Do you think anyone can do this to get trade? No, I don’t think so at all because they come into the market trying to get rich quick rather than understanding this is a full-time career that is going to take many years for them to master if ever. I remember seeing your social media. You have like what 10 monitors? That’s why we have 10 monitors because since we hyper scalp, trying to find an opportunity of 5 cents is so much easier than finding a good quality stock that is going to move a few dollars on your favor. So, we find things to trade all the time. That’s when this one reclaims the highs, short sellers short at the highs, cover. It’s like an imbalance to the buy side. Retail jump in because it’s the stock making new highs and Robinhood is telling them to buy it. A lot of chat rooms are long on it as well because they know short sellers are underwater. Also, hyper scalpers are buying as well. Shorts themselves are covering and buying back creating those jumps. This small window where everybody’s buying and people that are selling are selling in panic. They just want to get out. And that window is where we see a lot of price dislocations and that’s where edge appears. So, does that mean you trade a lot less after open then? What happens after the open? It’s a secret. I can’t tell you that. Today’s guest is Marcelo, also known as Mighty Stocks online. Marcelo is a full-time day trader specializing hyper scalping, a style of trading that involves taking hundreds of trades a day to capitalize on tiny price movement in highly volatile small cap stocks. It’s one of the fastest pace and most competitive trading styles out there. To date, Marcelo has over seven figures in verified trading profits. But his journey started far from Wall Street. After immigrating to northern Canada, he worked painting houses before dedicating himself to committing and becoming a full-time trader. What also makes Marcelo stand out is his honesty and transparency. He openly says that most people shouldn’t become day traders, that the odds are so stacked against them, and succeeding requires an almost insane and unreasonable level of discipline and obsession. Today, we’ll be talking about hyper scalping, building a seven-figure trading career, and what it actually takes to succeed in one of the world’s most competitive professions. Welcome to the show, Marcelo.
Marcelo, let’s start right here with a tough questions. You say the stock market is rigged. What do you mean by that? I genuinely believe the stock market was created for the wealthy to be able to get wealthier at the expense of retail traders. Um at the end of the day, as a retail trader myself, I’m constantly battling against brokers because they charge commissions. I’m battling against all other retail traders because they’re trying to take my money. I’m battling against Wall Street. I’m trading against market makers. I’m trading against algorithms that are like tuned to trade against me and try to make me as poor as possible. So, when I say that, it’s mostly me accepting the fact that I’m fighting an uphill battle, and that the chances of being a profitable traders is is is going to be very hard because you need to be better than all these other participants in the market. So, so I guess rigged is not the right word, but definitely definitely you know, day trading as a career shouldn’t even exist. It’s It’s almost like us exploiting a a flaw in the market that shouldn’t really exist. So. That’s a really good way to put it. Like I don’t think anyone really created the stock market for Oh, let’s attract day traders to make money amongst us, right? So, really I guess it is true. Only what, 90 90%95%of all traders make money? Exactly. I I just think that um eventually, when markets become efficient, if we ever get to that place, there won’t be any day traders because the price of the stock is going to perfectly replicate the intrinsic value of that company. And then there won’t be any delays or any gaps that a day trading can like take advantage of. Although I guess as long as the markets are also driven by emotions and humans stay humans, maybe there’s still they’re always going going to be edge there. I think as long as uh money and capital remains relevant, there will always be a market like the stock market for us to trade with, hopefully. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It It’s just a a matter of jumping from one deficiency to another cuz edges and strategies that work for a a few years and then then die out because they fix them. Okay. you just got to be resilient and see what else is working. So, that brings me back to a question of how if if in general the stock market is rigged against us retail traders, how are you specifically for yourself like trading and making money in the market? Right. So, the markets are a zero-sum game, right? Which means if there’s a lot of people losing money, it must also mean that people make money on the on the other side of those trades. And the way I trade specifically is I I I’m what they call a hyper scalper, small-cap stocks, which are like the hot penny stocks, the hot momentum stocks, um to the long side. And the reason why I do that is because these are stocks that run normally like 50 to 100%, pretty much every day or every other day, um, which is something outrageous, something that shouldn’t happen. But because of a lot of fear and FOMO and, and you know, pumps and stuff, we do have a lot of small caps that run way beyond the interesting, interesting value of the actual companies. And because of that, a very popular strategy is to short these. Okay. Right most of my friends are short sellers. Um you know, these are stocks that go from a dollar to $10, a dollar to 20, and their goal as a short seller is to make money on the downside, right? As they come back down. They’re They’re betting that the price is going to come back down. But eventually, some of these stocks and some of these short strategies get out of control, right? Um and that’s when I make money. When whenever a a stock that goes from a dollar to 10 doesn’t fade as it should have faded, that’s when I’m longing, and and pretty much I’m trading against short sellers. So, I love trading short squeeze. I love I I love trading stocks that are halting up multiple times because that’s when I can pretty much smell the blood in the water and understand that there’s someone losing on the other side of this, which are short sellers. And if there’s someone losing on the other side, that gives me an opportunity to make money. Again, going back to that zero-sum game. People are losing here, maybe I can make money off of their pain. So, it’s funny though because a lot of my training has been learning a lot from Steven Dux and learning a lot from uh the Clover guys. They’re all short sellers, right? Oh, okay. So, their risk management is pretty much my long strategy. I see. So, there’s a lot of a criteria that Steven Dux follows of what he would never short. If I remember correctly, something like low float, biotechs, um priced below I think $5 or like penny stocks. Um He has a whole list of statistics that he has concluded is not worth shorting, and that to me is like my A+ setup setup for a long side. Especially if he has fresh breaking news pre-market and he has all that criteria, I’m instantly just buying, right? Buying to the long side. Um I I typically I typically only trade stocks that haven’t extended beyond 200%because that’s when Steven Dux wakes up and and goes all in short on these stocks because the statistic going on his favor. So, I make my money from stocks that run from 50% gap to 150, 170 to the long side, well. And Clover was the same thing. I see. Yeah, I think that’s a interesting take and it makes so much sense now that you’re talking about it. But I think most traders don’t think about, “Oh, if my strategy is going long, then I got to make sure the other side of the trade is in pain or like losing money,” and that’s the perfect time to take advantage of that. Exactly. Yeah, so so you you do have to learn short selling. That’s pretty much Right. Like you kind of learned it as a way to to how do you supplement your edge as a long? Totally. I remember I love trading around halts. Okay. A halt is