pick a top here, I think. And that's why I'm careful. you know, I am also, you know, shorting every now and then trying to catch the maybe the high, but I think it would be a cyclical correction. I I don't think we have a a secular bare market in the making, and I don't think a major bare market is in the making just yet.
>> Mhm.
>> What are you using? What are you using as your sentiment indicator, though?
>> So, we follow a whole bunch of stuff. I mean, I use Ned Davis Research and they've been providing a host of readings and all kinds of tea leaves for decades for me. um they calculate a lot of the models that we watch. Um so we watch like there's like 40 sentiment indicators but I really watch like three or four carefully. Um investors intelligence is probably the the one of the best reads of newsletter you know uh uh opinion. Um, you know AI American Association Individual Investors that's one right now that actually um yeah, it's if you look at it, it's come off the highs. Now sometimes the sentiment is right in the beginning when things turn. Um this has happened a few times in the last maybe five or 10 years where you started you before you top sentiment actually turned down ahead of time. Um, so you really, you know, you can't just not, you can't just trust sentiment. Sentiment just gives you sort of a temperature of the market, you know, and and just like a PE ratio, you know, you can't sell a stock because it has a high PE ratio. I bought Yahoo in 1997 at 98 times earnings and the stock went up 8,000% in the next few years. you know, so I bought stocks that were trading at 1500 times earnings and they went up 10fold. Um, and then there's stocks that traded at 10 times earnings and they went to zero. So, you know, that just tells you the temperature. It tells you the expectation. You know, high PE tells you there's something going on and there's a high expectation. Low PE, there's a low expectation. And high pees are usually due to bull markets and low PE to bare markets.
>> Yeah. No, absolutely. You know, Bill O'Neal, founder of Investors Business Daily, used to talk about, look, if you uh if you want a Michael Jordan on your team, you know, he's going to have a high PE ratio. It's uh just pay for it,
>> right? Exactly. Yeah. You don't you don't get uh you don't get value uh you know, with with some of those uh top players. I And I suppose I shouldn't use an old basketball analogy when we're in the middle of World Series, but um, but there it is. Yeah, Palunteer, you know, these companies, Nvidia, Nvidia looked overvalued so many times where not only was the PE high, but it had expanded where you got PE expansion where it doubled and tripled. And I thought, well, it might be over because of that. Then the stock rebased, broke out again, earnings came through, and it it'll the PE works itself out. If the earnings keep coming in and growing really strong, if the earnings are growing really strong, you'd be surprised how how fast a a company that's has a big high valuation uh gets down to a more moderate valuation.
>> That happened, you know, with Cisco. Cisco had 12 or I think it was 16 quarters of tripledigit earnings. I I always tell people, take whatever your business is, let's say you're you're a plumber and you you do $700,000 a year, take double your revenue and your earnings every three months and see where your company would be just in two years. You'd be a multiund million if not a billion dollar corporation, you know. So that's the power of that compounding. If you if you grow your you grow your earnings at that rate, the PE doesn't really matter. That's why you want to gravitate. That was O'Neal's argument. and and and not just argument from his opinion from facts where if you stick with very high growing companies even the CEO himself doesn't know what the earnings are going to be three four quarters out a year two years out so it can't be discounted like the p the market's not efficient when it comes to super fast growth the market is not efficient it that's why a stock can keep going and going and going and going and have this high PE because it's not efficiently priced when you get into something that's a slow grower and the earnings the visibility is very high um and you can you can pretty much figure out what those earnings are going to be three four quarters down the road. Yes. Then it's efficient. The market's efficient. That's why you want to go where the inefficiencies are.
>> Yeah. Well, you know, to that end, uh let's talk about in this market one of the things that was uh really kind of surprising and and again so many speculative names. So I'm just going to throw up uh Regetti as one example. In the quantum computing space, there were a number of these uh you know QBTS. Um, you look at the chart and very powerful chart. These were almost going vertical. Um, most of them had like no no earnings to speak of. Uh so what you know how much are you doing on the chart and how much are you doing on the earnings or do you treat these differently when you're like okay this is a this is a speculative play. I'm going to do something different here. Um, or do you just say oh that's too speculative. I'm not even going to play at all. How do you handle these?
