Transcript

Clay: Hey, it’s Clay, and real quick before I get at the episode, I want to talk about something that I get asked all of the time. “Clay, what broker do you suggest? What platform is the best one out there?” While that’s always subjective, one thing that I can say is as somebody that loves technical charts and as a technical trader, needs quality charts so I can make good decisions. The one aspect that I would definitely say matters to me and should matter to you, especially like I said if you do choose to be a technical trader, is a quality platform that gives you good visually appealing charts.
Clay: That’s why I always recommend Webull to people because they are a situation where not only are they very budget-friendly, meaning there’s no commissions, there’s no fees, and that’s for both options and stocks, so if you’re somebody with a smaller account and really is commission-conscientious and you don’t want to be paying and giving away all of your gains with fees, then Webull, like I said, offers zero-dollar commissions. They also have really quality charts, which is important for the reasons, like I said, I discuss. If you are curious in seeing the platform, seeing how it behaves, seeing how it all looks, then I’d encourage you to go to claytrader.com/webull, so again, claytrader.com/webull, and that way you can see how they behave.
Clay: Now, maybe for your eye, you’re not necessarily going to like what they see and that’s okay, but I think the offer some very, very quality technical charts. It’s a nice platform and very customizable, but again, if you’re curious and if you’re out there wondering, maybe looking to change from a broker or a platform that you’re not happy with for whatever reason, consider Webull and, again, claytrader.com/webull, so W-E and then bull, Webull, and like I said, then I have a little video review there that you can check things out. Like I said, check out Webull. I think you’ll like what you see there if you like the technical charts. Let’s now move on to the actual episode.
Announcer: This is The Stock Trading Reality Podcast, where you get to the see the realistic side of a trader’s journey. Get inspired and stay motivated by everyday, normal people who are currently on their journey to trading success. This is your host, he’s a officially realized fishing lines and kids are a bad combination, ClayTrader.
Clay: All I can really say is bless my wife’s heart, bless my parents’ heart when they are here up at our cottage in Cadillac, Michigan. Of course, let’s do some fishing, and this is really kind of the context of things of why I’m just now discovering this, but this is the first time we’ve been able to spend some more time up here. Bought the place a few years ago as a real estate investment and it’s a long-term investment, but it’s one of these where it’s not all for the profit. We want to have some fun, so part of that fun being, “Well, let’s do some fishing.”
Clay: Well, the downside of that is just the kids and the fishing line being tangled up and let me untangle it. I’m pretty sure there is more time spent untangling the fishing line than actual fishing, but like I said, bless my wife’s heart, bless my parents’ heart. They’re patient. The patience of a saint. Daddy’s patience not so much, although I think I’m getting a little bit better at that, but for me, the fun part is fishing, right?
Clay: Anytime not fishing, it’s not good time utilization, but, “Hey, Dad, don’t try to be such an engineer, okay? Calm down, this is not a trade plan. I realize opportunity costs. I realize all of this, but let’s just relax, have some fun.” Those are all valid points, but yeah, I have now officially realized that fishing lines, along with kids, a bad combination, but at the end of the day it’s still all fun and that’s what matters most.
Clay: As for our guest today, we’re talking with a 21-year-old, and this 21-year-old is quite the… let me put it this way, and I make a comment of this. If you’re somebody that likes to go through life throwing up excuses, likes to try to put up any sort of… If you like to look as this glass as half-empty and are always looking at reasons of why you can’t instead of why you can, maybe your approach is, “Well, no, I can’t do that,” as opposed to, “Well, how can I do that?” Then, you’re not going to like our guest because our guest is one of those data points, as I like to call them, that really just shows kind of why I’m a little rigid when it comes to I don’t want to hear your excuses.
Clay: I don’t want to hear how bad it is, how rough it is, how you can’t get ahead, how you can’t do this. How you can’t, can’t, can’t. Negative thought, negative thought. If you’re like that, then Anton, he’s not going to be your friend, but if you are somebody that gets fired up like I do, like motivated, inspired by someone that just gets out there, hustles and grinds, then you’re going to love Anton.
Clay: Although he’s only 21, he’s been through a lot and he’s definitely an ambitious person. Way too ambitious as we’ll learn here, but he’s also now slowed things down. He’s been doing very, very well, but to his credit, and that’s why I would definitely say make sure to stick around to the end as he was totally honest and he’s been doing great, but all it takes is one hiccup. Just one hiccup, and I’ll just leave it at that, so be sure to stay around until the end. Without further ado, let’s hear about Anton and his journey.
Clay: Anton, welcome to the show.
Anton: Oh, thanks for having me.
Clay: Now, you are already… I mean, I guess I can’t say like my favorite person ever, but you’re far up the list because you not only volunteered to be here, but you are also… Actually, where do you live?
Anton: I live in Tacoma, Washington.
Clay: Oh [crosstalk 00:05:41] so it’s only 5:30 for you.
Anton: Yeah, yeah.
Clay: Okay, all right, because it’s 8:30 for me and I’m thinking, “Wow, you’re doing this at 8:30,” but regardless, funny story behind the scenes. Anton is… I’ve asked in the chatroom, we just finished up a live webinar. I said, “Hey, Anton, are you around? Do you want to get started early?” He’s like, “I’m on my way home from work, but as soon as I get home from work, I’ll hop on.” Anton, I still like you quite a bit because you volunteered to be here and it sounds like you walked right in the door and then hopped right onto this, so no break at all. You’re high up on the favorite person list, so we’re off to a good start. All right, sound good?
Anton: All right. Thanks, Clay.
Clay: All right.
Anton: Yeah. Thanks, Clay.
Clay: All right, excellent. Okay. Well, I cheated and I looked kind of behind the scenes a little bit and I know that you’ve been around since right around April-ish, so you’re not like brand new, but it’s not like you’ve been around for years, either. I don’t really know that much about you, so I’m excited about this and for listeners’ sake and context if this is one of your first episodes you’ve listened to, the goal here is just to keep this stuff as realistic as possible. None of this is pre-scripted. I’ve no idea what Anton’s going to say. I don’t know much about him at all and I just want this to be like we’re just hanging out at coffee shop or wherever and you get to, as a listener, be a fly on the wall and just listen to, like I said, a realistic viewpoint of how trading and all of the markets work. Where did all of this start for you? Where did you first hear about the markets? What sort of things played out that took you to the point of wanting to get more hands-on with the market itself?
Anton: Basically, I’m 21 right now. When I was 18, I don’t know where I heard this from. I think I just saw it on an app. There’s this app called Acorns, but it just invests for you. I guess that was like a smart system. That’s where I started. I started putting a bit of money in a little bit of money, but I was never really in [inaudible 00:07:41] just because from my [inaudible 00:07:43] just even me investing, my parents were a little bit sketch about it. They were like, “I don’t know. You could lose a lot of money. I’ve heard a lot of bad things about it.”
Anton: We have people that have gambled with money in the stock market and lost it, so I’ve never really actually looked into trading, but then when COVID-19 happened and the stock market started crashing, I pulled all of my money out. Was still able to secure some of my profits from the investing platform of Acorns, but it wasn’t that much money. It was about $2,000 and it took me about three years for the investments that I was making. Then, during the COVID-19-
Clay: Well, let me cut you off there because I’m liking you that much more now. You had $2,000 that you… Walk us through. Where was this money coming from? Did you have a jobs? How did you get that money that you were investing in Acorns?
Anton: I started working when I was about 12 just mowing lawns around my yard. Did it for a couple of summers. Saved up about $3,000, and then I got my job as I was saying [crosstalk 00:08:51]-
Clay: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, stop. You saved over $3,000 at age 12?
