Transcript

Clay: This is a Stock Trading Reality Podcast, episode 252.
Announcer: This is the Stock Trading Reality Podcast, where you get to see the realistic side of a traders journey. Get inspired and stay motivated by every day normal people who are currently on their journey to trading success. And this is your host, his wife and him make a killer fowling team. Clay Trader.
Clay: First let me establish what fowling actually is. I don’t know if this part is true so don’t hold me to it, but I think it was invented in the state of Michigan over in Detroit, but fowling is a combination of bowling and then football. So you have the pins that you would normally not go over with a bowling ball, but except you have to use a football and I think the distance is right around 20 yards or so that you throw it. But that’s the goal. It’s just the first team to knock over all their pins with the football ultimately wins. And then all the pins are set up on a corn hole board or some people call it, I guess bean bags. It seems like it kind of depends where you live in the country, what state you live in. Some people call it corn hole, some people call it bean bags, but it’s the 10 pins are set up on the corn hole board. So it’s got a slant to it. And then yeah, you just sit there and throw footballs at it, and the first one and knock them all down wins.
Clay: And as far as my wife and I, apparently we make a very good team and we’re kind of specialist at this. Recently the young couples at my church, and I say young loosely, I don’t know, is 36 still young? My wife and I were having this discussion. At what point does this become creepy? So I determined that when I turned 40 that would be creepy because at least right now I can say I’m in my thirties hanging out with other people in their thirties hanging out with other people in their upper twenties. So at least at this point, but as soon as you say, “Yeah, I’m in my forties and I’m hanging out with people in their twenties” I don’t know, I feel like that’s probably creepy, but that’s a whole nother fun fact, a whole nother conversation. But I don’t know, what are your thoughts on that. I don’t know, reach out to me, is this creepy, is this messed up? People, I don’t think that they think it’s awkward, but anyways.
Clay: So part of this was, and Nate, the show producer, he’s the techy guy behind the scenes at ClayTrader.com, make sure everything functions, but because he’s techy, him and his wife were also there, so he had found some sort of bracket app, or I don’t know what it was, so he set up a bracket. I want to say we had 10 couples there. And my wife and I, yeah, we, team after team, just worked our way through the bracket. And my wife ended up winning it all for us, she knocked over the last pin. But bless my wife’s heart, she had no idea that we were even in the championship game, and I’m like, “Oh yeah. Great job, yeah, yeah, yeah.” And few moments later, “Oh wait, that was the championship?” “Yeah, we just won it all.” “Oh I didn’t know that.” Well that’s probably why she was doing so good because she had no pressure on her shoulders, while I’m over there sweating bullets, my competitive nature just fully came out and I want to win. But she, just cool as a cucumber, knocked it over, got us victory.
Clay: So yeah, when it comes to fowling, yeah, my wife and I, we make a killer team. So watch out, just tread carefully if you’re going to challenge us, because we’ll bring it. But I don’t know if fowling, if it’s just in Michigan, I have no idea. But it’s fun, so it might be worth running a Google search for it, seeing if anything pops up around you. Or just, hey, come to Michigan, we’ll do some fowling together. My wife and I, we’ll just wax the floor with you, and send you on your merry way. And it’ll all be a good time. But yeah, I would definitely recommend checking it out if it happens to be around you.
Clay: As for our guest, we are talking with, it feels like a long time member, but I don’t think it’s been that long. But he is active, Gain Green is his name in the chat room, and then Ken is his actual name. But Ken has gone through quite a bit, and he’s still grinding, he’s still trading. And he’s got a nice little approach that I dig into, so he’s paper trading, but he’s doing some real money trades. So we go through a couple of those different, okay, well what qualifies for this, what qualifies for that.
Clay: And then there’s also some little hiccups that he’s experiencing, so I give him some thoughts, and we kind of think out loud and go through some things and try to come up with some potential solutions. So I’m very confident there’s going to be something for everybody here because we go from options in penny stocks to micro futures and Robinhood, to thinkorswim and everything in between. So there’s definitely a good variety. It’s been a great journey so far and one that’s, like I said, I’m very confident there’s going to be something for everybody. So without further ado, let’s hear about Ken and his journey.
Clay: Ken, welcome to the show.
Ken: Thank you Clay. How are you doing?
Clay: I’m fantastic, how are you?
Ken: I’m doing great, man. Excited to be here.
Clay: I’ve got to be honest, though. I may fluctuate back and forth, I may be calling you Gain, because in my mind-
Ken: Right.
Clay: … well for listeners sake, Gain Green is his chatroom alias-
Ken: Yes.
Clay: And depending on kind of a lot of people, I don’t equate them with their real name, I equate them with their alias. So for listeners out there, if just say Gain all of the sudden, I’m talking about Ken. Ken, Gain, Gain Greens, Ken, they’re all one and the same person. So Ken I’m not going to throw you off if I do refer to you as Gain, am I?
Ken: No, but I’m glad you brought that up, is that a mouth full? Is Gain Greens, is it a mouthful?
Clay: Yes, when I say it, it is. But usually I don’t say it, it’s just in my head. But it’s not like I’m sitting here, reply Gain Greens. My wife would really think I’m a psychopath at that point in time. She already thinks that all us traders are weirdos to begin with. But. So yeah, honestly, to answer your question, yes, that is quite the mouthful, but the good news is, I always just say it in my head. But if anything, I’d probably just call you Gain, but I’m going to aim for Ken here.
Ken: Okay.
Clay: It just sounds weird because you are Gain Green with a Tampa Bay… who is the Tampa Bay, it’s the Rays? The Rays.
Ken: Yes, the Rays. Yeah, I’m about an hour from St. Pete here in south Florida. And we’re big baseball fans. My son plays little league, so. And the Rays, it’s a great team for the money that they have allocated for baseball, really competitive. So, yeah.
Clay: Well, as I sit here, well I’m not outside in the 19 degree weather, but as I sit here and look out my window and know that it’s a very brisk and bitter 19 degrees, I’m a little jealous right now. I’ll shoot straight. What’s the temperature like down there right now?
Ken: It was actually hot today, it was in the upper 80’s. Which we had-
Clay: Are you serious?
Ken: Yeah.
Clay: South Florida was in the 80’s today.
Ken: Yeah, it was terribly-
Clay: What?
Ken: Yeah, I work outside for a living and it was terribly hot. Because we had, finally we got our first break of the winter for like two weeks and now we’re back to sweating. But I think it’s supposed to cool off next week, which is good.
Clay: I mean, always look at glass as half full, you could be working outside in 19 degrees and I don’t even know what it was with the wind chill factored in, but.
Ken: Oh yeah, yeah. I’ve got to say-
Clay: I feel zero pity for you, you sound like a high maintenance something right now talking about, oh it was 80 degrees. Yeah, Ken, all right. Well before we go off on who knows what tangent, let’s get down to business here, and talk some trading. So where did all this start for you, where did you hear about the markets? And what happened, what played out that got you to the point where you decided I want to get a little bit more active with this?