like this measure of the market that freezes the trading of a security for 5 minutes so that people can get a hold of what the hell is going on. Typically stocks are, you know, going parabolically they’re up or down. Okay. Um so I I I when I started trading I loved trading around halts because I just I just this was like a very beginner thinking back then. I just felt like every time a halt a stock halted up, it was going to keep halting up a few times so I instantly bought without really understanding what was going on, but I just knew understood the pattern. So I was like if a stock halted up with this criteria, I instantly buy it because it’s going to halt up a few more times. That was like the beginner strategy, but then, as I learned more about short selling, I realized that a lot of short sellers are terrified of halts and. Because they can gap up huge and they’re no longer under control of, you know, how much they’re risking, and because a stock in theory can go up to infinity, they can blow up in a halt if it. If it decides all of a sudden to resume 100 points higher, they just blow their accounts. So uh short sellers are terrified of the first halt up and because of that whenever the stock resumes, they’re going to instantly cover and get the hell out of it. And that means a lot of buying and a lot of buying back which inevitably is the reason why it halts up again. It’s they themselves buying up the stock as they’re recovering. So there I was buying it without really understanding who was in pain on the other side of the trade, but after I understood that, now I have even more confidence to to go in with bigger risk. And you know, all in those trades pretty much. Yeah, I think it’s so important to think about the psychology of these trades. I think especially when trading small caps. With large caps, I think there’s less There’s still emotions, but a lot less cuz small caps usually full of retail traders. Exactly. Right, like you and I and then some institutions, but like smaller funds. For a large cap to be manipulated by emotions, it has to be incredibly in play. It has to be like the move of the year, maybe right after earnings, maybe after some huge breakdown or breakout on the daily chart. If there’s enough volume, I feel like Tesla particularly sometimes trades like a small cap whenever there’s enough volume and and enough emotion. But for the most part, yeah, it’s it’s harder to trade large caps because they’re It’s like trying to play chess against a computer, whereas trading small caps is more like trying to play poker. It’s like human against human. It just happens that the poker table is a small cap. But like the stock doesn’t even matter. It’s just a battle of longs versus shorts pretty much. That’s a really good analogy. Yeah. Yeah, cuz poker is probably the only way uh the only kind of gambling that you can have some edge. Exactly. Exactly. Cuz you’re going to human against human. Yes. Someone has to win. Whereas the other games are like human against the house. Yeah. Yeah. Let’s take a step back. And you mentioned earlier that um you’re a hyper scalper. So So is that um like kind of explain to our viewers, how’s that different from just scalping? And what kind of strategy is that? How’d you get into this in the first place? Yeah, totally. So hyper scalping is two things. Um a lot of people think that the word hyper means taking a lot of trades per day. Oh, that’s what I thought, too. And although that is true, cuz if if I was to show you one of my charts, you’ll see arrows everywhere. Um it’s mostly a a testament to cutting a loss. So hyper means you instantly buy and if you are not in the profit, you cut the loss instantly. Like you’re hyper about cutting a loss. And that’s what creates a lot of trades because we’re almost like fishing for the right entry on the stock. Um and if but if it’s not breaking out right away or if we’re not seeing like that that short squeeze because most of the time we are buying extended extended stocks, there’s no holding for a test of VWAP, there’s no holding until a daily support level. It’s pretty much breakout or bail out because we are buying a stock probably with no news, Chinese, up 300%. It’s like we can’t afford a stop loss. So, if if you jump in on a halt on the third halt up thinking that the short squeeze is going to continue, if you’re wrong, you have to cut it instantly. So, there’s a lot of us cutting trades fast. That’s why the hyper comes. Um, but also because we do take a lot of trades and we pretty much trade like market makers. Uh, we try to make money off of the spread, we try to make money off of like micro micro movements on the tape. Like there’s a lot of because we trade during windows of short squeeze, there’s a lot of beginner short sellers that like marketing out, right? And all of a sudden you see like burst of of of green in the tape and the tape can jump a lot. So, we try to scalp those as best as we can and instead of trying to hold for a profit targets, we are kind of like going in and out as the price action allows us. So, it’s like if I believe a stock is going to run run from four to 10, I’ll be instead of holding from four to 10, I’ll be like buying and selling all throughout that move. I know, hearing a professional hyper scalper talk about executions can make it sound like you need a space center control room just to place a trade. But thankfully, trading doesn’t have to be that complicated, especially with tools like Moomoo’s new technical engine. One feature I found very impressive is the new and improved real-time order book and market depth. Instead of showing only the bid and the ask, the price ladder here shows where buyers and sellers are lining up and order size at each price visualized through these dynamic color bars. So, you can quickly see where larger orders are sitting and where buying or selling pressure may be building. Down here, you can also see a summary of the stocks order inflows or outflows, order sizes, and money flow across different time frames. 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I I believe a stock is going to run run from four to 10, I’ll be instead of holding from four to 10, I’ll be like buying and selling all throughout that move. Because for example, I honestly think you can make more money that way because let’s say another example. If you’re trading if you’re if you’re trading a stock from one a penny stock that just crossed over one. That’s a really popular strategy that I like trading. A penny stock goes from penny stock to real stock. It breaks through one and you can either choose to buy it at one and hold it to till 110 or you buy it at one and that’s 10 cents worth of profit, let’s say, right? From one to 110. But what but these stocks very often do is that they go to one, then they go to 105, then to come they come back down to one again, then they come down to 95 cents, then they come back down back up to one, then back again to 105, and all throughout that range, there’s already 15 cents of profit. Instead of Oh, I see. instead of from one to 110 holding it and not doing anything about that fluctuation, we are trying to time even the micro movements making 15 cents out of a 10 cent move. You know what I mean? Right, but there will be like three trades of five cents. Exactly. Instead of one trade of of 10 cents. 