Anton: Age 13, yeah, it took me one year.
Clay: Okay, so walk me through the business model. You would walk around on knock on people’s doors?
Anton: Yeah. I would ride my bike most of the time and just every single door and a lot of people wouldn’t answer. Some people would just say no. I was young, so most people were nice to me. They didn’t like slam the door in my face or anything, but either just not answer or just be like, “No, I don’t need it.”
Clay: All right. On your bike, was that just so you could go and get customers?
Anton: Yeah, but I did it all around my neighborhood. I also took some money from my birthday, bought my own lawnmower, my own Weed Wacker, all of the supplies. Then, I would take my lawnmower and my Weed Wacker and walk. Sometime it’d be 20, sometimes 30 minutes to that person’s house to mow the lawn.
Clay: Well, I like that, though. At least you went out there and were proactive about getting the customers on your bike, and then that way you don’t have to drag your thing from door to door to door to door. You at least establish the customers up front, but all I’m going to say here is this is just another data point. I don’t want to hear your excuses about why you can’t get money, why you can’t get ahead, why everything’s rigged against you.
Clay: I mean, we have a 13-year-old here who saved up $3,000 and he literally did it by riding his bike, cold… not cold calling, but even worse, doing it face to face, knocking on people’s doors, getting business, and then he’d have to take and carry 20, 30 minutes just to get to the location to mow these people’s lawns. Well, that’s awesome, man. That gets me fired up. I love it. Absolutely love it. Okay, so that’s still at age 13. You have $3,000, so where did that $3,000 go, then?
Anton: I just kept saving and I did it for a couple of more summers. By the age of 15, I bought my own first car. My parents did help me. It was an $8,000 car and I paid about half. Still had about 3,000 left at that time at age 15.
Clay: Love it. Okay, well, this is… There seem to be a lot of people out there that don’t like you because you are punching all of their excuses in the face. You’re like, “Well,” and like, “Well, remember the Anton Effect.” Maybe that’ll be what I name this podcast. We’ll see. Well, that’s awesome, man. Now, fast forward to you mentioned you saw Acorns somewhere, so I guess, and I’m not asking of you at all to throw your parents under the bus, but do you have any idea where your parents preconceived notion about the markets… It sounds like they equated it with almost the casino, like gambling. Do you have any idea where that came from?
Anton: Yeah. My uncle, there was this one guy… This is a pretty long story, but short, he would like tell people, “Give me your money and I’ll double it.” He did that a couple of times, people started trusting him. My cousin gave him… oh, not my cousin, but my uncle gave him about a thousand dollars. That guy was nowhere to be seen or heard of and he basically blamed it on the stocks. My parents were kind of… That’s where the whole idea of stock market is dangerous, people will steal your money kind of came from.
Clay: Okay, that makes sense. I can see how your parents would be a little bit, to use your word, sketch about things when they have a situation that was that close to home, literally your uncle, so that makes sense. I can see why they would think that. Did you have to have like a talk with them? How were you able to still use Acorns? Or was it just a situation of, “Hey, parents, I appreciate your guidance and your thoughts, but this is my money, I worked hard for it, I saved it up, so I’m just going to do it?” Is that pretty much how you got over that hurdle?
Anton: Well, I didn’t even tell them, it’s just [crosstalk 00:12:50]-
Clay: Aah-
Anton: I’m saying when I did tell them, that’s when they were like… I had to make at least like a thousand dollars before I told them because I knew that if I just tell them before I start, I’m going to probably not end up taking the opportunity.
Clay: Yeah, I can see that. What stocks were you investing in at that point?
Anton: Like I said, Acorns. It’s literally you just choose. It does everything for you. You just choose moderately, aggressive, things like that. You don’t actually see any stocks and just it going up or down and you just don’t know what’s actually happening.
Clay: Aah, okay. I didn’t realize that Acorns was… so it’s basically mutual funds it sounds like. Maybe they don’t call them mutual funds, but something that is making up those aggressive or moderate-type funds. Is that the one where like if you spend $1.57 it’ll put like 57 cents into the stock? Or is that something else?
Anton: Yeah, yeah-
Clay: Does that sound familiar?
Anton: It basically [crosstalk 00:13:46]-
Clay: No, that’s Stash [crosstalk 00:13:47] I think-
Anton: Yeah.
Clay: Isn’t it? Or-
Anton: Well, Acorns does that as well. If you spend like $1.50, it’ll round it to $2 and put 50 cents into the-
Clay: Oh, okay [crosstalk 00:13:56] okay.
Anton: Yeah.
Clay: Okay, gotcha, and you said you started Acorns at age 18?
Anton: Yeah-
Clay: Okay.
Anton: Right when I turned 18.
Clay: Okay, and you did that for three years, just constantly putting money in. Now, are you in college? Or did you not go to college? Where does all of that stand?
Anton: I went to college and then I dropped out my first year because my friend has had a business proposition of this construction business, and so I left and I still haven’t went back. At this point, I don’t know if I’m going to be going back. I still am thinking about it, but I just don’t know for what anymore.
Clay: I can’t say I’m shocked because you clearly had some entrepreneur-type spirit in you. You’re a hustler, that’s for sure, so I can’t say it’s surprising that you dropped out of school to pursue a business thing. Is it like a construction company? Or what do you actually do?
Anton: Well, I’m not in construction anymore, but at that time, yeah, it was basically we were going to be framing houses and we had our first customer who basically… It took us way too long. It wasn’t as profitable as we thought, so it kind of just fell off, but it was going to be doing the frame like carpenter type of construction.
Clay: Okay, okay, and it just didn’t quite work out. Well, no risk, no upside, I suppose, and I would argue that’s probably the best college you could have gone to was get some good life experience like that and figure things out through the school of hard knocks a little bit. You mentioned you were coming home from work. What do you do right now?
Anton: Right now, I work at a semi truck repair shop. I work in the office. I’m Russian, it’s a Russian shop, so it’s not how you would think. I literally do everything there from ordering parts… I work in service, but I order parts. I take payments, calls. I do like insurance estimates, just everything that I’m [inaudible 00:16:01] do.
Clay: Okay, that sounds like you wear many hats, then. Are you from Russia? Or are your parents from Russia? I mean [crosstalk 00:16:11]-
Anton: I’m from Ukraine. My Mom is Russian, my Dad is Ukrainian, but I’m from the Ukraine. I came here when I was eight years old, so I didn’t grow up here.
Clay: Well, I will say that I didn’t know that you were not English. I think your name’s awesome. Anton is like, “Oh, that’s a cool name,” but man, I would have never guessed that English was not your first language, but anyways, now I want to ask you all about that, but that’s a whole nother topic. Anyways, I’ll try to get us back on track here. Really, what I’m trying to get at is for you younger people out there, here you go. This is somebody that’s in your age range, that is clearly out there, not afraid to take some risks, out there hustling, grinding, doing what needs to be done, and that’s fantastic.
Clay: We’ll bring things back to you’re in Acorns and then COVID hit and you cashed out everything. I would assume that was just because you started to see the news and everything, talking about how the end of the world was here. Or, what made you actually want to pull that money out?
Anton: Yeah, I heard about COVID and I heard the news. I don’t really watch news like that. I don’t pay attention to it as much, but my parents started talking about it, so I checked my account. I was up a little over 4,000 during these three years, and then once COVID hit, that’s when it went down to 2,000, and that’s when I was like, “Okay, I’m going to take all of my money out.” I took all of my money out.