>> I I have I have a term that I use. It's called relative prioritizing, which means that if the technicals are strong enough, then I the fundamentals don't really have they don't have a big say in my decision. Meaning that if you have, in this case, you have a 99 RS. Um, if if the chart is strong, you've got a 99 RS, that's the strongest relative strength you can have. Clearly, something is going on. something is going on and there is an appetite for the stock and it's outperforming virtually everything in the market. So, I'm going to trust that this that the stock knows more than I do about the future and I'll trade that name if it meets the technical criteria, the entry criteria, all the other criteria, the earnings don't matter. Now, if maybe that's a situation where it's not as powerful, but it meets, you know, there's a minimum criteria that I'm that I'm going to I'm going to uh um, you know, require um, then I might want to see more on the fundamentals. Um, and depends on the industry too. So, for instance, you know, if you're a biotech,
>> 70 80% of biotechs don't have earnings. So, you would be you'd miss a lot of the great biotechs if you were looking, you know, using earnings. So, I don't generally look at the earnings for the biotechs. Um, uh, but now if you're looking at a turnaround situation, well now you're going against easy comps. You're going to want very strong quarterly earnings in the most recent couple quarters. So the first thing you have to do is kind of figure out what category the company is and then you can decide how you're going to apply the metrics.
>> Well, and I think this is important because this kind of goes to how you game plan things out. You have a process for everything, right? It's if this then this. If this then this. So, you know, if it fits in this category, here's how I'm going to treat it. And if it's in this category, I'm going to do something different. If the um Yeah. So, there there there's a real value.
>> I mean, optimally, I want everything. I want the 99 I want a 99 relative strength stock that has huge earnings in the most recent few quarters and big sales and great expanding margins that I want it all. But you life's not perfect like that. You'd be missing a lot of other great opportunities, too. You know, with screening, you know, a lot of a lot of uh the viewers are probably using uh market search to screen. You got to realize everybody's worried about having that perfect screen. They put all this stuff in their screen. The problem is if you put a lot of variables in your screen, if you miss on just one of them, it kicks the stock out. So, let's just say you have a hundred things. I got the perfect screen. I'm putting everything in throwing everything but the kitchen sink in that screen. So, you put a 100 items in there. Well, if it misses on one, 99 items are are good, but because of one of the items, you're not going to see the stock. So, I have my screens are actually quite simple. And then I do most of the work manually where I start looking at the earnings and the sales. And now I'm I'm I'm digging in and doing the, you know, doing the homework. But again, you know, if if you know, if the chart is strong enough, then, you know, I'm not worried about the earnings as much. Now, in in um in contrast to Bill O'Neal, and I've asked I've asked uh Webbby this, I've asked David Ryan. I've asked all the people that were closest to O'Neal, and I asked O'Neal himself. So, I heard it from O'Neal, and I heard it from all the guys that worked for him. I always say, "Has he Have you ever seen O'Neal buy a stock that didn't have earnings and sales?" And Mike said one time, and David said, "Never."
>> So, yeah. So, um,
>> and I'm guessing Mike is talking about, uh, back in 2000, the human genome project, I think. So,
>> when that was going on, there were there were some of those. And, you know, he got excited with everyone else like, hey, how can you put a price on the cure for cancer was his famous line.
>> Yeah. So,
>> but even but even Bill, you know, was really requiring to to have the earnings on the table, the sales on the table, and really looking for to get, you know, to get a a really perfect overall picture. And that if you're going now, here's the thing. If if you're short-term trading, I've gravitated more and more to short-term trading over the years. In the beginning, we couldn't short-term trade. It wasn't even possible. You didn't have online trading, a lot of reasons. Um, big commissions. Then over the years as it became possible, I I was able to compound more and turn over the money, turn over the portfolio. So if you're really short-term trading, well then the fundamentals don't play nearly as much of a role. But if you're long holding longterm and you're going to hold through several two, three, four quarters of earnings and then it's a whole different story. Um, you know, to and Bill was playing for much you know, for big moves. He was looking for those really big leaders that go for you know secular move and that's where you yeah you want it all on the table. Now, when you go back, you look at Bill's studies, my studies, all the studies we've done are the greatest winners, um the the grand majority of them, more than 2/3, 70 80% of them have the earnings and sales on the table before they make the big move. So, you really don't have to guess. You could wait for the earnings and sales to be there, except maybe with, like I said, biotech from certain industries.