Ken: Yeah, so let me start at the absolute beginning. My names Ken, I’m a lineman by trade, work on, build power lines. And a couple of years ago, by default we work a lot of overtime, at one time I had over a thousand hours in a year in overtime. And hey, I make a great living, I can’t complain, but I kind of said to myself, “Hey, what if I took half of these hours and allocated towards something else. Is there an easier way, instead of trading time for money?”
Ken: So my brother and I, we put a little money together. We actually flipped a house last year, but that proved to be even more time, and the return wasn’t stellar. So-
Clay: Sorry to cut you off, did you do a lot of the work yourselves, or were you hiring out contractors?
Ken: It was blended. It was blended.
Clay: Okay.
Ken: But just to give you an idea, like through the middle of it, late October, Hurricane Michael hit. And I left for three weeks, and I’m still managing the flip from my phone. And my brother, we’re working together. And then when I got back, literally, we spend almost every weekend up until January finishing the project. And we sold it in February. So yeah, it was just a crazy amount of hours. Yeah, you get into the money, but then, yeah, it’s a lot of work. And you need a team and so that-
Clay: Well I commend you for actually doing the math. Because a lot of people, and I’m not just talking about real estate, but really anything, they’re like, “Oh wow, I made this amount.” And I’m not trying to be a hater, or anything like that. I’m not sipping on any hater-ade here. All I’m saying is something that would probably be a good measurement of was is actually worth it, is how much time did you have wrapped up into it. Because for all you know, maybe you’re working for like $3.50 an hour. And you, as in you all as a listener.
Ken: I think it was less than that.
Clay: But it sounds like you did that calculation and it didn’t quite hit whatever kind of metrics you were hoping it would hit?
Ken: No, not at all. And hey, of course things went wrong, and we came out okay. Excuse me. But again, I got into the flip, said “Hey, can I take these hours, and can I get this result.” And it didn’t work out that way. Yeah, it’s one time, but I’m still kind of started looking for another vehicle, so to say.
Ken: So we get done with the flip, and a friend of mine comes into work, and he’s kind of playing on his phone, and I asked him, I say, “Hey, what are you doing?” He goes, “I got this Robinhood app.”
Clay: Oh no. No.
Ken: Yes.
Clay: I know this means nothing to you because it hasn’t been released yet. But last week when I spoke with Kevin, we spend quite a bit of time on Robinhood. I was about to cut you off and tell you please don’t tell me he was on Robinhood. But he was on Robinhood. So here’s two weeks in a row now of Robinhood. So sorry to cut you off-
Ken: No, no. That’s fine.
Clay: … but that’s funny how just last week we had Robinhood and here it is again. So all right, your buddy’s on Robinhood, pick it back up from there.
Ken: So he’s Robinhood, and I’m naturally skeptical, and I’m like, “Well what does that mean? You’re trading crypto?” “No, no. So and so made so much money on a pot stock.” And I’m like, “Weeds not really legal.” So a week or two goes by, I finally download it. And I download it, had no clue, I put a few hundred dollars on it. And honestly I can’t believe how lucky I got, because the first few stocks I got… And look back on it, I think we had that correction in late October and I think because the whole market was coming back, the few stocks I had bought went up. PG&E, because I’m in the same industry, so that was one. But I have no idea what a chart looks like or anything like that.
Clay: Is it safe to assume that you’re buying stocks, your quote-unquote scanner strategy was buying companies that you were familiar with. Hence, you’re a lineman, so you got the PCG ticker symbol, is that pretty much what your scanner was? Was hey, I just want stuff that I’m familiar with?
Ken: Well yeah, that was one of them. And friends of mine, they went there and worked and they actually helped with the restoration of the fire. Actually I just got back last month from California. Well, just hey, it’s a big power company, it’ll come back, it was kind of that mentality. But some of the other stocks, I remember I was listening to toxic podcast, and he talked about Plug Power, and that was one of the first tickers I bought. I think I had it at $1.43, when I looked it up recently. I’ve since sold it, a long time ago. But I was like, wow, it’s over three bucks now.
Clay: And same thing with that one? You found it because that’s just something that you’re in that industry?
Ken: Yeah, similar. But when you open that Robinhood app, I distinctly remember looking at penny stocks, you don’t have a lot of money, so you gravitate towards, well I can afford to buy a hundred shares of this. And I just remember looking at the 52 week highs and lows, I was like, oh well, if this is the high and the low, and I’m buying near the low, so I’ll buy that. Honestly it was that simple. Very naive.
Clay: No, I want to make sure I understand though. So you would open up the Robinhood app, and on that app, it’s showing you essentially big gainers, where they’re at 52 week highs and then big losers because they’re down towards the bottom and then you use that?
Ken: Yeah, yeah. But I mean overtime, it evolved a little bit. But that’s just one of the first memories I have. It was-
Clay: I’m laughing, and I’m bringing it up because again you don’t have any reference point because at the time of this recording you have not had the opportunity to listen to the episode that’s going to come before you.
Ken: Right.
Clay: But you literally brought up the same thing-
Ken: Oh geez.
Clay: … about how Robinhood, it’s almost like they almost prey on the new people because they have it all set up where it’s, oh look at these stocks and these stocks. And he made the comment about how I guess once you fund your account, like confetti comes on the screen or something like that.
Ken: Yeah, yeah, super cheesy.
Clay: Yeah, he was not a fan, in hindsight looking back, he was just like, wow, they’re great marketers, but they are a savage, savage company. And what they’re trying to do. And his point was, they don’t even give you the tools to really even be a trader. From my understanding is, not that you would have used it anyways, but they don’t even have candlestick charts or anything, it’s like line charts. So here they are sitting here trying to be some sort of great trading app, yet they don’t even have candlestick charting abilities. I mean, are you serious. But anyways, you definitely have to listen to Kevin’s, because you will understand why I’m chuckling here, because we’re probably going to be accused of scripting this out.
Ken: Right.
Clay: But for listeners, I assure you, I had no idea what Ken was going to talk about. But all right, well you’re using these scanners and you’re… I will say that it makes sense, of course in hindsight, you now know there’s a lot more to it, but hey look, these stocks are at their all time lows or at least 52 week lows, so I mean, they’ve got to go back up because everything goes back up in the market eventually. So buy low, sell high. Oh wow, buy low, sell high, those are low, why not buy? But how’d that all work out for you? I’m assuming your not talking to me from your private island.
Ken: Right, no. Like I said, well honestly, the first couple months, and I really think looking back now, because we had that correction, it was like everything, all boats rise with the tide, everything was coming back up. But yeah, no idea how to look at a chart or none of that. And they would hit some dollar amount and I’d be like, okay well I’m up 50 cents, and I’d be like, okay I’m good with this. So overall I guess I would say I had like an, I call it, actively investing mentality. And didn’t know what trading really is, so that kind of thing, and as time went on, I just got more market curious, I guess you could say. Like why did that do this? And I had a thinkorswim paper account and looking at charts, it looks like somebody kicked over an ant hill or something. Because I have no idea what this stuff means.
Clay: Somebody kicked over an ant hill, that’s good, I like it. I’ve never heard it referred to that. But I like that. But where did TOS, how did you even learn about them as a broker?