Anton: Couple of months later, my friend, his name is Alec, calls me and he’s like, “Dude, I made like $107 on Robinhood today.” He used about a thousand dollars to make that and I was like, “Dude, it’s that easy?” I was like, “It took me like three years to make, I don’t know, not that much a day.” That’s when I downloaded Robinhood and [crosstalk 00:18:10]-
Clay: Aah, okay. There’s [crosstalk 00:18:12] where Robinhood comes in.
Anton: Yeah, so by the age of 21, I already have over $50,000 saved. I decided to put all of it into Robinhood.
Clay: Okay, all right. Where did the $50,000 come from?
Anton: There’s also one more job that I worked. It’s called Pump It Up. I became General Manager by the age of 17 and I was making really good money there, plus, I was working two jobs, so basically doing the construction and working still at Pump It Up. I actually still worked at Pump It Up while I was working at this new job of semi truck repair shop. I had two jobs most of this time, and then I kind of just now started working here at the semi truck repair shop. That kind of happened after I started trading.
Clay: Okay, all right. Just to clarify, $50,000 was what you had in savings, then?
Anton: Yeah, yeah.
Clay: Okay, and so only a small part of that was what you were putting into Acorns, then. The vast majority of your money it sounds like you were just throwing into your savings account?
Anton: Well, I don’t know what you mean by that. I basically took-
Clay: Well, where were you keeping this $50,000 at?
Anton: Basically it was just in my bank. Not savings, just in a checkings account.
Clay: Okay, what [crosstalk 00:19:34]-
Anton: I’m really good at saving.
Clay: I mean, it was in your bank account, then?
Anton: Yeah.
Clay: Yeah. I didn’t mean a savings account exactly, but you were just saving money. It was just sitting there in your bank account is what I’m getting at, but it happened to be a checking account to be specific, right?
Anton: Yeah, yeah.
Clay: Well, you know what? Again, I’m just using you as the Anton Effect here. Listen, when you don’t go out there and randomly as fast as it comes in, apparently by the time, and again, the premise being you’re willing to get out there, hustle, grind, Anton working two jobs. Clearly, good at his job if he’s already General Manager of the one by age 17, so hey, you know what? Be worthwhile. Be an asset in whatever job you’re doing and good things can happen. You had $50,000 saved, just sitting there in your bank account, in your checking account at age 21. That’s good stuff. That’s inspiring, and for those of you out there, listen, nowhere did he say it was necessarily easy. It’s not like he didn’t put in effort. There’s plenty of blood, sweat, and tears that were put into it, but where there’s a will there’s a way, and that’s awesome stuff.
Clay: Then, I think I heard, maybe I misheard, I’m really hoping I didn’t quite understand, but I thought I heard you say you took that $50,000 and put it into your Robinhood account. Did I hear that right?
Anton: Almost. I kind of overexaggerated. I took 30,000 of that 50 and put it in my Robinhood.
Clay: Okay. Well, you went big, then. I guess before you did that, were you out there doing research? Or were you out there like… What gave you the confidence to put $30,000 into your Robinhood account?
Anton: You did, your YouTube videos.
Clay: Okay, so it’s my fault. This is fantastic right now. Now, what about your buddy? Where did your buddy come into play? He’s the one that told you it was easy to make all of this money.
Anton: Well, yeah. Technically it was my buddy. I looked at him and I was like, “If he can do it, I can do it.” I feel like I’m better with money and I was like, “I can definitely do it.” Then, I was like, “But before I start, let me go on YouTube.” This great guy, he was wearing a t-shirt, gave me all of the confidence I ever needed.
Clay: Oh, he sounds like scumbag. Never trust anybody in a t-shirt. Let me tell you that right now. Okay, well, so to understand, your buddy kind of knocked over that first domino, got you interested in more so trading the market. Then, you hopped on YouTube. It sounds like you clearly came across more than one of my videos did. How long did this research phase even last for you before you decided to fund that account with 30,000?
Anton: Oh, no, so I funded it before I watched any YouTube videos because-
Clay: You just flat out funded your account, then? Wow.
Anton: Yeah.
Clay: That’s gutsy. Did you even really know what you were getting yourself into?
Anton: Well, I was like, “Acorns made me money.” I was like, “This is just going to make me money faster.”
Clay: Gotcha. Okay, I can see that. “Acorns, okay, made money at that rate, but if I get this app, I can make money even faster, so let’s just fund it because that’s going to be the first stage.” What was your… I don’t even know how to… What did you think Robinhood was going to do? Did you understand that you would have to trade? Or were you still thinking that you’d have to invest for the long term? What was your impression of what the tool of Robinhood actually was?
Anton: I had technically an idea, but when I started out, I was going in like, “I’m going to buy and hold.” Then, that never happened. I would overtrade, but now I don’t buy and sell as much. On one stock, just on its move up, I would buy and sell maybe like five times and [inaudible 00:23:18] if I held it, it was just going up by itself, but I just kept selling. “Oh, what if it doesn’t?” Then, I’d buy again and then buying until it gets to the top and then I don’t sell-
Clay: Gotcha [crosstalk 00:23:28]-
Anton: So-
Clay: All right, where were you finding these stocks at?
Anton: Basically, Robinhood has this great thing. You go at the end of the day. It shows the highest movers. That’s where I would find them, and I would always make sure they’re like under the $10 range so I can buy a lot of shares.
Clay: Okay, and you were looking for… I get it, that’s step one of your strategy, but how long was your typical hold? It sounds like you’re buying and selling within a few minutes. Is that accurate?
Anton: Yeah. Yes, yes.
Clay: When were you doing… Well, I guess if you’re on Pacific Coast Time, then you were probably able to do all of this like before work?
Anton: Yeah, I go to work here at eight. Stock market opens here at 6:30, so I have about an hour until I actually have to start getting ready to leave.
Clay: This was all being done from your phone, too?
Anton: Oh yeah, of course.
Clay: Okay. What were some of these ticker symbols that you remember trading back then?
Anton: JDST, AMRN, JNUG, J-N-U-G, those are the main three, actually-
Clay: Okay [crosstalk 00:24:44] so the leverage ETFs, then, which can move very quickly. Moral of the story, you’re trading very fast-moving stocks from your phone?
Anton: With a lot of money, yep.
Clay: With a lot of… I mean, how big were you going in? If you had $30,000 in, were you like putting all $30,000 into a trade?
Anton: For me, 3,000 shares was like minimum and there was times where I’d put in 6,000 shares.
Clay: You were basically maxing out your account, then?
Anton: Pretty much.
Clay: Okay, well, how was this going for you? Were you making money? Or…
Anton: Oh yeah. First day, I remember trading. I made about $400, went down, and then I lost all of it, so that was my first day. Second day, right before work, I was up a thousand dollars in like the course of that one hour. I had to go to work, but I’m like, “This stock’s going up. I’m just going to buy it and hold and then I’ll see what happens tomorrow.”
Clay: Oh.
Anton: This was AMRN. I put in 3,000 shares, then at work I decided to check it. Also, it’s been going down, so I was down about a little over a thousand dollars. Well, I was losing a little over $2,000, but because of that thousand-dollar profit, technically I was losing a thousand of my money. Then, I decided to buy some more because the price is lower, so I bought another 3,000 shares.
Anton: Now, I’m 6,000 shares and by the next day, it’s even lower. I was looking at my account and I was losing about, I think, $3800, and so I decided to buy 800 more. That was like the last little bit of money I had. By the next day, I was losing 4,000 and I was just like, “I can’t do this anymore.” I pulled out, so I took that $4,000 loss. Well, technically $5,000. I saw it immediately go up the next day to over the price of where I bought it, so-
Clay: Oh man, that’s savage-
Anton: And-
Clay: Savage.