>> Well, you know, you've talked a lot about the earnings, sales, all these fundamental um aspects. Right now we're in the middle of earning season and I mean you know we've got you know meta earnings I think just came out and it's down uh eight nine% right now. Um, and and the earnings just really can I mean uh David Ryan would call them gold mines and landmines. You're either up 20% or you're down 20%. It sometimes seems like there's very little in between. How do you go about handling earning season um especially with your short-term trades?
>> Yeah. Well, so overnight is where you have the big earnings risk, of course, right? You you hold the stock, it it reports after the close or before the open. Um, Netflix just got whacked, too. So, they're starting to hit some of the stocks. Now, here's the thing you have to remember. You know, with with stocks like Nvidia, Netflix, Amazon, if you look at the institutional sponsorship, the institutional ownership, you're talking about 5,000, 7,000, 8,000 funds that own these. What that mean doesn't mean that the move is over and it doesn't mean that it can't go higher. But what it does mean is there is a lot of ownership. There's a lot of potential supply. So when it does turn bad and I I tell everybody, you know, you got to realize that some people have find it hard to believe that, you know, maybe Amazon or Nvidia or whatever name it is that's these high flyers that you know seem impervious to ever staying down. They will go down. They will go down 70 80 90% and they will stay down for years and years and years and years and maybe even decade decades just like Microsoft did Qualcomm and all the high-f flyers in 2000 20 years it took to get back to even GE um these stocks were down 90% some even more than 90%. Um, I mean, you take a look at Nvidia. Nvidia just was down about 30% correction not long ago. And just prior to that, I don't know if it think it was last year, went from, I think, I think it was 36 down to 10, which was like, you know, a 60% uh, correction that was within its bull market uptrend. Imagine when it tops.
>> It went down 60% in the good time, you know. So imagine when it actually puts in a secular top, you know, it'll be down the average secular leader once it tops goes down 70%. And it's my my 50/80 rule I call it. 50% go down 80%, 80% go down 50%. Um, and they generally stay down for many cycles and they they're not leaders again. Some sometimes never and sometimes it takes a minimum of five years and usually 10 or more. Um, but the answer
>> if they ever come back, right? if they ever come back. Um,
>> to answer your question like how how do you deal with the risk? Well, first of all,
>> um I we look at implied volatility and if and so if you have a stock that trades quite a bit, trades options and it's a bigger name, you're going to get a pretty good idea of what the potential volatility is. Uh we have a formula that we use and then it it'll tell us pretty accurately, you know, this is going to fluctuate 10% in either direction. This is going to fluctuate 6%. And it's a pretty good guide. And if you want to be really, you know, super risk adverse, you could double that, especially in the names that don't maybe don't have as good visibility, you know, double double that number. And that'll give you sort of your worst case scenario. It could be worse, but that generally speaking. Um, so now I have to you know decide if I what position size and, you know, if I want to accept that risk overnight and and that's um, you know, usually the answer is no unless I have a cushion unless I have some cushion in the stock or at least some cushion in the trading where you know I'm I'm dealing with profits and I'm not underwater. I'm not going to start rolling the dice if I'm down. Um, and you know, the the better I'm doing trading the more aggressive I get. the worse I'm doing trading, the more conservative I get.
>> Well, and this is maybe a good time to talk about the fact that you're a lot of times doing that selling into strength so that you can free roll the trade. Maybe explain uh for people that aren't familiar with that strategy, what what you're doing there.