Ken: Well, let me think, thinkorswim. Maybe in the chatroom, or I really can’t recall.
Clay: Okay. So let’s take a step back, at this point in time, when you’re doing all this Robinhood stuff, you’re a member of the chatroom?
Ken: Yeah, yeah. Like I said-
Clay: Oh. Okay.
Ken: Yeah, I was getting more market curious, and just trying to get as much information as I could and trying to figure this stuff out. My wife accuses me of like, hey when you get into something, you just latch on the-
Clay: Oh, you have an addictive personality, like I do.
Ken: Yeah. I’ve to know everything.
Clay: Okay. Let me get a little context here. So you decide you want to open up a Robinhood account because you saw that buddy and all that. At that point in time, you were not a member of the community, right?
Ken: No, no. It was a good, I want to say six months, before I joined CTU, or ClayTrader.
Clay: Okay. So you got Robinhood, and you’re doing all this buying low, and like you said, you happen to get lucky and stuff like that, which is fine. You just happen to be at the right place at the right time, all that. So that whole period that we just went through was about six months?
Ken: Yeah, yeah. I’d say so, yeah, six months.
Clay: And then you decided, you know what, I’d like to start to learn more, so you got a little bit curious. And then at that point, is that where you stumbled upon the Inner Circle community?
Ken: Yeah. Watching YouTube, I’d seen you and other people and I don’t remember which video it was, but I was like, I really like this guy right here, he’s not preaching Lambos, models and bottles. I mean, sounds pretty down to earth and common sense. So I signed up for just the Inner Circle at first. And I remember sitting in my truck and people were making alerts, and I turned to my buddy, I was like, “Do you know what this stuff means?” He was like, “I have no idea what that is.” I’d be looking on Robinhood or something like that, and yeah. So my ears perk up, I’m like, there’s way more to this than just this dopey Robinhood app.
Clay: Yeah, no. I can see that. This stuff clearly means something, but it’s like a whole nother language to me, and being like you said, you’re a curious person, it makes a whole lot of sense to see how you’d be like, now I’m just that much more curious, I want to learn more. So my question, this buddy I would assume is he, quote-unquote a trader, or is he involved in the markets, or is he the buddy that had the Robinhood app originally?
Ken: No. Well, this is not too long, I’ll try to make it short, but he-
Clay: No, that’s all right, we like stories, it doesn’t matter.
Ken: Okay, okay. Well you’re really going to like this one.
Clay: If it takes the rest of the podcast, then you’ll just come back for part two, it’s not a big deal.
Ken: Okay. All right. No problem. So maybe a what not to do. He sunk about over $10,000 into one of these, he fell victim to the Robinhood penny stock stuff, and this certain stock just went through a reverse split. And I think he’s down about 7 grand. So. But honestly, going through the classes and we talk about it on the web, he’s like, hey there’s something over here to point you in the right direction. It’s one of these weird things when you talk to people, you know that old joke, the wife and husband, the husband don’t want to pull over and ask for directions. I feel like that’s what it is, people just don’t want to pull over and say how do I get to destination X over here? You know what I mean?
Clay: That’s a good analogy.
Ken: Yeah, we all have smartphones now, it just tells you were to go, but still. Him and another friends of mine, yeah, it’s a weird thing. To each his own, I guess.
Clay: Yeah, at the end of the day, you can only do so much. People are going to do what they want to do. And it is what it is. All right, now that I have the reference point, so you stumbled upon the videos, you tried the Inner Circle, you’re like, what are these people talking about. And at that point in time when you’re in the Inner Circle, were you still trying to trade the alerts? What exactly was your trading at that point? Or were you still buying the 52 week lows and stuff like that?
Ken: Yeah. No. I don’t recall trying to trade the alerts. Actually, I do recall, you did alert FuelCell, I don’t know if you remember. And at that time, I think I’d started RvR Trading and the Skill Sharpening, so the charts and some of the stuff started to make a little sense. And so I’m sitting there, I carry a tablet with me to work, and I’m still on Robinhood, and one day in particular, it was just raining so we really couldn’t do much, and there was a FuelCell alert. And some of these charts and lines are starting to make sense, I’m like, if I buy right here, okay yeah, that looks pretty good.
Ken: So I bought it. And then it starts going up, and in the middle of this thing, I think it was on a two minute chart, I’m like, wait a minute, I’m supposed to know when to sell that. And then I flip over to the data chart, I was like, oh no, it’s slamming right into the 200 SM8, and I was like, hit the button, I’m out. And it was like a $300 profit. But that’s the one I kind of distinctly remember. But other than that-
Clay: How did that feel though? Because you actually sounded like a pretty decent trader there. I mean maybe in hindsight it wasn’t perfect, but I sense some multiple timeframe analysis, you started on the two minute, then you flipped to the daily and you noticed oh wow, there’s something there I need to take note of, and I mean I don’t know if that was exactly perfect, but that actually sounded halfway… Did that kind of spur on some confidence then?
Ken: I mean, yeah. It was like, hey this stuff works. There it is, it just ran right into big resistance, and you got out. And it was funny, my foreman was sitting in the truck next to me, he’s like, “Don’t sell yet, don’t sell yet.” I was like, “No, no, I’m good.” Maybe I was up a hundred bucks at this point. And kind of with Robinhood, you can really only trade one way, not talk about options so much. Because you can’t short. So maybe somewhere along the line I might have trained myself to hop in and out of MOMO’s a little bit, kind of like that. I was a little bit used to it, looking at that type of pattern. But yeah, immediately when I bought, I was like I’m supposed to know where I’m supposed to sell and kind of flip over to that daily chart, and hit the button. And it instantly dropped, instantly dropped after I hit that button.
Clay: So the only thing was, which now I’m sure you’re well aware of, you should probably have more of a better idea of where you would want to potentially sell, at least lock in some profits before you buy.
Ken: Yeah, yeah. Know where you’re supposed to sell before buy, have a plan.
Clay: Yeah, there you go. Well good. But still, nobody’s saying a perfect trade, you didn’t proclaim it to be a perfect trade, but it sounded-
Ken: No, no. Like I said, really lucky.
Clay: Well, kind of. I mean where you said it just dropped was not a random spot, that wasn’t just random on your part, there was some rhyme and reason to all of that. So. But yeah, it wasn’t the flawless trade, but it had potential. All right, so this is going on, so it sounds like you were trading while you were going through the ClayTrader University courses?
Ken: Yeah, yeah. I’m 35 years old, I know how I learn things, you’re going to have to explain something to me probably 10, 20 times before I get. So I just did RvR and did the first couple of courses over and over. And I just wanted to, I’m taking it seriously, I want stuff to stick. Like we talked about in the beginning, after seeing people in the chatrooms, and things like, wow, this really could be a business. And you know you hear things like that, I’m still looking for that vehicle, back to what we were talking about earlier. It was like, hey, I just made $375 in, I think it was 10 minutes. I mean that’s a powerful thing. I don’t know any other business in America, well obviously maybe some big corporation does that. But I’m sitting here on my phone, just made 375 bucks in 10 minutes, that’s great.