Anton: Yeah, and I just calculating on my calculator. I was like, “If I didn’t sell and held it for that one extra day, I would have actually made like $6,000.” because it went up a little over a dollar of my buy price. I’m like, “Wow, why did I sell?” So that [crosstalk 00:27:24]-
Clay: That was second day?
Anton: That was my second day, yeah.
Clay: Okay, so your first day, you made 400 and then you lost the 400, and then the second day, you were up a thousand, and then on your second day, that’s when you decided to just buy some more and then check later on and then-
Anton: Yeah.
Clay: You literally like went sprinting into all of this. There was no easing in at all. You, day two, average into a position of 6800 shares and then ended up losing basically, like you said, the $4,000. Okay, well, that’s a cruel joke. I laugh, but I just laugh because I think we’ve all been there where you get out and then the price goes in your favor. What did you do after that point? Did you just keep on going? Or did you pause? What happened after, like you said, you pulled out the calculator and started to run some of those calculations?
Anton: Yeah, so basically I started trading in the middle of the week, so next week is Monday again and I traded with JNUG, I think, for the next two days, J-N-U-G. I made like 400, lost like 300, and made like a hundred, so I was basically break even. I didn’t actually make any profit or lose any, and then I saw JDST going down and it was at about $2. This was actually that same friend that kind of told me like, “Dude, load the boat. This stock is going to go up. It’s so low right now.” I got 8,000 shares, and then I was going to hold it. The first day, it pretty much stayed around that same range. Didn’t really lose much, maybe like a hundred dollars, but it’s fine. The next day I wake up, and it just keeps going down and down and down.
Anton: Then, I made this rule for myself. I was like, “Well, the other one, if I held, I would have made a bunch of money,” so I was like, “I’m going to hold this one.” Then, that next day I was about minus a thousand dollars and I held another day and I was minus about $3800 and I just pulled out. Oh, sorry, that’s not actually how it happened. Then, the next day I was about negative about $3800 and right before the day ended, I was just like, “I can’t do this anymore. I don’t know what I’m doing.” I went back to YouTube, I pressed on your YouTube. I bought your course. After I watched like the first three videos, I sold JDST because I was like, “Yeah, this is bad.”
Anton: I was just like able to tell that this doesn’t even look like something that’s going to go up at all, and I had… Yeah, that’s… In my first basically week, I was already losing almost $8,000.
Clay: Yeah. It all makes sense knowing your personality. You kind of go all-in, you’re a hustler, a grinder. Let’s get to it, let’s go, ambition, booyah. Let’s go. I think if this all happened in one single week, I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around it. You went literally like guns a-blazing out of the gates. I didn’t realize that you got into the program that fast, too. Little [crosstalk 00:30:44]-
Anton: Oh yeah.
Clay: Little point of curiosity, where was your friend? Were you having any communication with him while JDST continued to bleed and bleed?
Anton: Yeah. Well, so my friend, I told him like, “Sell,” but I was using 8,000 shares. He hd like 400 shares
Clay: Aah, so he couldn’t sit through a little more pain better?
Anton: Yeah, and to me, I just couldn’t. That was just how it ended up and I literally took so much… That was so much emotional pain out of me that literally when I went to go buy your course, I didn’t even think about anything at all. I didn’t care if this was a scam or to check or maybe like you don’t actually have a good course. Maybe I should look up some reviews. Maybe I should email you. I was just like, “I’m going all-in.” I didn’t even buy how you can pay like the thing. I just bought the whole course right away because I was like, “I lost 8,000. What’s 2500 more dollars?” You know?
Clay: I mean, that’s wise beyond your years. For a 20-year-old kid to just kind of realize that is… Props to you because I see it way too many times. This is not some sort of sales pitch to try to convince anybody to buy the course, but we see it quite a bit where people… or I hear it or sometimes people in the chatroom are just like, “Yeah, I’ve lost X amount. X amount is huge.” People are like, “You do realize that there is lots of education out there that you could have bought several times over for what you just lost in that one trade.
Clay: In many cases, what they have lost could have been totally avoided, which is one of those little hidden facts about actual education is sure education may not necessarily make you money in the sense of your account grows, but in many cases, it’ll help you avoid losing money, which a penny saved is a penny earned. If you can avoid digging yourself a hole, well, in many ways, that’s just as powerful as actually growing your account. That’s one of those things where, like you said, you nailed it. It’s like, “Well, I’ve lost $8,000 more. I could very well lose another $8,000. Well, why don’t I start to actually learn how to go about all of this and invest into, in this case, 2500?”
Clay: Like I said, and that’s for any course out there. Really think about that. If you’ve lost… How much have you lost? How much could you have potentially saved by just knowing what to avoid in the first place by having invested some of that into education? There was one person I remember… What was it? It was like 30, $40,000 they had lost, but they just fought tooth and nail. “No, 25, no, I’m not doing it.” It’s like, “Okay, that’s fine. Do what you want to do, but your logic is a little bit off when you’ve lost 10 times more than the cost of the class of itself.” Wise beyond your years with that comment and I really appreciate that in the world of customer service that I see quite a bit.
Clay: Now, how long had you been watching my videos before… See, this is what I don’t understand is this all happened in one week, so you went guns a-blazing. How long had you been watching my videos? Were you watching my videos during this process on YouTube, that is? Just out there within that one week slice of time?
Anton: Oh yeah. I thought I had everything down outcome, and I’m like, “I’m going to dedicate and hour and a half every day after work to watch YouTube videos,” and I only watched yours. I don’t know, I just liked yours. That one week and over the weekend, I think I [inaudible 00:34:14] like a total of just for Saturday and Sunday I think I spent a total of like 10 hours just watching YouTube videos. I watched so many that I honestly thought that, “I get it now.” Like, “This is not that hard.” Then, it’s kind of crazy when you buy the course how your eyes really open up and you’re like, “I spent all of that time on YouTube and I feel like I’m actually now starting to understand what I’m getting myself into.”
Clay: Isn’t it crazy how… My YouTube channel, I have no problem admitting, yeah, there’s good stuff on there. There’s stuff that’ll help you learn. There’s stuff that will help you kind of open your eyes to the market, but as far as like the nitty-gritty structure details, that’s going to be in the courses. You’re not the first person to tell me that were like, “Oh, wow. I can’t believe I spent all of that time on YouTube,” and then all of a sudden, it feels like you almost learn a lot quicker, too, because there’s actual structure to the information that you’re learning, whereas, YouTube, you’re just bouncing around from one topic to another.
Clay: Who knows if the person you’re even paying attention to is actually given you valid information, but assuming all information is valid, then you still have the problem with structure because if you’re starting to learn about valid information out of order, then it just becomes overwhelming and confusing. That makes sense why you would say, “Oh yeah, I spent a lot of time, but now I actually feel like I’m learning that much more.”
Clay: I will also say that to all of you out there, I get it. It can feel like, “Wow, I’ve been working so hard Saturday, Sunday. You know what? I even stayed home Friday night and I’ve watched like 15 hours, 20 hours of YouTube videos. I’m ready to go.” Anton, there is more that goes into training than only 15 and 20 hours of YouTube video, isn’t there?
Anton: There’s way more. It’s like it really opens your eyes. It’s crazy.
Clay: Isn’t it? It’s funny. You look back and it’s like, “I can’t believe I thought I had it figured out just because I watched 15, 20 hours of YouTube videos.” Again, I’m not saying, and Anton’s not saying, either, that YouTube are 100% worthless, all of the channels out there are garbage.” We’re not saying that at all.