>> I'm almost always selling into strength unless something's going wrong and stock starts coming back on me. Um, you know, I'll back stop sometimes and and put some kind of trail behind it if I want to hold it for a bigger move. But I'm trying to get out when the getting's good and selling into strength. I want to get I want to sell it as the stock's going up. Um, because if I sell into strength and I'm always selling at the highest point of my in my own equity so I don't have any draw down, right? If I'm selling up into the strength, there is no equity draw down because once I'm out of the stock, the stock comes down fine, but my portfolio doesn't come in because I sold into strength. So I don't have much volatility. I don't have much draw down. Um, and that's the secret to not having draw down is to sell them to strength and not hold through through the big girrations. Um, but but and then again, you know, like you said, um, if I have a big position and I'm going into earnings and maybe say it's up 10% and applied volatility says it's going to move 10%. Well, maybe I'll sell half of it or a quarter of it and that will give me some cushion. uh to go into those earnings and then if we get past that storm and uh maybe we buy it back, you know, but but uh certainly, you know, always looking at the risk side of the equation first.
>> Yeah. Do you ever use options to hedge a position? Um, or is that your thing?
>> I don't I don't I don't use options. I think options to for for the 99% of the public are a complete suckers bet. You know, some people can make money. Uh we have a couple of our own members uh our own clients that do really well. Um, but it's very rare. Um, yeah, I I don't I don't gen I don't I don't generally hedge either. You know, I'm not going to like hedge short one position against another. If I'm ever hedging at all, I might short the indexes against my portfolio. Maybe I have a bunch of stocks. Market's getting extended. Stocks are extended. I don't want to start liquidating a bunch of names. So, I'll put a short on and I'll get sort of a, you know, sort of a somewhat of a hedge by default, but usually um every position I take is has to stand on its own its own legs. You know, that has to be shortable on its own. It's not just because I'm offsetting a long.
>> Mhm. And I wanted to get back to something that you you mentioned because um when you when you're talking about the the selling to strength and how that really reduces your draw down. Um, I'm going to you know, do a quick throwback because one of the times you were on the podcast you talked about the the necessity for sacrifice. You know, a lot of people think that they can have it both ways, right? Um, so the other end of that, you know, when you are reducing your draw down, that does sometimes mean that things go up without you. How do you handle that? Uh because again, FOMO is real, right? A lot of people really struggle with, oh, I sold into strength and it just kept going and and I wasn't in it anymore. Um, so how do you deal with that?
>> Well, if you're going to let the result justify the means and you're going to Monday morning quarterback and always look and say, I should have, I could have, I would have, um, you're going to you're going to be have a very tough time being a stock trader and making money because it's not what it's about and you're not going to get the high and that's just not what trading is about. So, to me, I'm just I just want to make a lick on the stock, make more money than I risk, and do it as many times as I have to to get to my goal. It doesn't really I don't care where the stock goes. I'm not it's not an exercise in ego. It's not even an exercise in trying to get the biggest winner. It's just it's just a matter of getting making more on my wins than I lose on my losers. And then it's just a matter of deciding on, you know, what's on the table, what where's the easy money and, you know, how many times can you roll it over. So, and you know, there's a I always say this and I think I I think I borrowed it from Paul Tudtor Jones. um I can't remember at this point, but you're gonna you're gonna buy stocks that go to zero and you're gonna sell stocks that go to infinity. So your your job as a trader is to operate in in the middle of that and to and to cut off that downside and take advantage of as much as you can on the upside, but you're never gonna be able to trade that perfectly. But what you can do is trade perfectly trade your plan.
>> So, and that's the key. I go in with a plan. I trade my plan and my plan is a good plan. It has an edge and I roll that edge over as many times I can. Some people's edge they find it in different places or they find it in different sizes. So somebody may be a long-term investor. Their average gain is going to be much much larger than mine and that means their average loss can be larger to a certain degree to a certain extent. Um, and and their turnover is going to be less. Well, that's the same thing as, you know, if you've got Walmart or you've got a Ferrari dealership. Walmart does a lot more volume, a lot more turnover, but their margins are 1 to 3% and they're doing a lot more business. Stock trading is like just like any other business. It's just a matter of buying merchandise and selling it for a higher price than you paid for it and doing it as many times as you can. I mean, that's what a hamburger shop wants to do, right? They buy I have a friend, he's got a bagel shop. He could tell you the entire bagel what the what every what the pickle cost. That's 3 cents. This is 9 cents. This is 42 cents. The the bagel cost me 89 cents. I sell it for $3 or whatever $189. This is what I make. I make a dollar. He knows it. He has it nailed down. He knows exactly how much it cost and then what he's selling it for. Now, what's the goal? Sell as many bagels as you can. Turn that thing over as many time. Every time you sell it, you're making a buck, right? So, that's trading. I mean that's trading. That's what people people get that they get away from that focus and they start thinking about
>> um the next Amazon.
