Speaker A
So here's another example. We made, I don't know, three-quarters of a billion dollars on this one. And I only say that because this was a smaller position.
Learn how TraderLion turned $100K into $20M using the VCP strategy with expert insights on entries, risk, and trade management.
Ask about this video. Answers come from its transcript only — with the timestamp, so you can check them.
Generated from the transcript and can be wrong — check the timestamp.
Key Takeaways
- The VCP strategy focuses on identifying low-risk entry points through volatility contractions and volume analysis.
- Patience and discipline are critical to waiting for the right setup and avoiding premature selling.
- Managing risk actively, especially with correlated stocks, is essential to protect capital.
- Strong relative strength and sector leadership help identify promising trade candidates.
- Letting the market guide trade decisions rather than preconceived notions improves success.
What the video covers
- The video explains the VCP (Volatility Contraction Pattern) strategy used by TraderLion to achieve massive returns.
- Traders discuss a key trade in STX, highlighting timing, entry points, and risk management.
- The importance of patience, diligence, and waiting for low-risk entry points is emphasized.
- Supply and demand dynamics, volume drying up, and price contractions are key technical signals.
- The team shares how they manage correlated trades and concentration risk in real time.
- They stress the significance of letting the market dictate trades rather than forcing ideas.
- Examples include making over a million dollars on a single trade and multi-million dollar gains overall.
- The video features insights from portfolio managers and top traders at Minteri Private Access.
- They discuss the role of strong relative strength and sector themes in trade selection.
- The session covers trade case studies, entries, position sizing, risk management, and sell rules.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Overview of Big Gains
- 03:50Tracking STX and Finding Entry Points
- 07:22Trade Case Studies and Market Themes
- 11:05Risk Management and Position Sizing
- 15:03VCP Characteristics and Volume Analysis
- 18:36Trade Execution and Sell Rules
- 22:25Sector Leadership and Relative Strength
- 24:43Summary and Final Insights
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
So one of the things that we talked about with the original STX trade was where this whole AI data center trade really started in earnest right at the first week of August. This is where, in three months of my 115% return last year, I made almost 80% of my gains.
Speaker A
Maini made his decisions because he sells into strength long before it typically will ever, you know, top out.
Speaker A
But as he's famous for saying, he buys stocks that go to zero and he sells stocks that go to a million.
Speaker A
We don't want the high price. We want the right price. The right price is when the stock has gone through that proper VCP characteristic where strong and weak hands are changing, and you can then align yourself to know. And the way
Speaker A
I like to define the low-risk entry is so I can know in relatively short order if I'm right or wrong. Never hold an overweight position into an announcement like that because you're guaranteed at some point to take a
Speaker A
massive hit. This is really the first viable base. Stock has this big run. Obviously, what looks expensive to everybody else is attractive to us because, you know, that's when it wasn't ready for a low-risk entry. Well, that's what requires patience and
Speaker A
diligence and tracking it. Yeah. And actually, I think we made just over a million dollars on this trade alone.
Speaker A
You can just see what is a classic textbook VCP right here. Just classic one, two, three contractions, nice pivot, relatively tight volume drying up relative to the morning. Once you learn it and are competent with it, you'll have the benefit of it for the rest of
Speaker A
your life. You know, stick with it, stay committed, be focused, and live with passion.
Speaker A
[music] All right, welcome back everybody. Joining us are three fantastic traders and educators. We have Mark Richie and Brandon Hedgepath, portfolio managers as well as the directors of trading and education respectively at Minteri Private Access. And joining us also is
Speaker A
Bob Weissman, the 2025 USMSing champion in the money manager division with a return of over 115%, and he's also the director of ops at MPA. So Mark, Brandon, Bob, thank you so much for joining me. Uh, this should be an action-packed
Speaker A
session. Uh, we're going to cover a bunch of trade case studies, uh, talk through how you found them, entries, risk management, position sizing, and sell rules. Uh, yeah, so thanks so much for being here and for your time.
Speaker A
Appreciate it. Sure thing. Of course. Uh, yeah, awesome. Uh, let's go ahead and start with STX and Mark, Brandon, I know you guys, you know, operate as a team, but to start with, maybe a good
Speaker A
place to start would be how this got on your radar. What kind of drew you to this idea in the first place? A lot of folks had questions about, you know, finding trades. What are some of the criteria you look for? And, uh, yeah,
Speaker A
let's start there with STX. Yeah. So, originally, um, Mark, you can fill in what I leave out. But STX was one that really kind of came off the April lows, um, back there. Bob, if you want to show that, um, after the market
Speaker A
bottomed and really kind of never set up a right side. It just kind of, you know, rallied strongly and then it finally paused over the summer. Um, and then you have, I think we actually tried it a
Speaker A
couple times in the year, um, a little bit to the left there in July, but then, uh, bought it on, um, August 18th where that green arrow is. Um, so like, you know, we were tracking this as one we
Speaker A
wanted to own, but it just never gave us a low-risk entry point. So, as you can see on, uh, Bob's chart, we have, um, behavior analytics is like what we like to call them, the FAB five. Um, so you
Speaker A
can see that those stayed pretty strong and RPR relative strength is one is something that we really pay attention to especially when we're screening, um, because we want to be in the strongest names. Uh, so this was one
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that stayed strong but again never gave us an entry point. So on, you know, uh, August 18th we finally got that.