Clay: We’re just saying that please be very careful of falling into that trap, the scientific term being the Dunning-Kruger effect where you’re like when you don’t know what you don’t know, well, part of that is not knowing that just because you watched 15, 20 hours, just because you might know what a candlestick is, just because you might know what a technical chart or what level twos are, that doesn’t mean that you actually know to apply that in a very structured way that’s going to keep your account from getting absolutely destroyed.
Clay: That’s funny you say that because I see that quite a bit. Then, you weren’t stupid. You were being rational because you did put in a lot of time. That 15 or 20 hours, that’s a lot of YouTube videos. That is a lot of time that you are spending there watching videos, but unfortunately there’s just more to it than goes into that. You decide, “You know what? It’s been a week. I’m done 8,000. I’m just going to get started.” You start to go through the classes and you said, what, video three you decided to sell JDST?
Anton: I don’t know exactly which video, but I remember that one day I watched… I spent like two hours just watching videos and I just kind of was like, “Yeah, I think it’s time to sell JDST,” because my eyes opened up so much to what was happening that I was just like, “No way is this good to hold.” It’s that plus I also kind of went on Stocktwits while I was in your course and I kind of started reading what they were saying. I’m happy I did, though, because if I would have waited maybe like a couple of more days… My price that I was sold at was about $1.50 something. By the time the stock or the ETF stopped moving down, it was like at 1.16.
Clay: Oh, okay, so that would have been… It said you had 8,000 shares or 6,000 or something?
Anton: Yeah. I had 8,000.
Clay: Yeah, so every 10 cents, that’s 800 more bucks out the window, so that was good that you got out where you did. I’m glad you just kind of waved the white flag and realized, like you said, “This is not how it’s supposed to be. Now that I’m getting some understanding here, I need to just get out.” Well, you got out and where did you go from there? Did you just stay buried in the courses? Or did you start to put more money into the market? Walk us through that next phase of your journey.
Anton: Basically, I was spending a lot of time, too, watching. Not as much, actually, I feel like as YouTube, but I would kind of push myself to watch one to two videos a day, but I would still be actively trading. The most amazing part about this is I was still using Robinhood and now I can’t day trade. I don’t have over 25K, so I put another $8,000 into my account in Acorn, I mean, on Robinhood.
Anton: I decided to keep trading on Robinhood while I was taking the courses and I still didn’t learn that my share sizes were not a normal thing to do, or like, I guess, for my risk tolerance.
Clay: You experienced a downside of continuing to trade while you were getting educated. The risk there being, “Yeah, you’re learning, but you still haven’t learned everything, so therefore, you’re still opening yourself up to some pitfalls.” One of those was the position sizing, then?
Anton: Yeah, but the thing is is after taking the course, I don’t know what it did to me is I actually didn’t lose any more money. I was still making trades, but it was only like a couple of trades and I would pretty much every time break even because I just would then know where I should buy. I would see your videos like support resistance to this and that, but I was like, “But where should I buy?” I was like… I don’t know. I was just really new. I had no idea, so I put more money into Robinhood, but nothing much really happened from there. I feel like I realized how much I didn’t know once I started the course, so even though with the more money in Robinhood, I still just sat there looking at charts in the morning and Robinhood charts don’t move.
Anton: I finally started doing it on my computer, but they were like not moving at all, so me watching like your courses and your YouTube videos where you’re candlesticks move, I was so confused. I was like, “Why is it just still and not moving? How can you read anything here?” I kind of already knew that I won’t be able to make trades on Robinhood because everything he’s teaching, Robinhood just doesn’t provide it.
Clay: For at least the type of trading that you were wanting to do because you wanted to be a day trader, right?
Anton: Yeah, day trader for sure, yes.
Clay: Okay, well-
Anton: I cannot hold overnight. It hurts me.
Clay: Yeah, a little too much stress there?
Anton: Yeah, yeah.
Clay: Yeah, the fear of the unknown. I get you, I can see that. Well, you were basically… I’m a little lost on the sequence. You were trading out of Robinhood while you studied, but then, eventually it sounds like you got-
Anton: Yes
Clay: To a point in your studying and the courses where you just flat out, “Okay, now that I’ve learned this amount, I’m well aware now that Robinhood’s not going to be the broker for me.” Is that a fair summary?
Anton: Yeah. I guess I wasn’t technically trading Robinhood. I just funded it and then I was going to, and I think I made like two trades and I pretty much broke even on both of them. Even though with my large share sizes, it would go up like a penny and I’d sell in order to go down like a penny and I would sell. I don’t know, I would just scared now because of the-
Clay: You [crosstalk 00:42:07] had guilty conscience. You had a guilty-
Anton: Yeah.
Clay: You knew that somewhere deep down, “Okay, I’m learning and I’m realizing how much I don’t know, but I want to keep trading,” but that’s a good thing, though. You just knew somewhere. There was some voice that you knew that you were trading under [inaudible 00:42:26]. Okay, that makes sense that it was only a couple of trades. I thought you were sitting there busy just trading, trading, trading while you’re going through the classes, but it was just a couple of trades. Then, eventually, it sounds like you were done with Robinhood? Or-
Anton: Yeah.
Clay: Okay. Where-
Anton: I-
Clay: Do you go from there?
Anton: I had no idea where to go. I did not want to pay commissions and so I just went to your YouTube. I saw that Webull YouTube video you made and I just completely funded Webull with that money that was in Robinhood. I did the little transfer they had like promotion where when you transfer it’s free, no fees, so I did that straight from my Robinhood account just so the money could get there faster. I didn’t want to wait. I still wanted to trade. I was eager to trade. Even while I was learning, I just felt like Robinhood wasn’t the best place.
Clay: Well, that was correct. If you were looking to day trade the way you’re looking to day trade, and especially when you name the stocks that you were looking to day trade, Robinhood’s just not going to be a long-term consistent tool to use for profitability. Well, I can see a listener right now, “Well, I use Robinhood and I’ve made money.” Well, yeah, I’m not saying you can never ever make money. I’m just saying over the long haul, it’s just not trading in the way that Anton and day trading and stuff like that is set up. From your phone, it’s just a very risky proposition. I guess calendar-wise, timeline-was, when was this switch to Robin, or, excuse me, to Webull?
Anton: It was I would say about a month after your course. I think I was already done with the first set of videos. Once I got onto Webull, I was so eager to trade, but I still found myself just staring and not actually… I even opened up the chat in the mornings and, I don’t know, I just couldn’t get into any trades. That’s when I decided I was like… I tried to paper trade, I just couldn’t. I don’t know, I felt like I didn’t care when I paper traded at all. I was like, “I’m not sure how this is going to teach me.”
Anton: I did everything, like I would lower the account side and everything to how much I would actually use, but I would buy, let’s say, on paper trading and I just wouldn’t care about where to sell. I would just let it go up and up and up and up. Or, if it starts going down, I would just watch it go down, down, down. I didn’t really care, I guess, with paper trading, so I never paper trading. I just kept taking the courses and I just put trading aside. Then, about a month later once I… I pretty much finished your total course in two months.
Anton: After I hit RVR, that’s when I started taking trades on Webull. That’s basically when I started actively trading again, but that’s when I learned that position size should be a lot lower and I started more like a little bit… Well, I would watch the volatility and I would basically choose my position size based off of that. It was my [inaudible 00:45:35] would ever go and be 500 shares. I would never go most of the time. I would do 200 shares. 500 would be just if I really think it’s a really good setup, and then the other times it’d be 200, 100 shares. I would never really go above that.
Clay: This was… Well, let me take a step back. You have 25,000, right?
Anton: Over, yeah.
Clay: Okay. What do you have against commissions? Why are you so anti-commission?
Anton: See, I have no idea, Clay. I don’t know why. I’m in Lightspeed now-
Clay: Oh, you are?