>> Well, and I think another important point here, Mark Richie II, who is one of your um, you know, proteges, when he was on the podcast,
>> one of our one of our coaches and one of our key people in our company.
>> Absolutely. One of the things he was sharing uh last time he was on the podcast was, you know, he can't even he's like, I can't even tell you what the S&P 500 is up uh for the year because I'm not comparing myself to the S&P 500. I'm comparing myself to am I am I executing my plan. Um, you know, so just as your bagel shop owner knows, you know, everything about his costs, you know, um, you know, sometimes it doesn't it doesn't really help you that much to know everyone else's as well.
>> No, it probably will hurt you. It'll definitely hurt you because it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what your friend's doing or what a fun is doing. It matters what you're doing. And I I can tell you right now when things are really moving fast and I'm trading and and trades are really working and I'm I'm very aggressively, you know, uh uh trading, I can't even tell you what I'm up for the day or what I'm up for the month, you know, I'm just I'm Yeah, I'm just the process is rolling over. I'm buying breakouts. I'm selling. So I'm just Everything's moving so fast and um I'm being so aggressive. I'm really just immersed in the process. And then, you know, the end of the day, you take a look and you see and I'm not really looking at that uh too much. You know, the the the performance uh is just a byproduct of doing the right thing.
>> Mhm. And you know, since I brought up Mark Richie II, as and you mentioned he's one of your coaches, I just want to take a moment to let people know um that you know, we've you know, Market Surge has been uh uh an exclusive sponsor for your Master Trader Program event and this is coming up uh for folks. So, um, yeah. Do you want to talk a little has been the, uh, sponsor now for, I don't know, maybe eight years.
>> Um, Mark Richie is my Yeah, Mark Richie is my is my co-instructor. And he's wonderful. David Ryan was the co-instructor for a number of years. I think maybe six years. And David Ryan was wonderful. Mark is great, too, because Mark is as close to me as they come and he's as proven uh with what I do because he came to the very first Master Trader program in 2010. We're on our 16th year and Mark Richie came to the very first one with our other assistant uh at our on our desk, Brandon Hedgepath. They both came. Brandon sold his car to pay for it and they ended up taking $50 million uh $50,000, I'm sorry. They took $50,000 and turned it into they manage over 25 million now. Um, and um I hired him, you know, 10 years later. He was a paying customer for 10 years for Mini Private Access. Came to the first Master Trader program and several others after. And now he's been part of the company for a number of years now, both of them. And uh he's my co-instructor. So it's next week and it's coming up. Just realized that. Yeah, it's coming up uh 8th and 9th, 15th, 17th. It's five days. Um, and uh, the workbook says 500 pages, but I think it's now over 600. And we I started that workbook, it was like 160 pages the first year, and then I was like, "Okay, well, I can't make this go higher than 200 pages." And then it went to 250. I'm like, "All right, no more than 300 pages." It's like It's like 600 pages plus now.
>> Yeah.
>> So, there's a lot of material. Lot of material. It is the most
comprehensive, uh, uh, learning experience that you'll ever encounter. And, and, and, you know, we've got just incredible, incredible alumni and, and, uh, and members that have done well. The US Investing, uh, just wanted to point out real quick because Norm Zeta just, uh, asked me to do an interview with them. I just got his email today, and, um, Norm is the founder of the US Investing Championship, right? And we just had the, the, uh, the nine-month results, and it was like, first, second, third, fifth, sixth, and seventh were all our customers, you know, that, and then it's 457 people in the, in the contest. Uh, like, you know, five of the top six or six out of the top seven are all, all my clients. So, we just wanted to give a shout out to everybody. What a great, great job. And almost every one of them came to this event.