10 cents. Yeah. Oh, wow. So, that’s kind of like the hyper style. Your broker must love you. Well, we do we do turn a lot of shares. It’s very funny because when we meet up in real life we brokers at events like this um they’re like, “But you have to do at least a million of a a million shares of volume a month.” And it’s like, “Oh, yeah, we do that every day.” Like he’s like, “What is the What is like the lowest commission you have?” The lowest commission the is the 5 million a month tier. Holy yeah. Cuz I was like, “Oh, yeah, that’s fine. We do that every week.” Yeah. But it’s But it’s because we turn so much. And and these stocks are cheap, so you can buy 20,000, 30,000 share blocks in and out like crazy and in one day you make a million you you trade a million shares. Okay. So, hyper scalping, eh? Okay, very interesting. So, you talked about the advantage, right? Which is um instead of like what we said, instead of taking a trade of five cents, you are taking three trades of five cents during that fluctuation and make a total of 15 cents. That’s obviously the advantage. You get all the small moves and they add it up, right? So, what are some disadvantages you see with this kind of strategy? It’s not very scalable. So, I would never make um you know, a million dollars a month. I would never make eight figures a year. Really? Cuz uh I I myself as a trader will eventually, but not with this strategy because it’s not it’s not very scalable because it requires a lot of speed and good fills. And the moment you start trying to put more capital into the trades, slippage becomes a big problem. So, the second you start suffering slippage, the strategy dies pretty much. So, so it’s like you can do it with smaller accounts, right? I can buy 10,000 shares in and out like no problem and I can make like let’s say my daily goal of $1,000 a day. That’s fine. But if I try to replicate the same trade, but now 100,000 shares, I’ll just be cleaning the book myself going long, like, you know, cleaning the ask myself trying to get long 100,000 shares rather than 10,000, and then all of a sudden I myself move the stock those five cents that I’m looking for, and the strategy’s done. So it’s like I can’t make a thousand a day like I would want to make 10k a day just by 10x my risk. Oh, and you also can’t. You you can only do that through I guess the quantity of trades. Right. Right, exactly. instead of more capital, more share size. and you trade more of stocks and you go insane. Yeah. Yeah. Is that why you have I remember seeing your social media, you have like what 10 monitors? That’s why we have 10 monitors because since we hyper scalp, right? Trying to find an opportunity of five cents is so much easier than finding a good quality stock that is going to move a few dollars to a few dollars on your favor. So we find things to trade all the time. Pretty much as long as it has volume and range, it’s tradeable for us. So that’s why I have so many stocks up at all times. And like you’re saying, because scalability is an issue, we focus more on frequency and trying to find more five cent trades. You make more money. Well, have you thought of or I’m sure you’ve tried. What about instead of a small cap that moves 20 cents in a day, or a penny stock moves a day. What about a large cap like say like Sandisk that moves like $200 a day? Right. Well, we’ve tried plenty, believe me, and we end up losing on everything except this strategy. Like trust me, we’ve tried so many things and and nothing has really worked for us. So we end up coming to small caps. I guess it has to be because we know how to read emotions better than actual patterns. So I don’t know. I guess people could do that but for us it’s it’s better to stay in the pennies small cap world. Yeah, I think it’s it is true to stay within like your range of what your expertise instead of trying to trade all these different kind of stocks. Right. And like a few thousand bucks a day, 300 300 grand a year, it’s not terrible. It’s really good. Can’t complain. Do you think this kind of trading strategy, obviously super fast-paced, do you think it suits your personality or or is that why you pick this strategy and you feel like you’re comfortable with this or is it the other way around? Right. Well, it’s funny that you mentioned that because most of my friends were gamers and they loved playing video games their entire childhood. They have very fast like reaction speeds. They’re very like tech-savvy. We have incredible advanced hot keys. So, it’s definitely not a not a strategy that I would teach my mom. Um I would teach my gamer friends this strategy. Um but also this reminds me of something my my good buddy Tariq said. Um My personality is like water and whatever makes money, my personality is going to mold right into that strategy. So, he was kind of like I was a struggling trader for 3 years. I tried so many things and this is the only thing that actually connected and started working. So, instantly my personality became that and I and and I just been doing that ever since. Do you ever find this kind of trading style um stressful? It’s horrible. It’s horrible? It’s very stressful and and I I have a lot of stomach issues. Oh. And um for the longest time me and my mom couldn’t figure out what was going on and until I I I’ve been to many doctors until one doctor told me like what do you do for a living? I’m like I’m a trader. He said okay, so it’s stress. What you have in your stomach is stress and um I genuinely believe it’s because of how I trade and and and the markets in general. Oh, no. Okay. yeah, it’s one of those things that Mhm. It’s all right. I thought you can like slowly adapt just like water. Yeah. No, no. Like no, no. It I mean it’s been better especially when when you’re not trying to make a living from trading exactly month after month. After you build a cushion and and you build up savings, you know, having a red day or like having a losing trade, it it doesn’t it doesn’t feel the same way as it used to before. Has it changed over the years, you think? How how long have you been hyper scalping? I’ve been trading for successfully for 5 years. Okay. And I’ve been just doing that same strategy. Um as long as small caps are here to stay, I think the strategy is going to is going to stay around. Yeah, but I know um I asked that because a lot of traders I talk to, especially I guess more so options traders, um they say a lot of options chains and liquidity has changed after 2021. Um I get it’s almost like the premiums got jacked up, like it’s a lot harder for them to make money trading the same strategies with options, intraday day trading. So, that’s why I’m like, oh, has small caps changed? Because they changed a bunch of rules with um halts and then like you don’t get the crazy um you know, like the the Chinese super micro float stocks, you don’t really have that anymore. Right. No, you’re right. Um it has changed and over the past few years, it has been the slowest years for us. We made less money. Um we’re still profitable, but less money than 2021, 2022. Yeah, that’s with everyone, I think. We were hoping that after PDT was removed, we were going to see an influx in volume, but we haven’t seen that much. Actually, I think it’s more of a, um, something that’s brewing behind the scenes as people slowly get accounts and and start learning about day trading, and eventually it’s going to the PDT, the PDT volume is going to explode, maybe a year or 2 years down the line, rather than right away whenever they announced it. But what I was going to say was, since we are looking for very small opportunities, 5 cents, 3 cents, we don’t need stocks to run you know, from a dollar to 10 to find trades. Um so, given given that the trades and the standards of our trades are very low, even under slower conditions, we still find trades. But it’s also because it’s summer. Summer’s generally just slow slower for small caps, I remember. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Even this week has been awful. Like we’ve been waking up at 3:00 a.m. for no reason. It’s been very tough. Oh. But um you know, I don’t know. It’s been slower this summer, for sure. But it’s a it’s a cycle as well. It’s like short sellers get comfortable, everything that pops drops, they they get very confident, and then all of a sudden one goes from one to $30. And then from there the cycle shifts, and we get a few weeks worth of hotter action. We try to make the bulk of our money there, and then you know, there’s not much there’s not much to do afterwards for another few months. So, how many each I guess on just an average week, I know this week’s slower, but on an average week, how many trades, I guess round trips, would you take in your style? In a week? Yeah. Maybe a thousand. A thousand? Yeah. So, that would that’s like 200 a day. Yeah. Oh. And then what’s I’m just curious, what’s the risk reward kind of like with with high risk scalping? Oh, it’s normally like is is is one of those strategies that is higher accuracy, lower lower risk reward. So, we might have a negative one um two to one negative risk reward, Mhm. but high accuracy. Because it’s not too hard to predict a five-cent move based on the tape. You can tell when the stock is turning. We use a we use a lot of sub one-minute charts as well. So, you can like tell when the stock is turning, and then say you go for that quick pop or that quick drop. Doesn’t it it’s easier to predict a smaller move like that than a stock than a swing trade of a stock going from 200 to 400. So, higher accuracy, a lot of winning trades, but when we do get caught on that um big false breakout or or jackknife, that can wipe like 20 of our small winners. Oh, shoot. Yeah. Cuz it’s like, you know, all of a sudden you’re fishing for five cents at a time, and then it costs dollars. Yeah, then you’re screwed. Mhm. Have you ever been caught in offering before? Yeah, I’ve been caught in an offering before, especially pre-market. Oh, yeah. That’s how your drawdown start. Oh. Cuz then you have a five a five cent shovel to dig out of that. Holy. And then when they drop, they drop in dollars. They drop in dollars. Especially pre-market cuz there’s no halts. But um it’s one of those things that come with the strategy and you get used to it. And eventually five cents at a time you get out of it. I see. Yeah. What’s a I you said um it took you three years to become profitable. And since then like what’s the I guess what’s a what’s a hot streak like for you? What does the week in the market have to look like for you to have like a super hot all green streak and like where it’s like lots of opportunities every day for hyper scalping? Right. That’s a good question. For me a hot week looks like something is in theme. Like for example, Bitcoin is is going up, is bouncing like like you’ve seen yesterday. Um or there’s hot news around SpaceX, or there’s hot hot news around COVID. There has to be a theme because then a lot of small cap companies jump on that theme and they start uh dropping breaking news related to that theme. So that’s when I do the best, whenever Again, whenever Bitcoin has stabilized and is now curling up. Um tomorrow or next week we’re going to see a lot of small cap companies saying like, “Oh, we invested $10 million in Bitcoin.” And now we have a you know, a strategy based around Bitcoin and stuff. And those headlines pick up. They pick up a lot and that’s when we have stocks run from 100%to 200. And that’s when I do the best. And normally we have a few. It’s like there’s like a few headlines per day, the stocks hold up, the the the breaking news is relevant. That’s when I do the best. Um when there’s nothing going on um you know, that’s when I try to lose as little as possible. Yeah. What can you just What would a day have to look like for you to not trade? Wow. Yeah. I don’t think I even remember when was the last time I had a no trade day. I think it’s impossible, honestly. As long as there’s a stock gapping up more than 30%. Okay. And I think 30 is not that high. It’s not that high. But, I say 30 because over 25%that’s where most short sellers algorithms turn on to short, and that’s when there’s danger of a short squeeze for them. I wouldn’t be trading something up 10% because there’s no short sellers in it. It’s not extended enough for them to try to write it back down. Yeah. But, as long as there’s something up 30% and it has volume, I would try to find a few cents out of it. So. Okay. So, a slow day might be like 10 trades, but still trades. Oh my god. And a hot day, sometimes I had a a friend that came here to came here with us. His name is Tim, which I which I met at Warrior Trading. He took 4,000 trades like last Thursday or something. What on what in one day? In one day. What was the ticker for that day? S N O A. It’s S N O A something like that. I can’t remember. Okay. But, what’s funny though is like if you look at this chart, somebody that’s a real trader, let’s say at a prop firm, would say like there’s nothing here. Like the stock went from $2 to $30 and it was range bound all day long. It was just going like a like a ping pong from two to three, two to three, two to three. And for most people it’s like the stock didn’t go anywhere. But, for us it’s like my god, it had the range and it had the volume. We can just scalp away all day long this range. And that’s what he did. Oh, okay. Yeah. Interesting. So, you said you I think you mentioned that you start your day pre-market, right? What’s Kind of walk us through what your pre-market process and research process is like to prepare for the day? Right. So, I wake up before 7:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time because I don’t trade 4:00 a.m. or 5:00 a.m. Eastern only because most retail brokers are not on yet at that time, and I need retail brokers to buy stuff. Because that’s the fuel to create a short squeeze. So, you know, the strategy doesn’t work as well in that under that environment. So, I start at 7:00 and then first I start reviewing gap scanners. Um, I’m typically looking at the top three, top four gappers and then I’m looking at their stats, Steven Duck style. Are they biotech? Are they not? Are what industry are they in? What float is what what float is their float? Are they micro floats or like or like more like mid caps? Um, but for me it has to be a micro float, at least up 30%with breaking news. Um, if it’s Chinese, that’s the only one that I would trade without news. Because then that means That’s funny. they’re rigged and they’re going to like send them up. It’s so fun. It’s so crazy. And then and then I just wait for for a short squeeze, right? I wait for normally the pattern looks something like there’s a PR release, they stock an algo on Wall Street jumps on it. Instantly this the stock spikes like 50% and then it fades and then that’s the end of that stock. Unless all of a sudden it starts curling up and then everybody that’s short at the top of that spike starts like crapping themselves thinking like, oh-oh, this is the runner the runner of the day. There’s there’s normally at least one runner per day. And that’s when that’s when this one reclaims the highs, short sellers short at the highs cover and we get all the retails long in this. It’s like an it’s like an imbalance to the buy side. Retail jumping because he’s the stock making new highs and Robinhood is telling them to buy it. Then a lot of chat rooms are long on it as well because they know short sellers are underwater. Also hyper scalpers are buying as well. Um, shorts themselves are covering and buying back creating those jumps and it’s like this small window where everybody’s buying and people that are selling are selling in panic. They don’t really care about good fills or like, you know, managing risk as best as they can. They just want to get out. Um, and that window is where we see a lot of price dislocations and that’s where edge appears. And that’s what I try to scalp as much as I can. Fish my 5 cents. And also that’s mostly happening pre-market. That’s mostly happening pre-market. Sometimes that’s like that’s a that’s a good catch because in 2021, 2022 it would happen pre-market and then carry on into the open. Yeah. Also like the golden times of day trading, yeah. crazy. And what’s the sad thing about the sad thing about it is that I traded 2020 and 2021 in a simulator because I was still learning. That’s okay. I saw I saw GME go from like 70 bucks to like Oh. I don’t know if we’ll ever get another stock as epic as GME ever again. yeah, but so that would be like a I guess larger cap stock that you would scalp. Right. Right, cuz it’s so liquid. And it’s so hyper in play. It’s like a grown-up small cap pretty much. A grown-up small cap, yes. So so as long as emotions are manipulating the price action that’s where that’s I would know how to read it and trade it. Amazing. But yeah, those are the windows that we trade when there’s imbalances to the buy side. Okay. to find our scalps and then stop. So why do you think So So does that mean you trade a lot less after open then? What happens after the open? It’s a secret. I can’t tell you that. Oh, yeah? kidding. I’m kidding. Let’s hear it. You got to tell us now. Okay, so what happens after the open the agenda of these companies change from trying to pump their stock up and trying to achieve warrant prices the agenda That’s the agenda pre-market, right? They They make