THIS is why today was choppy... transcript

What's up, everyone? All right. So, this morning was really tricky. We had a number of round trips. We had stocks that popped up on breaking news, came all the way back down in spite of the news, which is I mean it's not totally unusual. This does happen. It's kind of a symptom of two things. Number one, attention right now has been focused on Chinese stocks with no news. And so, a stock with news is kind of being disregarded because it's not Chinese and it has news, right?

So, that feels backwards. And some of these headlines read well. It seemed like these are good catalysts. I'm stepping up to the plate, and then I'm shocked that we're not getting this continuation and follow-through. So, on the one hand, we are getting a little bit of volume because, yeah, it's it's a news headline. It's a good headline. The stock pops up. But then, it's quickly flushing. And I think that short sellers are being aggressive shorting things that are outside of the theme, which is no news Chinese stocks.

So, they're not touching the no news Chinese stocks cuz they're getting wrecked on those. But they are trading to the short side of sort of everything else that's a distraction. The problem with that is that what happens when you short a stock that comes out with news, and the news is so good that other traders really do start to pick up on it, and the stock becomes the leading gainer and is the next one to go up 3 4 500%?

Well, you have a short squeeze. But that didn't happen today. It's Friday. It's the end of the week, and clearly the sentiment was weaker. So, let's go ahead and jump on the screen share and start breaking it down. Uh I just watched this stock CJMB uh reverse into a halt down. Uh so, we're seeing halts to the downside today, not to the upside. We had uh JEM. This one halted to the downside, as well. Uh you know, this is the one actually we had a trade on it yesterday.

It had popped up uh from four up to 682, then pulled back, then came back up after hours, pulled back, popped up pre-market to 746, dipped down as it curled back up here, I thought, all right, that's the level. You know, can we get over seven and then through the pre-market high of 746? Nope, couldn't do it. Ended up reversing, halting down. VIVK, this one was a continuation setup. Well, kind of a bounce off the low.

So, the issue with this one was we had this big move a couple days ago, uh but it came all the way back down, popped up yesterday, pulled back. And yes, it's been generally trending a little bit back higher, but I just felt like it was in the shadow cast by this big move here, and that there might be bag holders. So, not surprisingly, this one popped up and reversed, didn't end up working. Then we had AMIX this morning.

This one pops up, reverses. Yesterday they had a headline about a patent. So, I was like, all right, patent headline, I don't know. This morning they have a headline, um you know, again, preclinical study, but that's the headline. It squeezes from 350 up to 544. I'm like, okay, that's a big move, and then flushes right back down. So, that one didn't work. Um RADX, this one popped up on the scanner, immediately flushes, rallies back up a little bit, but not that much.

SkyQ, this one was on the scanner. A little bit of continuation, then flushing. ADVB, this one was on the scanner, a little continuation on light volume, and then flushing. So, we had an issue today of dispersed attention. Traders focusing on a number of different stocks, and usually when that's the case, it it doesn't work out really well. Um it's always better when we have all eyes on one particular stock. So, if we go back to the very beginning of the morning, LVWR was our first uh and leading gainer, a little bit cheaper, no trades on that one.

Then we had AKAN, a little more expensive, lighter on volume, and then VIVK hit the scans. WLDS hit the scans, that failed. OCG, this is a Chinese stock at the scans. That one failed. So, we really didn't have anything to work with um Z C M D coming in uh towards 7:00 a.m. So, 7:00 a.m. Uh you know, basically I'm sitting tight and I don't end up taking my first trade until all of a sudden we get E X Y N on the scanners.

Now, E X Y N really surprised me that it didn't work. I really thought this was going to work. I stepped up to the plate with a bigger position on it. The reason I did that was because it had blue sky at 7:20. Typically, a somewhat recent IPO that comes out with news and has the highest volume day ever performs better than this. I'm really surprised. It ends up going from three up to five and coming all the way back down to three.

So, that was my first trade of the day. Now, I took a big position. I added it and scaled into it. And as you can see here, I was able to get out without too much damage. I mean, this is 900 bucks. But, I was unrealized nicely in the green and I didn't lock up any of it right here. And this could have easily, if I took the approach of holding for a bigger move, which I sometimes do, uh that obviously would not have worked at all on this setup cuz it just ended up coming all the way back down.