>> Yeah. And we just had, actually, uh, Leos, uh, Makulka from the Czech Republic. Uh, he, he was on IVD Live, um, just this last Friday. Great guy. Great guy.
>> Yeah. Talking about his experience. And, um, a lot of people do talk about it being kind of like drinking from a fire hose. There's a lot of information. Um, what would you say, >> is kind of that difference that you see from, like, a Mark Richie, who, you know, comes and, and sits down and watches your, your program? um, or a Leo, or some of these investing champion members. What do you think is the difference between those that take that information and really kind of run with it to have these phenomenal results?
>> Well, unlike sports, where you need a certain degree of genetics, like some people are literally just gifted athletically, you know, even though it doesn't necessarily make you, some of them fail, and, and you get people that aren't as gifted, but you do have to have some athleticism. With trading, it's really not like that. Like, you're not born. As Peter Lynch said this. As a matter of fact, one of my very good friends just met Peter Lynch on the streets of Boston the other day, and he sent me a picture with him, and it was amazing. He looked exactly the same as the cover of his book. And I don't look the same as the cover of my book. I was like, how did he do that? Uh, but, um, some people think I lost my hair from trading, but it's actually my daughter. That's what did that. Yeah.
So, um, unlike, you know, sports, I mean, you, you don't need to have certain born innate skills. You know, it's learned. But the one thing that is the same, and it's the same with sports, it's the same with everything, is that the discipline and sticking to a process and committing to a style is what I see the difference. You know, um, Mark Richie and Brandon have are doing the same thing as they were doing 16 years ago when they came to the first Master Trader Program. They left and they said, "This is the way. This guy's got a way. I, I like this. This way." I mean, Mark Richie's father is Mark Richie Senior, who was in Market Wizards, and his, and his uncle is Joe Richie, who was in, I believe, the second Market Wizards, or maybe it's vice versa. It might be vice versa. Joe's in the first one, but both of his, his family, um, are in the Market Wizards books. So, if anybody's like, genetically gifted, it might be Mark Richie. But then you have Brandon. Like I said, Brandon sold his car to come into to the event, and by no means was wealthy, and, um, and was just a young kid. Um, and he's amazing, too. You know, and there's so many people from all around the world. Not to mention that, you know, a lot of these, uh, people that are doing so well and win the US Investing Championship aren't even in the US.
>> Right?
>> Yeah. And they're trading the US markets in other countries. Some are trading part-time while they hold jobs. You know, you hear all these excuses of why you can't do it. Well, there's a lot of people that are doing really well that have, they're more handicapped, you know, as far as their situation than maybe you are. Um, but the one thing that I noticed is they're all disciplined, and that they make a commitment to a style. They don't have style drift. You know, when something isn't working, then they change and they change and they change, and keep looking for that lottery ticket or that hot strategy. And same thing with me, you know, I, I went, I, I met David Ryan, Bill O'Neal in the 80s. Um, I said, you know what, this, this cutting losses, uh, buying the winners, um, using, you know, strength begets strength, certain characteristics, you know, that I, I just bought into, and I never, ever changed. I didn't, when it didn't work for me, because I lost money for almost six years. I didn't make any money for five and a half years. I didn't quit. I didn't say, "Okay, well, I'm gonna try value." You know, I'm gonna try options. I did try options in the very, very beginning, but like I said, once I found a, a, an approach that made sense to me, I took responsibility and I dedicated myself to it, knew that I was the one that. It's like, you know, you go, you want to be a baseball player, and you go play baseball, and you get up to bat, and you're going to blame the bat, you know?
>> Right?
>> It's not the bat.
>> You know, it's you. It's, you know, you're going to, you're shooting sport. I, I, I shoot for competition. I'm going to blame the gun. You know, people go, "Oh, this gun's not right. I, they give me the gun. I shoot it. Shoots perfect. Here, it's you." You know, but you just because you're not skilled yet. You have to take time. You have to learn that that particular strategy. And it takes time. Takes a lifetime to master one strategy. You're not going to master a bunch of them. I can tell you that.