Anton: I just-
Clay: Okay-
Anton: Yeah, yeah.
Clay: So we… Okay, all right, all right. Nevermind, so I jumped ahead. My bad, okay.
Anton: Yeah.
Clay: We’ll just continue on with the journey, then, but-
Anton: I just… I was scared of commissions. I was just like, “Man, but what if I make a hundred dollars? They’re going to take 20 from me?” I was like, “That’s my money.” I guess that’s kind of the feelings I had. I did Webull for about a month and I was like this is… I don’t know, I didn’t like it. There’s this good faith thing. I have over 25,000. I want to make day trades. Good faith doesn’t let you use that same money you used until like the T plus two days. I was like [crosstalk 00:46:50]-
Clay: Did you have a margin account?
Anton: No, I had a cash account. I didn’t know how [crosstalk 00:46:55]-
Clay: Okay. Well, yeah [crosstalk 00:46:55]-
Anton: To margin.
Clay: Yeah, that’s why. That’s nothing for Webull, that’s just a general policy that if it’s a cash account, then, yeah, you have to let money settles and all of that sort of stuff, whereas, the margin is how you get around all of that. You don’t have to let things settle. I can see how that would be annoying, but a Webull thing, that’s not a Robinhood thing. That’s not an anybody thing, that’s just how it’s set up if you have a cash account. Is that why you mainly changed was because of that, then?
Anton: That was the biggest reason. Actually, I don’t know if you remember, I emailed you and that was like, “Hey, Clay. I don’t know, Webull has this good faith violation and I heard you talk about Lightspeed.” This was an old podcast that you did. It was from like 20, I don’t know, 17. I was just like, “I heard you talk about it. I emailed you about it. You said, “Yeah, if you have the funds, definitely switch,” and I was like, “If Clay says it’s good, that means it’s probably good,” so I switched.
Clay: Well, has it been good?
Anton: Oh yeah, I love Lightspeed.
Clay: It’s crazy, isn’t it? Like compared-
Anton: Yeah.
Clay: Yeah. You don’t even care about the fees, do you? You’re just like-
Anton: Oh no.
Clay: “Oh, it’s totally worth it.”
Anton: No, the first couple of days when I started and I just saw everything before my eyes, I think I got a little bit too excited, and I went ahead, just went… For the first two days, I think the first day I lost 200 and then the next day I lost 400 in seconds because I just like went all-in and I was like, “Oh wow. This is so cool.”
Clay: And so fast.
Anton: Yeah, and it’s so fast. It’s insane. I was like, “That’s why they are called Lightspeed. Then, afterwards, I kind of got back and it was like, “Okay, I got to calm down and actually look for a setup, not just jump in because you see all of these candles moving so fast and you’re just like, “Oh, oh, it’s going up,” you know?
Clay: Yeah, absolutely. One distinction there and I say this for everybody. If you want to day trade and you have over $25,000 in your account, just go with Lightspeed because that is the minimum. You need to have at least $25,000. In Lightspeed, like I said, there are fees, there are commissions, but just try it and you’ll be like, “Yeah, it’s totally worth it. It costs money to make money, but the speed at which it allows you to operate, the fees will take care of themselves. However, I do like Webull, and I always call it the budget-friendly approach.
Clay: If you don’t have $25,000, hey, welcome to the club. We don’t all start off with $25,000, but they’re a great platform to use from a… I think they have great looking charts. They have a good platform. They can set stuff up. Now, are they going to be as fast as Lightspeed? No, absolutely not. Lightspeed is a direct access broker. There is a reason why you are paying fees. There is a reason why it’s not free, but like I said, from a budget-friendly perspective, that’s a wrap.
Clay: I would definitely recommend looking into Webull, especially as of the recording of this podcast. There have been a bunch of upgrades, the new platforms. There’s lots of stuff going on, but again, if you do have the $25,000, so if you’re not really too budget-concerned per se, then at least try out Lightspeed. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Clay: All right. Well, you got a little too antsy. You ad the couple of losses and then you toned things down. It sounds like that’s who you’re still using right now is Lightspeed, then, right?
Anton: Yeah. I’ve had it for a couple of weeks now, maybe a month now.
Clay: Okay, yep. Are things going pretty well with it? Have you kind of calmed down a little bit in the sense of, “Oh, this is awesome, all of this is so fast?”
Anton: Everything was going great, and then I was on discipline one day, so I was up and [crosstalk 00:50:41]-
Clay: Let’s do this first. I get it that your strategy is that you are a day trader, but what sort of setup and so on are you actually looking for that you would find worthwhile enough to put your money into a trade?
Anton: For my setups, it would… I don’t know the proper names for it, but basically I think like ruthless shorts, so I want like the support to break and I would basically short sell it. Or, if it’s a flag pole or bull pole, I want it to basically do the momentum by where I want to brace-
Clay: Okay, so you’re [crosstalk 00:51:18]-
Anton: And then, what I look for-
Clay: A momentum trader. You’re looking to trade momentum to the downside. You’re looking to trade momentum to the upside. Fair enough, that makes sense, and you said things are going pretty well?
Anton: Yeah, they were until last week.
Clay: Okay. Well, I guess, walk us… How well were they going? Where you…. Ballpark, give or take, how much were you making per day or per week? I guess-
Anton: So-
Clay: Define how well things were going.
Anton: Average was about seven to nine hundred per week for like three weeks straight. I didn’t have a single red day three weeks straight. It was just like… It was a total of 14 days without a single red day, and on my account, I was making a little over $4,000. This was crazy to me because I was like, “Wow, just a little bit more time and I can actually make some of that money back that I’ve lost back when I started Robinhood.
Anton: Then, I think what got to me is the fact that I haven’t lost money for so long. I just kept having all of these winning trades. It wouldn’t just be like one trade a day, it would be a couple of trades a day. I would have losing trades within the day, but like overall days, it would always green. I would always be up [crosstalk 00:52:36]-
Clay: Fantastic [crosstalk 00:52:37] so you’re managing risk, you are doing a good job, then. That’s what I’m always wondering. It’s like, “Wait, are you saying that every single trade was green?” That would be a red flag, but no, you just said that you were having red trades along with them, but you’d still come out overall green. The consistency was there, but it sounds like the downside of consistency is sometimes consistency can breathe and initiate quite a bit of confidence, which is good, but then confidence, if you’re not careful, and it happens to everybody, can lead to a little bit of cockiness, so-
Anton: Oh yeah.
Clay: Is that maybe where things headed down to?
Anton: Yeah. All of this time, I’m using maybe 200, 300 shares and I’m trading kind of like Apple, NVAX, just like some of the more expensive stocks, and FSLY, I was pretty confident. “I’ve already made this much money.” I decide to up my share size to 700.
Clay: From 200 to 700?
Anton: Yes.
Clay: Okay.
Anton: So that was maxing out my account. I don’t know why it did it, I just had a good feeling for some reason. I don’t know-
Clay: I know [crosstalk 00:53:40] why you did it. You already said why you did it because you had consistency, you were feeling, and that’s the downsize of consistency is people are just like, “Oh, I just wish I could be consistent. That’s a good wish. You want to be consistent, but even when you become consistent like you did, Anton, now all of a sudden, you have another set of problems, that set of problems being you get a little too overconfident and like from 200 to 400, okay, I can see that, but wow, man. 200 to 700, you went off the rails.
Anton: Yeah, and it’s kind of crazy because I have not held on my speed. I have not held any stocks overnight and I have always done [inaudible 00:54:23]. Even if I had a losing day, which I did not, but even if I did, I would be done and I would just go to work. It’s on my computer, can’t do it on my phone. It’s perfect. Robinhood, I would sometimes go and I would try to do it at work.