Clay: And I figured that would come up somewhere along the line, because you’re somebody, from that real estate story, clearly understands that something you should be doing is always factoring in time and money, was it actually worth my time.
Ken: That’s the big thing.
Clay: And for me, that’s a great perspective builder because to hear you say all that, on the days where I sit here, I’m like, man I only made 200 bucks, I always have to take a step back, like wait a second Clay, you made quote-unquote only $200 working from home in your underwear, maybe not quite my underwear, but working from home in my underwear pressing buttons online, so let’s keep things in perspective. So that’s a trick for you as listeners, that’s a great way for you to build a perspective. Is if you’re not happy with some sort of gain, think about well how long did that gain actually take? And even if it was 50 bucks for a day, think about that. You made 50 bucks in one day for pressing a button and then that’s pretty much it. I mean, so that’s a great… I’m glad you’re kind of cut from that same cloth.
Ken: Yeah, absolutely.
Clay: Yeah, for you listeners out there, that’s a great little Jedi mind trick you can play on yourself that’ll keep things in perspective for you. So I mean did you have any sort of massive blowups or anything during these early parts? Or was it pretty much… because a lot of people sometime are like, oh and I lost that account. But it sounds like you didn’t necessarily have any big drama, or have you just not gotten there?
Ken: No, no. Nothing really huge. I feel like a pretty good decent… I see if something looks like a good deal and something’s not, I guess that’s how I want to say it. No. I did catch a falling knife once, and I might have lost 200, maybe $300. But again, kind of going back to I kind of got lucky, I tried these things called options. And it was on the same ticker MLNT, which yeah, I guess after earning… And I’m still like, this would be through the RvR stuff, still getting an idea of how things are working, but not all the way. It just pretty much dropped massively after earnings one time. And it just sold off all the way to under two bucks. And actually I was listening one of the podcasts and you had, I think her name was Carly, Carla…
Clay: Carla. Yeah, the Carla method, if you’re referring to that episode, yeah.
Ken: Yeah, yeah. And just listening to here, I was like, oh, hey, it’s okay to make mistakes. I think she shorted Amazon or something like that.
Clay: It was like Netflix, or something that was a pretty pricey stock and she was like whoops, Uh-oh. Yeah, and it worked out, but yeah. It was definitely a higher priced stock, I can’t remember exactly which one.
Ken: Yeah. So I’m like, well I take things real serious. So like, well it’s okay, everybody can make mistakes. So MLNT, I called a little falling knife on it, a couple of hundred dollar loss, but it was more just that curiosity. I just tracked it. I just stuck with it for some reason. And it was like, when’s it going to bounce? Is it just going to go to zero? And it just went down, and this one, it took a month or two, maybe even three months. And it just kept going down, kept going down. And then I found where there was some insider buyer, and I was like, okay, that’s kind of interesting. And I was like, hey, what’s these things called options?
Ken: And I remember on Robinhood when I bought them, it was five contracts, $2.50 calls. And it was like, hey, it warned me, there’s basically no market for these, do you still want to buy them? And I don’t even know what that means, so I was like, sure I’ll still buy them. And let me think, it was $100 for five contracts and a couple weeks went by and I was like why are they going down to zero? I don’t know what implied volatility is or none of this stuff. And a couple of times I actually tried to sell them. And I couldn’t sell them, where there’s no market for it. It was really weird.
Clay: So in hindsight though, you clearly probably realize what was going on at this point.
Ken: Yeah, now.
Clay: You brought up implied volatility and stuff like that. But we’ve had a lot of other people that have been there before, where it’s, what’s going on here, what’s going on there. But that’s the wonderful world of options. That can be a great tool, but they can also be-
Ken: Detrimental.
Clay: … a not so great… yeah, if you don’t exactly know what’s going on with them. But yeah, I’m glad you shared all that, because that’s quite typical. And to you as a listener, I assure you, if you go too fast into the world of options, stuff like that can definitely happen to you too. So just tread very, very carefully. So I’m, how long did this kind of little strategy phase, we’ll call it learning experience, how long did all this kind of play out?
Ken: So for a few months. Like I said, I was doing the first couple courses, and I guess at this time, I really had that mentality of just apply what you’re learning. But there’s still a lot of things that are not checking out, obviously. So to finish up the options story real quick, I wake up one morning, and it’s like three days, literally three days before they expire. So I was like okay, they’re going to be worth nothing, there goes my hundred dollars, I just wasted it. And the thing gaped up over four bucks that morning. And I was like, holy cow. I was super naïve, I was like my options are still worth nothing, but the market wasn’t open yet. So long story short, by the time the market opened, I sold them for, it was a 5,333% gain. So it was over $800, I sold them that morning.
Clay: Wow.
Ken: Yeah.
Clay: And that’s the power of options. But for listeners-
Ken: Don’t do that.
Clay: Yeah, yeah. Ken would you agree, this was pretty much just you being in the right place luckily at the right time?
Ken: Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Clay: So yes, that’s possible. Thousands of percent gains are possible, but-
Ken: Johnny on the spot, hey, if you could do it every day, it’d be awesome, but it’s not realistic. Looking back at the chart, it didn’t even warrant it at all. It’s just flat, nothing, down there in no mans land.
Clay: Now, when this happened, did you know right away it was luck?
Ken: Oh yeah.
Clay: Or was there a sense of fools gold? Or?
Ken: No.
Clay: Oh, you knew it was luck right away?
Ken: Yeah, yeah, I got super lucky. One thing I was like, well wait a minute, if I just got lucky, what would happen if I really knew what I was doing? So I took that cash and I was looking at RvR and the rest of the stuff and I went all in with the rest of the courses from there.
Clay: Oh, yes, because you did the pay when you want plan.
Ken: Yeah. Yeah.
Clay: Yes, that’s right. And I remember that, didn’t you make a whole bunch of them just right at once?
Ken: Yeah, yeah. Maybe you questioned me one time, it was like, maybe I was like I was kind of meandering around, I wasn’t sure, but still super curious. And I was like, you know what, if you’re going to do it, go all the way. It’s a great community, I spent some time on the chatroom. I don’t want to use the word, I don’t think it’s a scam, but there was nothing to lead me away so far. It was like, let’s just go all the way, let’s just get in here and let’s keep on going.
Clay: Okay. At first, I was like, well if there is something scammey that’s coming across in the chatroom, then please let me know if there’s somebody that you feel is giving off a scammey vibe, please let me know.
Ken: No, no, no. Not at all. And these things called webinars these guys keep talking about, I’m like, what? It’s almost like you’re so close to the treasure box, I just want to know what it is, I want to get in here, I want to know what these guys know. That kind of thing.
Clay: And I will fully attest, that I guess I don’t know if you’ve been on every one of them, but you’ve been on a whole lot of the webinars, I’m very familiar with seeing your name show up. So I mean, at this point, it seems like it’s kind of a weekly routine for you?