up a headline that they think it’s going to catch attention and that they think it’s going to send their stock up 100, 150%. Um once they attract volume and they attract retail just before the market open they might they might paint a very nice bull flag or something. That attracts retail. Okay. And then once the market opens the agenda shifts from making the stock look good and strong to dilution. And that’s when they start like unwinding their ATMs, unwinding their shelves, selling millions and millions of shares into the market, raising money for their company. Um and you know, the imbalance now is to the sell side at the market open. So, it’s harder for us long-biased traders to like try to trade against the headwind of a whale unwinding 10 million shares. Um if they are smart rigors, they would unwind slowly, right? And then let it let it like run for another leg, unwind slowly. But I guess people in China waking up at their stock up 100%. Up millions of dollars, it’s like who cares about another leg? It’s like unwind everything now. So, at the market open unless it’s a very hot environment like 2021, normally stocks just fade. And that’s when my short-seller friends are short. Yeah. So, they are short. I know the agenda has shifted. I just like you know, and based on my stats, I don’t make money after the open. Oh, interesting. So, so you’re basically saying that there’s a lot of multiple multiple day runners with small caps then. By the way That’s like multi-run multi-day runners, right? They just gap up and fade. Right. Is what you’re saying is the most prevalent. Yeah, exactly. After the gap, it’s very hard for them to like hold up. Mhm. Um and if they do hold up, that would be like a different setup, more of a a short squeeze. It It’s more of a you know, short-sellers piling short thinking looking for the typical fade and the fact that it doesn’t happen across a few days, most likely it’s going to send it to a thousand or something. Mhm. Yeah, or or sometimes I I haven’t traded small caps in a few years, but sometimes there’s like yes, you get a pre-market pop and then you fade after open and then they they kind of come back like in the afternoon. Do you ever trade those? I used to. Um I used to. Like I said, I used to make money more consistently at the market open when when the market was hotter, but right now it’s like only pre-market and I try to leave because if not, I come back and and give money back. Um I do trade a bit of after hours. I find that after hours, we get fresh headlines. So, it’s kind of like pre-market all over again. Oh, okay. So, I do more of that rather than coming back midday. But, for for the most part, like you know, the money I make now is beyond my wildest dreams, so it’s fine. It’s enough. Amazing. Yeah, so I just leave. So, you did mention earlier that you look at the tape a lot. So, are you using both level two and the tape a lot in your hyper scalping kind of strategies? Yeah, so we do use 1-second charts. We use the level two, which is like the box, the bid and the ask with the different market makers. Um, and then the time and sales, which 1-second charts. Yeah, 1-second chart. Like I’m saying like what I told you, it’s like very hyper. Oh my goodness. to the penny. So, okay. So, what’s your Maybe I’ll ask you to have a screenshot of what your layout is. So, you have 1-second chart, level two, and the tape. And do you like where are your eyes looking at? Are you just glancing at all three to kind of see what the next move is going to be? Um, I’m staring So, so I have different time frames. So, I have the daily chart is where I start. Then I go into the 5-minute, then I go into the 1-minute, and when I’m about to trade Okay. um, churning around the level two and the 1-second chart. But, it has to be a bigger bigger I call the 1-minute time frame a bigger picture pattern. So, it has to be a a pattern in the 1-minute that I want to scalp. But, when it when it’s time to execute, I just focus on the level two. Um, and then I’m looking at the tape. Like, for example, based off of the 1-minute chart, there’s a level that I that I like. I I memorize that level, and then I go into the level two looking to see how the stock reacts to that level, and then I execute based on what I’m looking. Mm. Yeah. So, it’s more so on the level two than the tape? It’s It’s both. Like, I have them both next to each other. Yeah. Um, but it’s most on the level two, like how the bid stacks. Like, for example, if I’m going for a breakout, I do like when the spreads tighten up, right? That’s a good signal that the breaker is going to happen. I like um, with the corner of my eye, I’m looking at the color of the tape. Green, red, or blank. Um, I like to see how thick the bid is, how thin the ask wall is. Um, Um, if we should have broken through a level and there’s no sellers on the ask, but for some reason we don’t go, I instantly think like hidden sellers and I like get out. Um, or vice versa. If we’re dropping and all of a sudden something holds up and there’s no bid, it’s like hidden buyer and I just buy. No wonder you have stomach issues. There’s so much going on. You’re not looking for just the colors, you’re looking for like a skipping prices and the spreads. Yeah, it’s like a this funnel of things that go into a 10-second execution. It’s like this funnel of things that go into a 10-second long trade. Yeah, and it’s one trade out of the I guess average 200 that you take in a day. But it got it gets easier. It becomes almost like second nature eventually. But that’s one of the things about this strategy that is like you either become very good at it or you never get it because there’s a lot of what I call tacit knowledge, which you can’t teach. I can’t teach you how to read the tape. It’s like you have to stare You just have to look at it. at it for years. Yeah. And all of a sudden you know, eventually you’re going to notice signals that actually push the stock up or make it drop. Mhm. Yeah. So then that that also means like your platform and your execution, it’s is the the the thing that matters the most. Yeah. For this style. Latency matters as well. I have some friends that moved to New York just for latency because the trades are so quick. Like being far away makes a difference. I have I have a a friend that wanted to do a backpacking trip in the Philippines. He couldn’t because of latency. So he went there for a week untradable for the way we trade. You can trade like a normal human everywhere. Yeah. But if you want to be a crazy hyper scalper, you need the fast latency. So he came back. He cut the trip short. short. backpacking. Yeah, I know. So okay, internet speed matters a lot, too. Not just latency, but speed. Okay, let’s talk about the brokerage platform side. Like on your what are you looking for in a platform that tells you that you can execute your trades to have uh uh extremely competitive commissions. It has to have free routes. I see. Like no ECN fees. Okay, then those will be like the routes that add to liquidity. No, there’s some free routes now. I think they’re fairly new. Like routes that just don’t charge you commissions if you want to use them. Okay. Um these are like slower routes for the most part, but I’d rather be I know I don’t know if if if I pay ECN fees I I would be giving away more than 50% of my profits just on ECN fees. So it has to have free routes. Commissions don’t have to be completely free, but at least they have to be very close to zero. Like a few zeros and then like a three or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um and then DAS Trader Pro. I have to have DAS Trader Pro. I’ve been trading with DAS for almost 6 years. So I have I have to have it. Yeah. That’s the best platform. I agree. Yeah. Um those three, I think. Okay. What’s your Okay. What’s your So you never trade on your phone then? No, no. Yeah, it’s too slow. I can imagine. Never. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, no. What’s your hotkey set up like? Uh I actually sent you a picture of this as well. All my keys have different stickers. Okay. Um but I have a lot of hotkeys. I have hotkeys to take liquidity from the ask, to buy the midpoint, to buy a few cents below the ask, to buy at the bid, to buy a few cents above the bid. It depends like how spread the stock is, how desperate I am to get in the trade, the the the less convinced I am of of taking a trade, I try to buy as close to the bid as possible. Kind of like saying if I don’t get filled, it’s fine. I see. Um the more I like a stock, the better the hotter headline, I’m eating through the ask and I don’t care. Mhm. Um for selling, I have a lot of hotkeys to sell a quarter, to sell half, to build out entire position, to add liquidity. I have different dark hotkeys on on different dark pools just in case I have a bigger position, which for a hyper scalper is never that big. If I want to have access to different liquidity, I can use that as well. I have a lot of hot keys. Oh, okay. Yeah, we definitely need to show people what the setup’s like. What about position sizing? How do you decide cuz hybrid scalping you said like every trade like you want them to be liquid, has a lot of range. How do you decide what’s an A+ setup that you can kind of 10x or 5x your normal position size? Um similar to what I mentioned earlier, the Steven Dux criteria. So, like if all the criteria is aligning, I instantly go in with bigger risk. And like I said, that was a a micro float penny stock biotech with news. Okay. Um I would instantly start pushing bigger size because I know that’s an environment where short sales are going to be more scared. Steven Dux wouldn’t even get out of bed for that. And I know the imbalances are going to be more to the buy side. So, as long as I know that imbalances are to the buy side, I can go more aggressive. And then I also take what I call warm-up trades. So, if I’m looking, if I’m reading the price action correctly, if what I think should happen is actually happening as I’m reading the tape, if I’m jumping in and out and liquidity feels good, I can start risking more and more as I’m getting more comfortable with the price action. And also, if I’m on a hot streak, I risk what I’ve made the day before on the following trade. I kind of like roll the profits into the next trade. Okay. Um which is something we’ve done since forever. And yeah, that’s how how I base my risk pretty much. That kind of makes sense. So, if you’re on a hot streak, you slowly increase your size, but if you’re in a drawdown, you slowly decrease Yeah, exactly. It’s like whatever I’m doing is working, so I do more of it with bigger size and vice versa. It’s very important and that’s the hardest part to do is reducing when it’s not working cuz you get stubborn and it’s like you want to make the money back and stuff. That’s why we get into drawdowns because we don’t we don’t flip the switch fast enough. It’s like something is not working, your breaking news plays are not working anymore, they’re reversing, but you’re stubborn and it’s like oh, maybe the next one, the next one.”But that’s The secret to success is reducing the risk as you’re losing, so you’re going like logarithmic, and increasing your size as you’re winning, you go exponential. Oh, I like that. for us, for me especially. Yeah. Yeah, risk management has to be probably like the most important thing for scalping. Totally. Like going break even, scalping is success for for the most part, cuz eventually like you’ll catch winners as long as you keep cut cutting your losers. And And I like saying that your winners work um instantly anyways. Yes. So, if it’s not bad, why even want it? It’s like Oh. I try to tell myself that when I’m trading. It’s like,”Cut it, cut it, cut it.” Okay. So, as a hyper scalper, you’ve been doing this for 5-plus years now. What’s still like the most difficult thing you have to kind of battle with? Um oversizing. Like sometimes I I try to, you know, sometimes I I have friends that trade different strategies, and I see them make hundreds of thousands of dollars in a single trade, maybe even in the exact same stock that I’m trading. Mhm. But because, you know, they’re accumulating against VWAP and holding for a few legs, um they just simply trade different the way I trade, and scalability for me has been the biggest issue. And when I when I try to go outside of of my mindset of capturing 5 cents and then locking it in, and let’s say I try to hold for 10 cents or 20 or 30, Yeah. almost always my entry come comes back down to break even. Or worse, the winning trade turn turns into a losing trade. So, I battled with that multiple times. Um It’s kind of like a a blessing and a curse. Like what keeps me consistent is also the same reason why it’s harder for me to scale. Yeah, I see. But that’s like That’s what I’m like trying to grow and and fix now as a trader. I’ll eventually find a a midpoint where I’m still scalpy, but maybe not as hyper, um so that I can size up bigger. Yeah. Because I find that my friends that make the most money are the biggest in size. They’re not better They’re not better in skill. They’re not better at stock selection. They’re not even better about pattern recognition. They’re just bigger accounts, bigger size. So, scalability is is is part of the problem, but I’ll figure it out. Yeah, that’s what I was going to ask you next to that. Do you think there’ll be a point where there’s a lot of algo trading already, especially with the advance in AI and coding? Everyone can code up almost anyone can code up an algorithmic trading system now. Do you think there’s eventually a day where like your edge in at least small movements would decay and make it like or the commissions get a lot more expensive will make just make this style a little bit less pro-less profitable and harder to execute in general? I do think that is possible. Um I do think algorithms are getting smarter. Yeah. Um I do think there’s less deficiencies in the level two and and in the different jumps in prices. Um but at the same time, part of being a trader is like not living in fear and and accepting that strategies can fade and and stop working. Um and I’ll just figure out what’s working what’s what’s the other thing that’s working and I’ll jump on that whenever the that the time comes. Um but for now, I’ll just be hyper Mhm. and try to maximize this as much as I can. But I do think you know, it might stop eventually. Yeah, you eventually like evolve into Like I I remember earlier you were mentioning that you’re doing a bit swing trading on the side, right? Right. I do I do a little swing trading. Swing trading is honestly honestly like very easy, I feel like. Especially if you’re like swing trading large caps, like Mhm. you swing trade against levels in the daily and if they don’t bounce, they become a a longer swing trade than you wanted and then you sold them and then they come back. Um and so, but that’s harder to do when you’re broke. Yeah, you need a larger account Exactly. Yeah. You have to day trade, go through the ringer, accumulate a few millions, and then swing trading with a few millions is like free money almost. So, you know, that’s the way it goes. I feel like hyper scalping is the vehicle to generate cash, and then from there I’ll graduate to I already do it with Tesla. Um you know, that’s when you can make more money than different with different methods in the market. Okay. So, speaking of account size, so how do you remember what’s what account what kind of account size you started with? I started with 26,000. Oh, that’s pretty good. I was expecting like, I don’t know, 5,000 like most people. No, because PDT, right? And because of the nature of how I traded, I had already blown a few small accounts offshore just purely on commissions. So, after blowing a few accounts offshore, knowing that I was I wanted to be a hyper scalper, I knew that I had to get into a American broker with free commissions. So, I worked my ass off. I used to paint houses over the summer, and I after 2 years I saved like $9,000. Um and then I borrowed the rest from a cousin, which was young and also like an entrepreneur like myself. He doesn’t trade, but he understands what the market was. So, he gave me a loan for the rest, and I knew I was never going to touch his money. I was only going to risk my 9,000. So, I guess my account was 9,000, but it was leveraged from his loan so that I could get over PDT and trade freely. Um 20 26,000 dollars, I remember I started trading with like one to 