Anton: Then, for FSLY, I decided it was going down. I bought all of these shares. I was like, “I’m not going to lose.” I looked at them all.
Clay: You shorted the shares if you thought it was going down, right?
Anton: No, no. I was going to go up, so I bought 700.
Clay: Okay, you said you thought it was going down and then you bought [crosstalk 00:54:54] okay.
Anton: Yeah-
Clay: So-
Anton: Sorry, my bad.
Clay: You thought it… No, I just wanted to make sure that I was understanding it right. You thought it was going to go up, so therefore you bought shares?
Anton: Yes.
Clay: Okay.
Anton: It started going down. The amount of money that I was losing and how fast I was losing it from 700 shares kind of caught me by surprise. By the end of the day, I think I was losing $1500 and I was like, “I’m not going to sell. I’m going to hold till the next day.” I’m pretty sure it’s going to come back. I looked at the day chart. I was like, “It doesn’t look that bad.” Then, the next day came and they kept going down, so all of my profits that I made over this, of course, Lightspeed. Then, the next day I did end up selling it, but I ended up taking like $6,000 loss.
Clay: 6,000?
Anton: Yeah, so now-
Clay: Oh, man.
Anton: I’m negative 2,000 on Lightspeed as of this week, so now I’m… but basically I was undisciplined. I upped my share size. I held for a lot longer. I did not honor my stop-loss whatsoever. I actually removed it once I saw the stock coming closer. I was like, “Oh no, I’ll have to remove it or else I’m going to get out and miss the move up,” and [crosstalk 00:56:06]-
Clay: You know [crosstalk 00:56:06]-
Anton: Yeah.
Clay: That’s the crazy part, though. In fact, I just did a video on YouTube about this, but that’s the painful part, that’s the tricky part, that’s one of the more difficult parts about trading is all it takes is just one. Just one slipup, just one reason where you just do something stupid and then things can go really, really bad. Do you need to be perfect to have success? You don’t need to be perfect, but you got to be pretty close to being perfect in the sense of not always nailing winning trades in your behavior department. Like you said, had you just… Lets say this. Had you gotten out when you should have gotten out, it sounds like it should have been, what, a $1500 loss? Or not even that big?
Anton: No. Originally, it should have been like about $600 if I’d kept my stop-loss, but it was moving so fast, I removed my stop-loss so quick that it just [crosstalk 00:57:03]-
Clay: Okay, I don’t want it. No more excuses. Okay, so you put your [inaudible 00:57:06] in, so $600 is what it should have been?
Anton: Yeah, around there, yeah.
Clay: Based on what you had been making, based on what you were up, you would have wiped away that loss. You would have still been green. Sure, it’s annoying, sure, it’s frustrating, but to listeners out there, think about that. What should have been a $600 loss went $5400 more against him because he decided to remove that stop-loss, and then that was the domino that all of a sudden, “Well, now, I’m just going to hold.” That’s definitely not what you learned in the classes for sure, and that’s the other tricky part is just because you learn something, that’s great, he knew better, but he had a one mental blip-up and it all started with the share size. You upped your position size way too much, and my guess is… correct me if I’m wrong, but what do you think? Had you stuck with your normal position size of let’s just call it two to three hundred shares, do you think you would have probably gotten out where you should have gotten out with the stop-loss?
Anton: Oh, definitely.
Clay: You saw that big number and you were thinking, “Crap, I don’t want to take that big number of loss,” right? That’s what forced you to break the stop-loss, right?
Anton: Yeah, because I was like, “I make maybe average $200 a day,” and I was like, “Oh no.” I was like, “This is like basically almost my whole week.” I was like, “I got to remove the stop-loss because it’s going to come back.”
Clay: Yep, and that’s the crazy part was it all started with the increase in position size, and for you longtime listeners, how many times have we heard the story of increasing position sizing way too big ultimately causing problems? Too big of a positions size led to too big of an unrealized loss. “Holy crap, I don’t want to take that loss,” led to a stop-loss cancellation, let to, “Well, now that loss is even bigger,” led to, “Let’s hold overnight.” Then, that just spun out of control.
Clay: Well, thank you so much for sharing that, first off. No judgments from me other than I appreciate your candor. I appreciate you just shooting straight because that’s just how trading can go. All it takes is one, but the good news there is this, is it’s not like you were out there doing something random. It’s not like you’re out there losing trade after losing trade after losing trade and you don’t know what the issue is. It’s not like you’re out there with no strategy and you were literally like a chicken with your head cut off.
Clay: No, you were consistent. You were very consistent. You were doing fantastic, but you just had one hiccup, so as painful as that hiccup was, on the bright side of things, at least you know what happened. You know what went wrong. You know all of your errors. It’s not like you’re still out there… Let me put it this way. Imagine taking a $6,000 loss and then sitting there saying, “You know, I really have no idea what just happened. I really don’t know what I did wrong. In fact, it’s the evil market makers. That’s who did it.”
Anton: Yeah.
Clay: “It’s the markets are manipulated. That’s what did it.” Think about that conclusion. You lost $6,000 and the best you can do is blame market manipulation. That’s a scary spot to be in, but at least you know exactly what you did, right?
Anton: Yeah. You’re so right because I believe… so when Robinhood days, I was never mad at myself. I was mad at Robinhood. I was like, “You lost me this money.” When I did this on Lightspeed, I don’t think I’ve ever been so mad at myself and kept like, “Why did I do this?” I was just like, “Why did I choose to not be disciplined?” I was just saying all of these things and it was all my fault. I like basically knew it was my fault and it’s that’s so much different now from taking this big loss. I knew that it was my mistake of what I did back in Robinhood. I never blamed myself. I blamed the market.
Clay: You know what? That’s such a hopeless spot to be in because when you blame the market, that really implies that there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s just pure animus. It’s just, “I’m at the market’s mercy,” but when you actually blame the person in the mirror, that’s a freeing spot to be in because that means the problem is the person in the mirror, which means the solution is also the person in the mirror. Whereas, if it’s just the market, well, then, how are you ever supposed to improve or get consistent if it’s just these market forces that are controlling everything?
Clay: That’s a great little talking point you just made because it is, you’ve got to blame yourself. You can’t be blaming external forces or else you’re never going to get better. You said that happened last week?
Anton: Yeah, this week.
Clay: Have you been trading since then?
Anton: Actually, so I got my time a little bit off, but basically last week I did not trade, so basically those three weeks were before last week, so-
Clay: Okay, gotcha, gotcha.
Anton: I had… Yeah. I took a whole week off because I just couldn’t in my mind… When I would wake up, I’d just be mad at myself and then I would just be scared. Well, I tried to get into a trade, but it was that, I guess, guilt again I would get in. Right before the stock would make the move or right before something that I wanted to happen would happen, I would get out. Then, I would see it happen like literally a minute after I took out and then I would be mad at myself even more, so I took a whole week off just to kind of clear my mind and I’m back again this week, or starting… I was back Friday last week and then Monday, today, I’m back.
Clay: Tuesday, today.
Anton: Yeah, Tuesday, sorry.
Clay: Hey, Monday was Labor Day for listeners’ sakes and the markets were closed on Labor Day. How did you do Friday and then today being Tuesday?
Anton: Friday was actually more than average for me. I took a trade on Apple with 200 shares and I ended up making about 370 for [crosstalk 01:02:54]-
Clay: Good [crosstalk 01:02:55]-
Anton: On that one [crosstalk 01:02:56]-
Clay: I’m glad I heard 200 shares. If I would have heard 700 shares or 500 shares, I’d have gladly called you out and said, “Anton, what about this position sizing?” Good, 200 shares. Then, how did Tuesday go?