So, that was really discouraging. You know, we had what seemed like a decent headline and it failed. We had the same thing on um A M I X. You know, we had a headline and it failed. And then we had um M S S, which hit the scanners. And this one, a sub 1 million share float, recent reverse splits. I thought, you know, this is the right type of stock and you've got a catalyst here. So, all of a sudden this one starts to pull away and I'm like, all right, it's game time.

I jump on it. And if you watch the small account recap, you'll know that I'm red in the small account, which is super annoying. Um you know, but but it is what it is. And so, on this one, I I didn't get in till fairly high. I was waiting for it to really prove itself, but I got in in this area here. We got this squeeze up and then we had this pullback right here. So we had this push higher than this pullback. And so I was able to jump in and out of it with a fairly big position and I locked up 7 grand on it, but I had to jump in and out very quickly.

Now, here's the issue. I like thinkorswim. I like it for the small account challenge. I I've used I've traded it. I mean, you guys have watched me trade do a number of challenges in it and use it for my big accounts as well. And my issue with thinkorswim is that when the market is hot, you can get great fills and you can do really well and you can make a lot of money. And when the market is cold, I find that I get really bad fills.

I got a lot more slippage. I can't get in and out. And so in my Lightspeed account, I can be much more nimble. I can jump in, I can jump out, book the profit. But in the thinkorswim accounts, I just feel like the issue has always been that when the market's hot, yeah, I can get in and out, but I feel like it's a little sloppy. Like my it's not precise. It's kind of like, you know, carving a I don't know, a steak or a turkey with a butter knife.

Like it works. Maybe that's not the best example, but you know, it it it works, but in in areas where you need to be precise, it it just doesn't quite keep up. And so today was the day where it it wasn't able to keep up. And as a result, I didn't perform well over there and I'm I'm a little bit bummed out and so that's where I'm kind of feeling a little bit deflated at the end of the week. You know, we had a hot week.

We had some good action earlier in the week and then yesterday was cooler and then today things kind of fell apart. And we didn't get good follow through on anything. We didn't get a leading gainer that was clean at the open. We didn't get multiple halts. We just, you know, we've just gotten chop. I mean, now you do have OMH, but you know, I mean, I don't know. I guess this is what people are focusing on, but uh I'm not going to I'm not going to jump in this.

I worry about these having risk um especially when they go from a penny stock like this um a below a dollar they risk of a T12 halt halted pending a you know review by regulators. So, or the exchange. So, I'm just whatever. It is what it is. Today was not super clean. Um would rather have a slow week that finishes strong than a strong week that finishes slow cuz finishing slow is just not the most like confidence building way to finish the week, but look it is what it is.

You know, I mean you nothing you can do about that. Just the way the market is. The biggest thing that I could have done differently was cooled off a little bit today, which is what I kind of planned to do. Um but instead as I saw things moving I gave into FOMO and was like, oh here we go. This is the next one. We've had big momentum this week. Yesterday was a a really solid green day even though things didn't continue later in the day.

It was good pre-market. So, I thought maybe today would be the same and it really wasn't. So, um you know, but again big picture. I've got more money than I had at the beginning of the week. Making progress. So, life is good. Can't really complain. Today is a green day. You know, I I just um look it is what it is. So, I'll be back at it first thing tomorrow morning or sorry Monday morning. Uh hopefully we have some you know good opportunities next week and um you know, look the next stock that ends up squeezing up you know two three four five hundred percent is just going to sort of reignite all that FOMO that's been in the market that's been uh creating these big moves.

It's been putting short sellers on notice and making them nervous to short anything. Um but you know, it seems like today they had a little bit more confidence on the um US companies with news, which again seems quite silly, but that's the state of the market that we're in here today. So, with that I'll remind you as always easy come easy go. Trading is risky. My results aren't typical, so please manage your risk, take it slow.

I have a risk tolerance that's different from the others perhaps out there and perhaps you. So, you may see me have big green days, big red days, you know, the ups and the downs are all at a bigger scale when you trade a bigger size. So, for you, it's really important to practice in a simulator before putting real money on the line. Take it slow and live to trade another day. All right. So, if you're making progress, if you can be green, you know, if not day over day, if at least week over week, month over month, you're doing something right.

So, take it slow and I'll see you guys back at it bright and early on Monday morning.