10 shares just making sure that whatever I was doing in the simulator also worked with a real account. Um it did it did work, and I did that for 3 more months. And then all of a sudden I started adding zeros. Instead of buying one share I added I buy instead of buying one share I bought 10 shares. Instead of 10, 100. Instead of 100, 1,000, and then 10,000. And everything kept on working. But if if I added an extra zero it stopped working. So, that’s when the scalability became an issue. Okay. Obviously, it’s been a few years since that initial small or smallish account of 26,000. Um what’s your goal now with your trading? Cuz I remember on social media I see like you have like a series of like your daily recap and you’re talking about like road to eight figures. Right. Tell us about like what that vision is like. Right. Okay, so I started what I call the eight-figure protocol, which is me starting this mission of wanting to become an eight-figure trader, which pretty much means crossing over $10 million worth of profit. So right now I’m a I’m a low seven-figure trader, which is beyond my wildest dreams already. Um but something that I used to tell myself when I was broke and an aspiring trader was dreaming is free. And if it’s free, I can dream as big as I want. So this is me dreaming bigger. Um and also I love trading and I I I love the challenge. I love growing, getting better. Um I have eight-figure trading friends. So it’s like why can’t that be me? Yeah. Um and there’s no reason why. So I started this challenge at at the peak of a drawdown that I was in because I had like 2025 was a rougher year for us hyper scalpers um because it was a very dry dry year. We had a lot of friends getting banned from different brokers and stuff. So when I was at my lowest of lows is when I decided to dream the biggest and I started this protocol. And yeah, my my social media’s are pretty much I pretty much like a a journal of my life. And every day I just show up, do the eight-figure protocol, post how much money I’ve made or lost, and I won’t stop. I’m I’m serious, I won’t stop until I cross $10 million. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah, so you mentioned getting banned by broker. Did that happen to you? Well, that’s a great question. Nobody can ban me. I banned the broker. Okay. So I left a broker um thinking that brokers with commissions were not going to be profitable for my strategy because like I said earlier, ECN fees were too expensive. Yeah. They were like half a penny to go in, half a penny to go out. I was still I was still making money on these, but I was losing like 60%to commissions and fees. But now brokers have become so competitive with each other that they have free routes. Yes. And they also have like almost nothing worth of commissions. So, I’m a full-time hyper scalper in a direct access broker now. Okay. Which is great. Yeah, I think I remember you mentioning that’s very important from a broker cuz otherwise yeah, otherwise the fees just too much. Yeah, for example, uh for Canadians, they don’t have free commissions, right? No. Because payment for order flow is illegal. Yes. And I remember I used to have a Oh, what is it called? I think Interactive Brokers or Okay. Trade Zero account. Oh, yeah. And and the hidden fees would be way too much. Oh, [ __ ] Like I could never hyper scalp on those brokers because they were so expensive. Yeah. In Canada, it’s actually like that’s also the reason in Canada we don’t have free commissions. Right. Because the brokers cannot sell your order flow. Right. Yeah. So, people need to know why their commissions are free Exactly. US. I remember in 2024, there was a lot of chatter in Wall Street that they were going to make selling payment for order flow illegal, which meant brokers were going to start charging commissions again. And we were all like terrified of that. We were like,”Please, sell my soul, but don’t don’t charge me commissions.” Yeah. So, then you I guess you don’t worry about your order flows being front run. Like your Not really. No. No, not really. I guess because of the nature of how I trade, uh it hasn’t really affected us. I keep saying us. It’s a pod It’s a group of traders that we travel and trade with. trade hyper scalping. We all hyper scalp like the hyper scalper group, yeah. Um no, it hasn’t affected us. I guess because we’re so fast. Um I think it’s mostly it mostly affected people that are doing more position trading cuz they can know where their or stop losses that their stop losses are at, how many shares they’ve accumulated, where. I see. for a slower trader maybe worse, but for us not really. Yeah, cuz you don’t really it’s not like you have a stop loss. You just get out. Exactly. Yeah, I see. So going back to road to eight figures, do you think you can get there with your current strategy? I will get there with this current strategy eventually. It may take me longer than I would want. Maybe a few five, six years. Which is not that bad. That’s not that bad at all. But I would like to I would like to accelerate that by either doing some bigger swing trades on the side or maybe carry on with this battle of trying to see how I can grow this strategy to be more scalable. Even if it means sacrificing a few scalps that are more mediocre and just focusing on the higher quality scalps. I think there’s room for improvement even within this strategy. And hopefully that will be good enough to send me over eight figures. Yeah, there’s always ways you can optimize. Yeah. Yeah, cuz I’m sure there are some stocks that can you can add one zero hopefully. Yes, I agree. Yeah, specific ones, yeah. Specific ones under specific cycles as well. When whenever we get a hotter cycle and PDT wakes up like the no PDT thing wakes up. I agree there’s a few that you can add that extra zero. Yeah, so once you hit that goal what do you think happens after that? Like is that going to change your life or Yes, I’ll delete my social media, buy a farm, and have seven children. Oh, okay. about trading for once. Really? I hope so. That you know, I’ve interviewed a lot of traders on this podcast. They always say that. And then they never But then they’ll hit that goal and just the goal post just gets moved. Right. They always say they want to stop trading once they hit that. I haven’t seen anyone all of them are still trading. That is true. I guess at the beginning my goal was to make 50k a year cuz that would replace my current job, my real job. And it’s been moved. You’re right. I’ll try my best to not move it. Like know how I’d like to do it. Just whatever’s right for your Or maybe I would tame tame it down a bit and not be as crazy about trading. Cuz right now trading is my life. Like, from the second I open my eyes to to the to the moment I go to sleep. So, I have train train train trying to get better. Oh my god, I remember reading your survey. I remember you said something like my main hobbies and side hustles are basically just eating lunch and going to sleep. Exactly. I don’t do anything else but trading, going over trading strategies, reviewing the tape, reviewing my recordings, reviewing my trades. It’s like I’m obsessed, not in a healthy way. I I I remember I’m a big fan of Lance and he always says that um he’s done trading his health for wealth. Yeah, yeah. And he’s like, I’m trading my health for a few thousand dollars. Hopefully it’s going to be a bigger Hopefully eight figures. No, actually it’s not hopefully. It will happen. It will happen. Yes, yes. Um but that’s how I feel. Mhm. So, hopefully I can get to a point where I tone it down a bit, trade less, study less, enjoy my family a little bit more. Yeah. But I’m also young at the same time. feel like these are my years of pushing. It’s true. And I like it. So, it’s a it’s mixed feelings. Yeah. I think I honestly think like when you’re young, when you’re in your 20s, mid 20s, or even late 20s, that’s that’s kind of where I was like kind of grinding really hard. Are you not mid 20s? I mean, no, I’m not. Oh. Um 20s. Yeah, low 20s. Um I think it’s it’s worth it to sacrifice a few years and just work very very hard and then, you know, like potentially coast a little bit more later when you’re you’re 30s or in your 40s. So, I think it’s worth it. Totally. I