>> Well, and I think it's also worth mentioning that, um, you know, I guess one of the frustrating parts sometimes is when you make that commitment, is it's not going to be working all the time, right? Strategies take turns. You know, it's, every, every dog has his day, and, you know, sometimes your strategy will be out of favor. And that's where a lot of times people will give up and just say, "Oh, well, forget it. This strategy, you know, it doesn't work or it's not working." So,
>> well, they'll say, "I'll do this and I'll move back to this." But that usually isn't. That's that's where you should be doing your homework and post analysis and really refining things. And there the downtime is important. It doesn't mean you change strategies. It means you, that's where you have self-reflection and a lot of other things you do. Um, and look, if, if a strategy worked all the time, I'd be a trillionaire. Um, I can assure you that. So, it's long periods of time where you go where you, where you can, you know, lose faith and say, "Oh, this doesn't work anymore." But usually, when you, by the time you just about get convinced of that, that's where the turn comes, and everybody throws in the towel. Yeah. O'Neal said something, and I, I've been using it ever since, and it's the greatest, it's the greatest, one of the absolute greatest things that ever came out of anybody's mouth about trading, because it is so true, and that is he said, "While you're doing nothing," and I, I've paraphrased it and kind of made it a little bit, add it a little bit, but essentially, "while you're doing nothing, less disciplined and less skilled traders are laying the foundation for your for your success." Those bases, those shakeouts, all that volatility that ends up turning into that nice tight buy point. Those are, those are all trading decisions that are being made by less disciplined, less skilled, uh, um, uh, uh, even just different strategies. And that's all that is part of the makeup of just like you, who you are today. Everything good and bad that happened in your life is what made you who you are today. Same things with a stock. So, you've got to stay true so that when it gets to that point where all that culminates to that buy point, you're there. You're there. You're there to to see it and take advantage of it, because you don't know when that pitch is going to come across the plate. You just have to keep staying to the process and being ready for that pitch to come across the plate.
>> And I think this really comes back to a point that you made earlier about that discipline. You know, when you have that discipline to know, okay, I'm not going to, I'm not going to swing at anything. um, right? You know, and that, that, that saves you from so much trouble, right? And that's how you minimize your risks, you know, minimize your losses, minimize your drawdowns, and all of those things that can really make such a big difference in your portfolio.
>> A baseball, yeah. If a baseball player is getting pitches that are way outside the plate that he can barely reach with the bat, is he going to swing at it because he gets fed up or or he loses patience? Of course not. You have, you, you have to wait until the pitch comes into your strike zone. This is the thing that almost every trader at some point abandons.
>> Mhm. Yeah.
>> I don't abandon it. I, I, I don't. I'm, I'm religiously disciplined.
>> Right. And year you're year you're year you're year you're year you're year you're year you're year you're year you're year you're year in year out. It's, it's not that.
>> How long are you going to wait? How long would you wait? How long would you sit there on your hands? How long would you wait if you, if trades weren't working? As long as it takes. That's my answer.
>> Wow. That's a, I think a great place to end right there. Uh, Mark, really appreciate it.
>> It is. Yeah. You know what I mean? Again, you know, it's, it's, uh, we, we keep it under an hour, and, uh, or actually, we're supposed to keep it under 45 minutes. But, um, yeah, my producer is always like, when I go over 45, he's like, "Come on." But, you know what? Um, here, here's, here's what I, I want to do, because a lot of times people, uh, do want kind of a stock idea. So, um, maybe you can end with one stock idea. uh, something that you've been, uh, looking at, uh, in particular.