Ken: Yeah. I love it, it’s great. So all that stuff happened, I’m all in CTU and my kids start playing football. So now I’m like, oh. There’s a lot of content there, there’s plenty of hours to keep you busy. So I think I was telling Houch, I don’t know if he remembers, but… Hey, Houch… a while back, that I was sitting there at my sons football practice, two hours every night, with my headphones and my laptop in 90 degree heat and I got a lot of weird looks out there for the first few weeks.
Clay: Why is that guy looking at tipped over ant hills? Or whatever you said earlier.
Ken: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know little league or whatever, all the parents get used to each other. And I was like, all right, I’m going to go over here and sit in my truck and watch this in the air conditioning. It’s too hot out here. So I’ve been through all of CTU at least once, most of the courses multiple times and just to catch up to about where we are right now, I spent the last month just working on the shorting setups. Because obviously now with commission free brokers, I’m not trading on Robinhood and when I did RvR, it was like, wow. Just a like a light bulb went off. I was like, look at this, here it is. And so I really did not do any trading during that time. And then hey, the commission free broker thing happened and here we are, thinkorswim.
Clay: And are you trading right now then?
Ken: Maybe. I don’t know how to answer that. Not like I was in the beginning. Because there’s still a lot of information processing and I would say I’m leaning more on paper right now.
Clay: I’m not saying this in a FBI shakedown type of way, you do make some real money trades.
Ken: Yeah, yeah.
Clay: All right, cool.
Ken: Yeah. If I see a setup I’m familiar with or comfortable with, I’ll take the trade. But now that I’m on thinkorswim, I have these new things to play with. And so I have to learn the interface and then slowly realizing that maybe discretionary day trading, just kind of back to that time thing, I don’t know if I’m going to have time to manage a day trade. Like on Robinhood or whatever, just looking back at that now, that’s just crazy. You were doing that from your phone, put up capital. You know what I mean?
Clay: Yeah.
Ken: Like what if your cell phone stopped working or something like that?
Clay: No, it’s definitely pretty sketchy. All right, I kind of want to go down two separate rabbit holes because it sounds like we have the paper trading rabbit hole, and we have the paper trading rabbit hole, and then we have the real money rabbit hole. So with the real money trades, you’re saying if you see a set up that you like, you will take it. So walk me through that. What are the setups that you are looking for and then when you find them, you deem them worthy enough, I mean you like them so much that you will literally put your money where your mouth is and you’ll put money in the market. So what are the sorts of set ups that you feel that comfortable with?
Ken: So for like a month and half, I was just working on the short setups. Strictly shorting. And it was honestly frustrating. I remember two or three trades that I got stopped out to the penny. And then they would have been, turned around and been home runs. And so that’s where I kind of put the brakes on. My account was just getting small dings after small dings. I’m like, maybe I need to take a little bit step back and that’s why leaning on paper here now. To where as far as taking a trade, I’m pretty comfortable with maybe a long sided trade.
Ken: But again, I’ve got Fridays off, so I’m only right now in front of the screen on Fridays. And just realizing like I said, I mean I have a tablet, but it’s not a long term good thing to be trading from a tablet or something like that. I could see as capital grows, I could where I could possibly set myself up. Like if one of these really bad trades go against me and lose cell phone service or something like that. So I don’t know, I guess that’s kind of where I’m at.
Clay: So I mean, a setup that you’re looking at, are you looking for patterns? What exactly would you put your money in right now? Because it sounds like you do still, like you said-
Ken: Like a pull back or something like that, like CLVS, a few weeks ago. And going back MLNT story, it’s like hey, these bios they go down, and then they eventually come back up. I was sitting in front of my screen that day, to me looking at the probability of success, I’m like, well it’s heavily shorted. The charts started to turn up a little bit, so identifying some ports and resistances. And yeah. I had a profit target, didn’t hit it.
Ken: It’s funny I was talking about the computer not working, because that day in front of the screen, my computer freezes up, but I had my tablet sitting here. And I just took myself out of the trade and it was a $250 winner. I had more of profit target, but I was like, all right, something’s going on. The whole house is on Wi-Fi, we’ve gotten rid of our cable. So I don’t know, maybe the TV was or something, I don’t know what happened. And I actually fixed a hard wired cable to my computer here. Just because like I said, it’s just a risky business. I mean if you’re going to do this kind of thing, you’ve got to have everything right. You don’t want these kind of goofy stuff to happen and you’re sitting here looking at a loss, and oh, it’s terrible.
Clay: Yeah, it’s not like, oh, the internet dropped out, oh, I’ve got to wait for a while to finish binge watching my Netflix episode. It could potentially be, oh the internet went out, oh I’m losing a bunch of money right now. And now I’ve got to figure out the phone number to the broker. And you’re absolutely right. I would highly recommend to everybody, be hard wired into the internet. There’s no point in sitting there and trying to… and sure, you know let’s say the Wi-Fi’s up 98% of the time. I mean if that 2% hits you at the wrong time, whoa. Things can get nasty in a hurry.
Ken: Yeah, here I am with a decent amount of capital, and I’m excited, I’m in front of the screen, I’ve got to plan, everything ready to go and the thing freezes up. And what’s strange, I remember hearing people talking about recently thinkorswim freezing up. And I’m like, well I haven’t had that issue, but it’s kind of in the back of my mind. And it happened, and I had my tablet running at the same time in a different time frame. And I look over, and I’m like, all right, I’m out. I’m not even going to chance it or nothing. A winning trade. But back to the questions, kind of a pull back, long sided trade, if it presents itself.
Clay: Okay. And maybe I could be way overthinking this, would not be the first time in my life, but you made the comment about oh these biotechs go down and then they’ll eventually come back up. Do you remember saying something similar to that?
Ken: Yeah.
Clay: Okay.
Ken: I mean of course they’re heavily shorted, it can put the probabilities of success in your favor or could not, but-
Clay: Well I guess, and like I said, I could be overthinking this, all I would offer up as warning, just remember, biotechs, nothing is guaranteed to ever come back up.
Ken: Yeah, it’s not.
Clay: And I do agree that heavily shorted means that yeah, all it takes is kind of something that’ll happen and then shorts have to start to cover. But you’ve got to remember, that is a two sided coin. The other side of the coin being there’s a reason why it’s heavily, heavily shorted, because lots of smart money out there thinks that it’s a piece of garbage, and a lot of times they’re right. I mean, they’ll go down to pennies and then they’ll reverse split and stuff like that and then you kind of forget the fact that at one time it had started from multiple dollars. So like I said, I’m not saying that’s what your strategy was, but you made that comment. And it kind of just made a little check mark, and I’m like, that could be a risky thought process to have.
Ken: Oh, absolutely. You see it all the time where there’s offerings after hours and things like that. So yeah. Oh my God, yeah. Absolutely. In and out on those things.
Clay: Yeah, yeah. And CLVS as a recent example, that did pull back and I know it bounced. But I mean there’s no guarantee that CLVS was ever going to bounce, I don’t care how many shorts were out there. But I mean you’ve taken RvR trading. Which brings in the next… after you’ve now been educated, you’ve now really been showing up to the webinars, I get it you’re still working on things, but have you had any losing trades? And I ask this in a sense of how did it go? Was it a discipline loss or have you not had any losses at all? But I mean walk us through one of the losses assuming you’ve had at least one.