agree. Yeah. And that’s been my vision since I started. Um I love this quote from Dave Ramsey that says, “You have to work like no one else so that then in the future you can live like no one else.”So, it’s either you completely sacrifice your 20s so you can be well off in your 30s and 40s, or don’t sacrifice anything but never retire either. It’s kind of like just cruise off on a 9-to-5 till the day you die, pretty much. Yeah. Which is fair, I guess. It’s fine for some people. Yeah. But I think as long as you kind of recognize that there will be a day in which you want to work a little bit less, then you That’s That’s part of the vision, part of the goal, too. See, to me, eight figures is that exactly because imagine, if you have $10 million on spy or on a few, you know, properties or maybe a real-life business. By real-life, I mean like you do things rather than being online. Like like in buttons. With $10 million bucks, you can make like what? Like 50 grand a month passively forever. It’s like what else do you need? Yeah. That’s true. that’s my number as well. Okay. eight figures is like I do think most traders I’ve interviewed, they they have to go through a few a few years of obsession like you are right now to get to that point where you like trading becomes I wouldn’t say easy, but easier and becomes like second nature. Right. Then you get to like relax. Ironically, I think you become a better trader when you’re more detached from it, too. Mhm. Um I can see that. Because I I don’t know. I have a few rich, very rich friends that don’t really care too much about trading that are still the ones making the most money because they’re not forcing trades. If the market’s off, they take off the entire summer. Um They’re not living off of trading. They have so many other things going on. And if the market is hot, it’s like, yeah, I’ll throw a few million on that trade and make your year in one trade. So it’s like ironic how that works, but Mhm. I don’t know. Yeah. Yeah, but then you definitely need a lot bigger capital to Yeah, so there’s like both sides to this, I guess. Like you need obsession, but you also need to be detached. Right. to make it. It’s It’s a weird mix. Yeah, it’s ironic. Do you think anyone can do this can trade? No. I don’t think so at all. I think I actually discourage people from even trying. I have a lot of friends back home that want me to teach them how to trade. It’s like, no, don’t even try. It’s like It’s very hard. For most people. The best advice is to like invest on spy and have a well diversified portfolio of ETFs, you know, save 20%of the income and throw it on on on the stock market every month. But if you’re not insane like we were, like I am now, and maybe you still are, going through that learning curve of trying to figure out how day trading works, it’s not going to work for most of them. It’s going to be a lot of wasted years of, you know, money, time you could have invested in some other venture or some other job. I try to discourage people because the discouraging is it it does two things. If you’re weak-minded, the dis- my discouragement is going to be enough for you to not even try. And if you actually gave up because I said so, you don’t have the personality to trade. On the other hand, if my discouragement makes you makes you want to prove me wrong, you might be the type of guy that actually figures it out. That’s very true. So, I try to discourage everyone, and if they still want to try after I’ve said multiple times,”No, no, no, no,”then I’ll help them. Well, then what what about your seven kids? If they want to trade, what would you do? Um if they want to trade, no, I don’t think so. Oh, no. Okay, I get it though. In your opinion, why do most traders fail? Because they come to the market trying to get rich quick rather than understanding this is a full-time career that is going to take many years for them to master if ever. It’s kind of like a pilot trying to fly a plane on day one. It’s never going to happen. Um they have to go through training, through schools, through simulators, and only once they graduate, they can they can actually pull it off. So, it’s that mindset of trying to sprint rather than going in for the long journey. Mm. What advice would you give to struggling traders right now? Um watching this. To trade in a simulator. A lot of people like bashing on simulators, but I learned how to trade in a simulator because I didn’t I didn’t have money to afford a real account. Um you can learn tape reading in a simulator. You can learn about hot keys, about execution, about stock selection. There’s real There’s really not an excuse for you to be wasting real money if you can’t even prove to me or to yourself that you can have at least 3 months of consistent trading in a sim. So, for them, if you don’t have 3 months of consistent trading in a sim, there’s no reason why you should be wasting real money. Mhm, makes sense. Yeah, it’s like a proof of concept. Yeah, it’s like just um Yeah, but then also, how what’s the maximum amount of time you’d think people should trade in a simulator? Cuz you don’t want to stay in there forever. Yeah. if you If you don’t make money ever in the simulator, then I guess you stay forever. But um That’s fair. What I used to tell people is like 3 years is 3 years worth of trading practice in a simulator might be good enough for you to be able to tell if if this is something that one you like or if you can ever be good at. Um but at the same time, most of my friends and myself included didn’t have like a time frame. It’s like we were all all in and we were willing to like die trying pretty much to try to figure out this trading thing. So, so 3 years before you quit and the simulator never unless you become consistent in the simulator at first. The simulator is like easy because there’s no emotions. And if you can’t make money there, you won’t make money in a real account. Yeah, it’s not real fills. Yeah, either, yeah. But if you can’t even with fake fills and no emotions, if you can’t even with that environment make money, you’re just going to get destroyed with a real account. Mhm. So, to me, you have to graduate from the sim. Yeah, I see. It’s a It’s a rite of passage. Yeah. That’s a That’s That’s easy mode. If you can’t even do that and don’t bother. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. Um okay, what does success look like for you over the next 10 years? What does that look like for young Marcelo? Mhm. I will have crossed eight figures. Okay. Right? I hopefully I’m going to be married then. Seven kids, maybe not seven kids, maybe five by then. Okay. I want to have a big family, you know what? I want I want to be like that old grandpa with a huge family behind them. You see in those pictures up there? Yeah. Um and then hopefully I have I’m still going to be trading um more passively. I want to either focus more on my other real life businesses. Um and I want to carry on traveling with my trading friends. Mhm. And I would also like to do something to what Lance is doing, with which is shedding a light on all the tricks that happen in the market, all the scammers, um all the fake gurus and stuff. I would like to be involved in something like that, trying to like guide the beginner rookie trader uh of being abused by predators and stuff, because I was what I was that once. Yeah. So, I would like to join the the Lance the Lance crew of Yeah. anti-gurus. You want to join the bright side. Exactly. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. Any final tips you want to give to our audience members listening to this? Give them Give them one juicy tip. One juicy tip? Yes. Yeah. Um that trading is very hard, but if you’re able to stick with it for long enough and as long as you are with urgency studying your trades, um sharpening your strategy and getting a little less bad every day, I genuinely believe if you want it bad enough, it can happen. So, just keep going at it. If this is your dream and and you’re all in, I think it can happen for them and it’s worth the struggle. Like it changed my life, it changed your life. Um and we only live once, like Yeah. it’s worth going for it. Amazing. Yeah. Thank you so much, Marcelo. It’s been a blast. Thanks for having me.