Anton: Then, Tuesday, I [crosstalk 01:03:11]-
Clay: You mean today, I guess, so you-
Anton: Yeah, today.
Clay: You traded today, yep.
Anton: Yeah. Today went not the best, but it’s still good. I basically took about a $300 loss, and then by the end of the day, I also took… That was also Apple. I just, I don’t know. I was like, “Apple made me money Friday. Maybe today again?” Basically, I was like, “Okay, Apple, I’m going to go find a better situation.” Then, NKLA, today I made about 268, and then I made about 40 off Tesla, so by the end of the day I was only down $30 rather than 350, so I’m happy. I will any day take a $30 loss over 300, so I was still happy today.
Clay: Or, a $30 loss over 6,000, too.
Anton: Yeah.
Clay: I mean [crosstalk 01:04:01] it’s so… Since you’re been back, you’re net green by quite a bit, which is fantastic. Good. It sounds like you made a wise decision to just take that week off, let your mental framework get back to where it needed to be. Like I said, I was listening very closely about share size and it sounds like you’re back to your normal share size. Isn’t that crazy? You went back to your normal share size and you still had a losing trade, but even with that losing trade, over the two days you’re still up nice and green. I’m not saying to never increase your share size, but maybe next time don’t go from 200 to 700 shares. Maybe go from like 200 to 250 or 300, and then slowly scale up. Does that sound like a good plan going forward?
Anton: How am I going to buy my Lamborghini then?
Clay: Listen, you just-
Anton: I’m kidding.
Clay: You sign up for my secret service. It only costs $30,000… Well, how much is in your trading account? Yeah, because [crosstalk 01:04:58]-
Anton: 28.
Clay: Whatever that amount is, it costs minus $2,000 because all you need is $2,000 and you’ll be Lamborghini shopping next week. Don’t you worry. You send me over that. We’ll talk after this, all right? We’ll get you that. Do you want bright pink or bring orange? Is really the only question that I have for you at this point. I don’t need the answer now, just think about that, but no… We’re basically right at an hour here, which is perfect because I think that’s full circle. You’ve come a long way. You’re doing fantastic, but just one hiccup, but the hiccup’s behind you. You’re back to your normal position sizing. Will you come back at some point in the future?
Anton: Oh yeah, of course.
Clay: Okay, good. Well, then, we’ll be able to pick up with, “Well, all right, how did your slow, slow scaling up of position size go?” It’s clear you know what you’re looking at, you know what you’re doing. People don’t just randomly make money over and over and over again without having a consistent actual strategy, but you just got bit by the consistency, which breeds confidence, which breeds overconfidence, which breeds cockiness voice, but lesson learned for sure. Awesome, man.
Clay: Well, one of the final questions here. If there was a time machine and I was… Well, there is a time machine, and if I was willing to lend it to you and you could go back to the start of everything, what would be one bit of advice that you would give yourself?
Anton: I would basically tell myself if it’s regarding to the stock market, of course, I’d buy Clay’s course. Well, technically, just get education. Don’t go all-in. Maybe if I just… Basically, education. Don’t go all-in right away.
Clay: That is solid advice. Maybe it sounds like, “Well, of course.” Well, yeah, you would think that that would be a common sense approach, but if you think that’s a common sense approach, you must be new to the podcast. I’d encourage you to listen to interview after interview. It doesn’t quite work out like that in the real world, so excellent. Well, some fun questions now. Anton, what is your favorite movie?
Anton: See, I’m one of those who turns off the podcast at this point.
Clay: You turn off the podcast? Well, what kind of scumbag are you? This is the best part. This is the only part I even care about.
Anton: I know. I wasn’t ready for this. What is my favorite movie? I would say… Okay, so I know Dumb and Dumber is yours. Have you seen Dumb and Dumberer?
Clay: Yeah, it’s terrible.
Anton: Yeah. I wasn’t going to say it was my favorite. I just wanted to ask you that.
Clay: Yeah, yeah. That’s a poor life choice for you to even ask me [crosstalk 01:07:41] that-
Anton: No, no.
Clay: Or consider that. Next-
Anton: I just really wanted to know.
Clay: What is your favorite movie?
Anton: It’s [crosstalk 01:07:45]… I say Undisputed, there’s more than one for me. I believe it’s Undisputed III.
Clay: Undisputed III?
Anton: Yeah. It’s like a fighting movie. There’s a guy, he’s played by Scott Adkins, but he’s portrayed as like a Russian dude. It’s basically prison fighting and, I don’t know. I did wrestling and all of this and I as like, “Go to the gym, blah, blah, blah,” so I always kind of looked at him and I was like, “This is how I want to be,” ever since I was young, and so it just kind of always stuck with me. I still actually watch this movie sometimes that I’m older. I wouldn’t recommend to watch with your kids, but…
Clay: Noted [crosstalk 01:08:32]-
Anton: It’s definitely a good movie.
Clay: All right. I’ll make sure that we put the kids to bed before we watch that one. What about food? What’s your favorite food?
Anton: I would definitely have to say sushi.
Clay: Oh, sushi? Yeah. I can pawn some sushi for sure. I want to find a sushi buffet where I can just see how many pieces of sushi I can eat. I think I can get that number up there pretty high. Then, final question. Three words, and these three words need to be what you would associate with what it takes to be a successful trader. What would those three words be?
Anton: I would have to say discipline, patience, and… I don’t know. Discipline, patience. What would be another word for not being greedy?
Clay: Grateful?
Anton: Grateful, oh yeah. Be grateful for your winners because I know that sometimes even when I win, I don’t pay attention to them as much as I pay attention to my losers, but yeah, so grateful, patience, and discipline.
Clay: Boom. There you go. Three words. Mission complete. Well, Anton, I enjoyed this conversation, especially when you’re only 21. When I was 21, who knows what I was doing with my life? I don’t know, but good stuff, man. I appreciate your hustle. I appreciate your grind. You said you’ll come back again, right?
Anton: Yes, yes.
Clay: All right. Well, thank you again for taking some time out of your evening right after work. You said you were all nervous. How did it go? I feel like you did just fine. Was it entertaining? Was it fun for you?
Anton: Yeah, it was actually a lot funner than I thought. I thought I’d be like nervous the whole time.
Clay: Yeah. See, man, I played you like a fiddle. You thought you were going to be nervous. You’re always the best people that are like, “Oh, I’m nervous.” I’m like, “All right. Good. Yeah, I’ll make you not nervous.” No, just kidding. You did a great job, so well done and we’ll have you back. I’m curious to see how this position size journey goes for you, but just remember take it slow. Take it slow. Can you promise us all that?
Anton: Yeah. Yeah, I can.
Clay: Excellent, excellent. All right. Well, thank you very much, Anton, for spending some time.
Anton: Yeah. Thank you, Clay.
Clay: All right, for listeners, before you go, final few things. First off, if you’re listening on iTunes or any other podcast players, then be sure to hit that subscribe button when you know when new episodes and such are released. On iTunes, if you could leave us a rating or, better yet, a written review, that really helps us out, goes a long way, so I would greatly appreciate that so thank you in advance.
Clay: Then, finally, if you’re listening at claytrader.com, on the show notes page, down on the bottom right-hand corner there’s a little chatbot there. If you click there and request to speak with a human, it’ll go directly to us and there’s nothing better than hearing from somebody that says, “Hey, you know, I listen to the podcast,” and questions, comments, suggestions, we love to hear from you, so please feel free to reach out at any point. Thank you to Anton, thank you to all of those of you as listeners, and we will see you back next week.
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