Ken: Yeah definitely, since then, everything’s been fairly disciplined. I’ve taken an interest in the futures stuff, PDT that kind of thing. And yeah, I thought I was shorting the top, when was this, last week when it ran up? I believe so. And I’d seen a couple of candles I liked and I thought we were at the top and so I shorted it, and yeah, it stopped me out for a $20 loss. And then went on for I think for another 20 or 20 minutes, and put in a top and then faded. And we just had that big retracement now since then. But yeah, I think I’m pretty good about honoring my stops. Put it in, set it, forget it. If you move it, you can’t move it back. Really, really-
Clay: And I just-
Ken: Go ahead.
Clay: No, go ahead. All yours.
Ken: Well just really focusing too, on how import as time goes on, entries, your entries are. And honoring those stocks and keeping the losses small, how important that is.
Clay: Which is kind of a good segue into what I was going to ask you, how did you feel after the $20? And I realize as a listener, if you’ve traded, what does this turn into a counseling session? I promise you once you get money on the line, you’ll realize you have to talk about your feelings now and then because it’s a struggle for a lot of people, and just taking a loss can really throw them off kilter. So when I say how do you feel, I don’t mean that, but how did you take the loss? Were you upset or did you just accept it as is? So how did you deal with it?
Ken: Well, it’s been upsetting. Like I said, the last month and a half, working on the shorting stuff and then everything is getting stopped out, everything seems like it’s getting stopped out, and then it did put in the top and then roll over, just 20 or 30 minutes, well I say roll over, but faded or 20 or 30 minutes later. It’s like, oh. Well I had the right idea, I was close, just where I thought the top was bad. But no, $20. I mean it might not be a lot of money to somebody, but still the money didn’t hurt as bad as being wrong maybe. You know what I mean. But like oh. And then to see what happened right after that, you know what I mean.
Clay: Now has this filtered down into other trades? After that trade, did you start breaking rules because you’re like last time I eventually was right and it came in my favor so no, I’m not going to honor the stop loss, or have you been able to just keep that isolated and you’ve still been able to be disciplined in trades since that one?
Ken: Yeah, yeah, still being able to be disciplined, because like I said, still focused on keeping the losses small and that kind of thing. But maybe I’ll test a little bit. Like when I was just doing the shorting stuff, revenge trigger came out a little bit, but yeah, that’s why I put the breaks on it. I’d seen things going absolutely wrong way, no big losses, but I was like, okay, this is affecting me emotionally, I shouldn’t be doing this right now. You know what I mean. It was that kind of thing. And like I said, working on entries. Making sure, if you’ve got a really great entry, I think Dan said this in one of the recent webinars, the market will tell you right away if your entry’s good. And that’s playing out to be pretty true. Shout out to Dan.
Clay: Dan, that was a great webinar.
Ken: It was amazing.
Clay: As part of the Tuesday webinars, if you’re part of the ClayTrader University, sometimes I’ll bring on guests, and we’ll interview, or I’ll interview… well I guess it is kind of a group interview, but that’s what Ken’s referring to. You made the comment, and can I give you my two cents-
Ken: Go ahead.
Clay: … just think out loud here for a second. All right. You’re trying to keep your losses small, and is that in a sense that you’re just trying to protect your capital or is that in a sense of that’s just good trader habit to have, you want to keep your losses small?
Ken: Yeah, good trader habit to have, don’t [crosstalk 00:50:00].
Clay: Okay, and where is this $20 number coming from?
Ken: $20…
Clay: I mean you took a $20 loss, which somehow you deemed, you know what, I only want to lose $20, so where did that thought process come from? How did you arrive at $20 as opposed to, let’s just say $50?
Ken: Yeah, yeah. That’s where my stop was. After-
Clay: Right, but my question was how did you determine that you were okay losing $20? Why were you not okay losing let’s just say $50?
Ken: I guess that’s where the candle was. Looking back on it now, so if the price got above this, let me think, if it breaks out above this resistance here, then obviously it’s got more room to run, so that’s where that was.
Clay: Okay. And was this on the micro-futures?
Ken: Yeah. MESZ19. Yeah.
Clay: Okay. It’s just, because you’re making it kind of like you’re getting stopped out and stopped out and stopped out, which makes me think that your stops are maybe a little too tight. And the only reason I can think of that they might be a little too tight, is I mean you want to protect your capital, you want to keep losses small. All true points, but you don’t want that pendulum to swing too far to the other side. Where because you want those philosophies, which are good philosophies, but too much of a good thing, then you could potentially, you’re just getting way, way too tight and constricted and you’re not letting anything breathe, you’re not letting work for you. So a way around that… I mean how many contracts do you usually do?
Ken: Just one right now. Just one.
Clay: Okay, you’re just doing one. Okay.
Ken: Yeah. Which is tough. Which is tough.
Clay: Let me ask this, so on that one where you lost, I guess, it sounds like to me, if you just make the… well, I don’t know, it could always be-
Ken: I would have really had the break some rules there. And overall, my entry was bad. The idea was-
Clay: Oh, all right, there we go. I was going to say, it was either your stop was too tight, or I was going to say it could potentially be an entry point problem. But you just said your entry point was bad.
Ken: Yeah, it was. Yeah.
Clay: Okay.
Ken: Well I had a couple candles I liked and I had a price I thought was good based on the daily chart and things like that. And looking back on it now, it ran up not very far, but I’d of been in a torture chamber. I don’t want to be in the torture chamber, is it going to come back down, is it not? So, that kind of thing. So that’s what it was.
Clay: Okay. I’m just trying think. And with the micros, if you’re only doing one contract, then I was going to say well you can always lower your position size. And then that way, just give your stop losses that much more room so at least the amount of money you could potentially lose is going to essentially be the same. Sure, you’re risking more from more a charting perspective, but with your position size lower. But when you were going through the shorting stuff and all the shorting class and you were going through that time where you were just getting stopped out it seemed like and dinged and dinged and dinged, was that still micro-futures at that point?
Ken: No, those were just charts I had pulled up. And scanned for them, pulled them up, looked at the pattern, really like the pattern, and I’m slowly learning the correlation-
Clay: So those were shares then that you were using?
Ken: Yeah, shares.
Clay: Okay. Well, all right. Well good. [inaudible 00:53:37], so how many shares… are you even doing stocks at all anymore?
Ken: Yeah.
Clay: Or are you just doing micro-futures?
Ken: Mostly dipping my toe into the futures realm and yes, still a lot more shares.
Clay: All right, so how many share do you normally do?
Ken: It depends on the price of the stock. My accounts still relatively small. So-
Clay: Here’s my proposal to you, you can take it or leave it, but this is what I would say try. Whatever you’re normally doing position size, cut it in half and just give your stop loss more room. And see if that makes any difference.
Ken: Okay.
Clay: From the loss perspective, it’ll be right around the same because you’re compensating for the oh wow, so I have to move my stop loss up? Yeah. But, does that make sense?