>> Yeah, I mean, a lot of stocks are up here. I mean, Intel looks interesting on how it just got really strong here. Um, you know, Tesla, a lot of people are starting to talk about Tesla now. It's a big giant company, handle with a very deep base, about 55, 57%. Maybe, maybe Tesla. Palantir, of course, is getting extended here, but it's coming out of another base. Uh, AVGO, I'm up about 30% on it. I'm actually looking to maybe sell. But, um, a couple names I've been looking at recently, CRDO, uh, Reddit, maybe, maybe Reddit sets up another base. It's starting to, you know, try to trough out here. Um, you know, I was looking at Madrigal, but it had a bad day today, but I think it recovered. Um, it has an interesting story there. Um, let's see what else. At some point, Coin and maybe Bitcoin, you know, will set up. I would definitely be playing a setup in Bitcoin if, if we got a setup. Gold, I think it may go further. Um, we're at inflation adjusted, we're at basically the $800 an ounce top that when we topped back in '80, or around '80, whenever it was around that time. I remember that time when I was young, but I remember it. Um, people were grabbing gold chains off of people's necks in the streets. It was like everyone's going crazy. And my friend who owned the jewelry store said it's very much like that. People are coming in selling all their gold. So, I think if gold was to go higher from here, I, I would sell into it. Um, you know, but it, but it's definitely very, uh, getting very euphoric now. Um, so those are some names. I'm trying to see if there's anything else. Um,
>> yeah, I'd say that's, that's, you know,
>> that's, that's plenty. That's plenty. So I think, uh, you know, uh, and as a reminder for folks, um, you have to not just take, uh, ideas that Mark throws out there and, um, say, "Oh, well, Mark said," because, as you mentioned, like with Broadcom, and I do have a position in Broadcom, you're up 30%. You might be looking at selling, uh, selling into strength there, um, whereas someone who's starting right here, while it's, uh, a perfectly good base, um, they're in a very different position than you are with your 30% gain. So, um, you have to make the trade your own and not just say, "Oh, well, Mark said."
>> And I sell early all the time, so you can't judge me. I sell stock. I took a five-point gain off of Cisco, off of the IPO base, and it went up 70,000% after that. So,
>> Right. Yeah. But you did okay. Uh, over, I made over seven, I made over 700,000% on my money over a lifetime. So, yeah, I did good trading. But, yeah. So, all right. Well, appreciate you having me. I hope this has been helpful for everyone. And hopefully, uh, we, for those of you, uh, that haven't come to the Master Trader Program, maybe you want to come again. We'll, we'll see you next week.
>> Yes. And, uh, we, we should mention because, uh, again, it was on the slide, but just in case, uh, folks missed that, I'm going to share it one more time, uh, so that where, where do people go for information on that? Uh, for stocktraders.com. That's the number four, um, right here, uh, at the bottom, number four stocktraders.com.
>> Mini.com too, you can.
>> Yeah, or mini.com. And hey, you're a great follow. You're always sending out a lot of great information for, for folks, um, so the Mark Mini, uh, on X is also a great follow there, uh, for more information, as well as your books. Um, all, all of your books are definitely worth, worth, uh, reading.
>> That's right. If you, if you can't, you know, afford to to go to the Master Trader Program, or you, you know, for $29, you can get a lot of information from the books, and they're, and completely homogeneous with Bill's books, too. I would recommend all Bill O'Neal's books, um, and the Market Wizards books, and my books, and you really don't need any more than that. That's pretty much all you need.
>> Yeah. And, uh, by the way, I just want to mention to you, a lot of people in the comments, um, are saying how, yeah, you know, they, they, they might have been a little hesitant the first time they went, but then it's like, oh, well, this is an easy decision now because they, they saw results. Though, um, great job. And, uh, again, I appreciate how much you give to people in terms of education and and knowledge all the time, Mark. Really appreciate that.
>> Well, I love seeing, I love seeing people succeed, and if I can be a little part of it, that would, that's awesome.
>> Thank you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
>> Absolutely. That's going to wrap it up for us this week. Thank you so much for watching. And next week, we're going to have Joe Maza back on the show. He is from Charles Schwab. He's their head of trading and derivatives strategies. So, uh, we often get a lot of like different option strategies from him and stuff. Uh, so it'll be great to talk with Joe again. Uh, thank you so much for watching. Uh, don't forget to subscribe and like on the, uh, YouTube channel. Um, or you can always check us out at investors.com/mpodcast for more of those, uh, podcasts that we've been doing every week here. And hopefully, we will see you next week live at 5:00 PM on Wednesday, as we typically do. Have a great weekend, everybody. Take care.