Ken: Yeah, that’s perfect.
Clay: But your position size is going to be… okay.
Ken: Yeah, yeah.
Clay: See if that makes any difference. And right now, the goal here is not to make a million dollars, it’s just to try and fine tune because you got to figure out because you shouldn’t be getting stopped out as much as it sounds like you’ve been getting stopped out. And it still makes me think that maybe you’re being a little too tight with your stops, so let’s give those things a little bit more room, but let’s still guard your risk and you can do that by cutting your position size in half. I mean you don’t have to do that, but just hearing you talk, that might be rabbit hole that might be worth going down.
Ken: Yeah, absolutely. I’m going to put into practice. Absolutely. So… go ahead.
Clay: I mean, have the micros been doing pretty… the futures I know you’re just dipping your toe in, but have you had any profitable trade within the futures.
Ken: Oh, God. Honestly, no.
Clay: Okay.
Ken: Actually, I was profitable on that trade for maybe five or six candles, and I was sitting there, honestly I was up maybe 10 bucks, it’s one contract. And I was sitting there, and was like hey, just get out. But I was like, nope, the plan is to let this go down some more, you know your profit target, and then just watching it retrace, I was like, not again. But that’s what it is.
Clay: And that also come with the territory, if you have one contract then you can’t really mitigate-
Ken: Yeah. Yeah, you can’t.
Clay: Have you been in that… yeah. You’re either going to have to get in or out, so I mean there is a little give and take there. And that’s I mean you haven’t lost it so far in the micros and the futures. Like you said, you’re dipping your toe in the water, you’re kind of getting your sea legs, so I don’t think there’s any massive red flags there. But you’re getting-
Ken: Yeah, with those, I’m learning maybe I was trying to day trade them, like in a scout point of view. And I’m slowly learning you’ve got to let it play out over a bigger time frame.
Clay: It’s not like-
Ken: I need to watch that last video you posted about futures too. But.
Clay: Yeah, I guess. I mean you’d get value. I mean, I guess it’s worth a shot, why not. But yeah, definitely with futures, it’s not like, what’s a, like a Roku type stop right now, which is off the top of my head, where it’s like boom, boom, boom. And yeah you can literally scalp that thing every minute because sometimes it’s going all over the place. The micros aren’t quite like that.
Ken: No, no. You’re not doing that with futures unless you just have to be Johnny on the spot one day or something.
Clay: Right.
Ken: Yeah, yeah. So looking at that, yeah, it’s more of a range, you’re in the range, just looking at that. And going back to the entry, it’s like, yeah if you’ve got a good entry, it should work out, long or short. So.
Clay: Yeah. Well I think that’s a good little homework point that we can kind of end here on. And hopefully you’ll decide to come back at some point in the future-
Ken: Looking forward to it.
Clay: … so that we could revisit and see how all goes. But I think that would be a good spot, is let’s give those stop losses, let’s give those stops a little bit more wiggle room, but we’ll also be wise with your risk. You can do the math, maybe you only want to cut them by 25% but maybe start off with a half and see how you feel with all of that, but I think you’ll notice that you’ll start be staying in trades a little bit while longer. Because you made it sound like, oh well I got stopped out by a penny, and by a penny.
Ken: Yeah.
Clay: Yeah, if you give it a little bit more wiggle room, I think you’ll start to, I’m not going to say it’s going to be the quick fix, but it’ll kind of start to build a new frame work that you can build upon more and more from that point. So good. Well I’m glad that you’re going to come back. So as we wrap this up here before we head into the fun questions. If I were to give you a time machine, and you could take that time machine back to the start of all this, and give yourself one bit of advice, what would that bit of advice be?
Ken: Don’t download Robinhood.
Clay: You and Kevin are going to get along so well after both of these episodes air. When you guys both see each other in the chatroom, I can see the confetti coming down on the screen just like it does on the Robinhood app. And you guys are just going to bond on your it sounds like pure hatred, justified hatred, of this Robinhood app. Because yeah, really they’re a savage company when you-
Ken: Well, yeah. Actually I just thought of something. I remember one penny stock I was in, and it was up but you can’t get out pre-market and I was up $700 on it pre-market. And by the time the market opened, I was down. So yeah, now that you brought that up, it was terrible.
Clay: Yeah. It’s just, to be fair to Robinhood in that regard, I don’t know, can thinkorswim, I don’t think, you can’t trade pre-market and post-market, can you?
Ken: Yeah, thinkorswim.
Clay: Thinkorswim, you can?
Ken: Yeah. I’m pretty sure.
Clay: Okay. All right.
Ken: I haven’t done it. Honestly I haven’t done it. But I’m pretty sure you can.
Clay: Oh. I don’t know if you can. Regardless, I’ll cut Robinhood a little slack in that regard, being able to trade before and after market, that’s not necessarily standard practice amongst brokers. I’m pretty sure at Charles Schwab you can’t, I could be wrong.
Ken: Huh. Okay.
Clay: But regardless, they know exactly what they’re doing. They claim to be some sort of like trading app, but yet the tools they have don’t even allow you to be what a true would be, and a responsible trader would be. But. Yeah. We’ll leave Robinhood alone. I think over the past two weeks, they’ve been beaten down enough.
Ken: Their ears are burning over there at Robinhood right now.
Clay: Yeah, well I mean, we’ll see if they can stay around or not. But that’s a whole nother discussion. All right, let’s move in here to the fun questions. What is your favorite movie?
Ken: Okay. The Hunt for Red October is my favorite movie.
Clay: That’s relatively old school. Sean Connery.
Ken: Yeah, Sean Connery. It was the first movie I ever seen in a theater, I think I was five or six, and I don’t know why, it comes on, I just like it. It’s one of those movies you just remember all the lines. So yeah, The Hunt for Red October.
Clay: Was that based off a Tom Clancy novel, or am I totally making that up?
Ken: Yeah. Nope.
Clay: It was.
Ken: I sense a little Tom Clancy enthusiasm in there.
Clay: Okay. All right, well. Regardless, I know that’s like an ultimate, I don’t know about ultimate classic, but it’s a classic movie for sure. For sure. Where are you… oh wait, you said you’re in Florida, south Florida.
Ken: Yeah.
Clay: Because it was hot today, and so sorry it was 80 degrees. But what do you like to eat down there in Florida? What’s your favorite food?
Ken: Well, I do a lot of home cooking. I love just about anything. And one of my passions is fishing, so I love fish.
Clay: Awesome. You like to cook, so do you have a specialty?
Ken: Maybe some sauteed tripletail lemon butter sauce. It sounds fancy, but it’s not. So yeah.
Clay: Excuse my ignorance, but is tripletail, is that a fish?
Ken: Yeah, it’s a fish. Yeah. Tripletail season’s coming up soon, so I’m pretty excited.
Clay: Is there tuna down there?
Ken: Yeah. You’d have to go probably to the east coast or the Florida Keys or way out in the Gulf. I’m on the Gulf side of Florida.
Clay: Okay.
Ken: But yeah, absolutely.
Clay: And when I say tuna, is that the same thing as if I were in a restaurant and there was something like ahi tuna, is the same as like a tuna that you’re talking about?
Ken: Ahi, I’m not sure what species that is. But down here, a lot of bluefin, and maybe toward the bahamas some yellowfin. But mostly probably bluefin down here. Yeah.
Clay: Okay. And then what are the fish with the long sharp nose, swordfish? Swordfish, right?
Ken: Swordfish, oh yeah. Yeah.
Clay: Do you have those down there?
Ken: That’s my Moby Dick right now, the white whale. Yeah. Well I went last year to Islamarada and tried to catch one, which you have to have all this special gear to do it. And I have a boat, it’s not a very big one, and you’re out here in a thousand feet of water, yeah, it’s tricky. But man, to pull one of those things off the bottom, I just think it’d be amazing. You fish for them in 1,500 feet of water.
Clay: Wow.
Ken: Yeah, so pretty cool. The swordfish, an amazing animal. But actually, somebody just caught a 700 pounder, Captain Nick Stanczyk did out of Islamarada, which is a state record, just broke it.
Clay: That’s crazy, that’s basically two NFL linemen, combined.
Ken: Yeah. And that’s the thing, you don’t know what size fish you’re going to pull up, and I think he fought it for in excess of eight hours to get it on the boat.
Clay: Eight hours. Wow.
Ken: Yeah. Yeah.
Clay: I guess that makes sense if you’re going up against two NFL linemen combined, it would take a little while to tire that thing out. But, wow, that’s-
Ken: Yeah. They come up at night to relatively shallow water, and they have the ability to come up 5 to 800 feet and just run right back down. Not a lot of fish can do that kind of thing. So yeah. So far, I’m hoping to get back next year and go at it again, but we’ll see.
Clay: I’d love to, in my mind, I want to invite myself down to Ken, but I wouldn’t be any fun. I get motion sick to easy, so I’d be totally seasick, I’d be barfing off the side of that boat so fast. So I mean, no offense, but I have no interest in doing that. I would love to try your cooking of the fish.
Ken: Sure.
Clay: I’m all good for freeloading off of that. Well I’ll pay you for the fish or whatever, but-
Ken: I’ve got a freezer full.
Clay: But as far as going out there and doing the fishing, yeah, I don’t think that would go well.
Ken: Well you grab a beer or two, and then you start catching fish, it usually mellows out.
Clay: Usually mellows out, yeah.
Ken: Yeah. I’m not rough water guy, it’s got to be almost like a lake out there for me to go. I don’t like being out there bobbing around. And it’s 100 degrees outside, hot in the summer time.
Clay: Oh man, I got to be honest, I love your passion for it, but that sounds miserable to me.
Ken: It is.
Clay: 100 degrees, bobbing, oh man. But that’s good that you like it, and you live in a perfect spot for all that, but. Well, that’s awesome, that’s good stuff. And don’t get me wrong, I found this entire interview extremely fascinating, I love to hear peoples stories, but sometimes it’s just the random stuff you get out and it’s like, oh that’s actually really cool.
Ken: Right, that’s the best stuff, yeah.
Clay: But yeah. So awesome, well who knows maybe someday we’ll do another meetup down in Florida and I’ll just knock on the door and be like, “Hey, can I have some of the fish you said your freezer’s packed full of.” And it’ll be awkward, but hopefully we’ll get over it, and we’ll talk some trading or something like that. And then all right-
Ken: We could meet up at the Sandbar, why not. Boca Raton Sandbar, it’s amazing.
Clay: Is that a little sandbar? Or is that like a restaurant or something?
Ken: No, it’s a sandbar, the water’s absolutely crystal clear, I don’t know how to describe, it’s just amazing.
Clay: Okay. It sounds good, though. I like crystal clear water. Crystal clear water and palm trees, that’s kind of my thing.
Ken: There you go. Yeah, that’s what it is.
Clay: We don’t have either of those here in Michigan, but that’s okay. That all right. All right, well final question here. Three words, and these three words need to be associated with what you would attach to a successful trader, what you believe to be a successful trader. What would those three words be?
Ken: Let’s say patience, a good for the… you said one, three words. So patience, let me see here. You got to be… I’m really struggling here. Let’s see, patience… I’m drawing a blank.
Clay: Patience.
Ken: Patience.
Clay: How about, let’s see, I’m trying to think back. I’d say probably for you, focus. Because it sounds like you’re really locked in with the focus, you want to learn all you can, right?
Ken: Yeah, patience, focus, and-
Clay: And here’s the other word, I bet curiosity.
Ken: Sure. Absolutely.
Clay: Because you said you’re a curious person, you want to know more, you want to know more. And in my mind, I think there does need to be a sense of curiosity, because if you’re not really curious about this stuff, I’m not going to say that automatically means you fail, but it’s healthy to want to know more and make sure you’re doing all this right.
Ken: Don’t stop learning either, just keep adding to your mental game for sure.
Clay: Absolutely. I 100% agree. Well Ken, this was a good time, I’m glad to know already to know that you will come back. And I do want to thank you also, you didn’t push back. I know it took a little while to get this scheduled, but that’s totally fine, totally understandable, but I appreciate you, when I approached you, and you’re like yeah, sure. Let’s work something out. And I’m glad you and Nate got it figured out finally. So I thank you for that, I always appreciate the non-drama filled catches, pun intended, as far as these guests are concerned. So thank you very much, and I look forward to hearing back on more of your journey.
Ken: Yeah, well hey, Clay, I can’t stress this enough, thank you for everything you’re doing. It’s really great what you’re doing out here. And you’re helping people, that’s awesome. And you’ve already made changes in my own personal life, I don’t know what to say, but thanks.
Clay: Hey, well you’re welcome. But also, you got to remember, it’s the person in the mirror that does the majority of it. But hey, I appreciate you at least listening to what I have to say. So thank you for at least listening, but at the end of the day, it’s the person in the mirror that’s doing all of it. So well done to you, that’s good stuff.
Ken: Yeah. That’s right, thank you.
Clay: All right, well, Ken we’re going to have you back for sure and maybe some day we’ll go fishing. Can you stand on the shore and fish? Is that a possibility or no?
Ken: Yeah, I mean that’s how I grew up, yeah absolutely.
Clay: All right, all right. There we go. Well I’ll be like your little kid and you can be like, all right. And you can help me cast it, it’ll be a fantastic time, I can promise you it won’t be awkward at all.
Ken: Yeah.
Clay: All right, well let’s wrap this up. For you listeners out there, before you go, a final few things. If you’re listening at ClayTrader.com on the show notes page, there’s a little chat box there, so feel free to reach out to us if you have questions, comments, feedback. Anything. We love to hear from you. It’s always fun to hear from listeners. If you’re listening on iTunes or any of the other podcast players, then leave us a rating. Especially on iTunes, if you could leave us a review, that really helps us out, it really goes a long way. And we truly do appreciate it. And like I said, that helps us out. Little things like that go a long way, and I really would appreciate it. And I thank you in advance. So thank you again Ken, thank you again to listeners. We will see you back next week.
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