Speaker A
So no pivot there. Yes, those are three tight areas there or those three tight bars. Uh, Marky, again, fill in anything you like.
Speaker A
Yeah, I mean this one was just kind of classic, um, in terms of going through the process of what we would, you know, look at buying mainly because it wasn't in a stage two uptrend. Um, you know, for
Speaker A
those who aren't familiar with that, you read Mark Minervini's book. We have, you know, the Indic trend stage indicator in terms of our platform, but this is really the first viable base. Stock has this big run. Um, and you know,
Speaker A
obviously what looks expensive to everybody else is attractive to us because, uh, you know, that's when, uh, it wasn't ready for a low-risk entry. Well, that's what requires patience and diligence and tracking it.
Speaker A
And so, yeah, you and to Brandon's point, you also have the classic example of the first one you got shook you out.
Speaker A
Well, sometimes that sets up an even better setup. The base actually improved. Um, and you know, obviously most of us, if you've been paying attention to the market, um, most people sold this one too early. Um, but yeah,
Speaker A
we caught up for a nice move. Yeah. And actually, I think we made just over a million dollars on this trade alone. But Bob, could you zoom into that entry because I wanted to point out one other thing like
Speaker A
because we talk about supply drying out. Right before we bought was one of the lowest volume days in that whole base.
Speaker A
So to Marky's point, this is just classic. So then we sold the first piece, um, on 95 up 20%. And Marky, I don't know if you want to talk about that. I mean, look, you know, Richard's an alum of the Master Trader program. He
Speaker A
should be familiar with, you know, this is classic. There's nothing new here. Nothing new that Mark hasn't been doing for 40 years, uh, and teaching about. Um, and so it's, it just, it's wash, rinse, repeat. Obviously, you don't
Speaker A
always get the follow-through this strong and this perfect, but this is what a classic leader looks like. And one question here. Um, how important was the kind of theme and group that this stock was a part of? Because we had
Speaker A
moves at the same time, MU and SNDK, how are you guys, did you guys take that into account how the kind of sister stocks to that theme were doing at the same point?
Speaker A
Yeah, Marky, you want? Yeah. Not really. Listen, obviously you're always going to have some of the leaders either in related areas, but and this was one, yeah, Western Digital and this both kind of set up at the same time.
Speaker A
Look, if they're both breaking on the same day, I'd buy them both. Um, you just have to be cognizant of your concentration risk. Um, but you know, look, stocks need a risk manager at all times. So, you do have to be cognizant
Speaker A
if trades are highly correlated. Um, but I don't mind that when they're working. Uh, that's, you want that. You know, if that's where the ALF is, that's where I want to be. So, uh, look, I don't
Speaker A
think about overconcentration risk in terms of related areas. I'm managing, you know, risk in real time.
Speaker A
So, if we start feeling too much pressure, we're going to adjust, you know, by reducing size in general.
Speaker A
And if I remember, yeah, Richard, to your point, like the data storage was really kind of hot, right? And I think STX was just kind of like the one that kind of set up the cleanest at that
Speaker A
time that we bought. But either, either I think the other two were, you know, actually had a good move as well.
Speaker A
And they did. Yeah. One of the things that we always talk about here at Minteri Private Access is we let the market tell us what to trade. We don't try to find. So as you refer to looking at the sector, Rich, and then
Speaker A
finding the stocks, it's actually the other way around. We're bottoms up. We're going to find whatever stocks are meeting Mark's criteria and from
Speaker A
know SanDisk obviously Micron as well but ultimately the stocks meeting the criteria that has been working throughout Mark's trading career in fact I could show you charts Jesse Livermore was trading 100 years ago that is using Mark's methodology perfectly then as it
Speaker A
will 100 years from now is to say we're going to find the stocks meaning that historical precedent of our leadership profile and that's where we're going to look to trade, not because oh, memory or AI or energy is where all the money is
Speaker A
going to. Yep, makes sense. And uh Mark, you you mentioned risk management there. That's actually one of the follow questions I had here. Uh from from your buy point, it kind of stagnated for a few days.
Speaker A
What are your kind of mindset in the first few days of a trade when it it doesn't quite push out just yet? And like you said, maybe it even almost improved the chart. It got a little bit more mature. Uh but what's your what's
Speaker A
your guys' mindset after your buy point? Uh if you remember exactly where your initial stop loss is or your point to get out uh from that entry point if it kind of did start um breaking down from from this base setup.
Speaker A
Yeah. Well, it's as simple as you know once once we start seeing violations uh or or the stock look, you hit a stop level, you just get out. It's that simple. But stocks still have to be allowed to fluctuate. And you know,
Speaker A
memory serves me correct and Bob you could probably show with the measuring tool. I mean, I think we were, you know, small mid single digits in those, you know, that pivot is improving.
Speaker A
It's like a 5% range. It's tight. Yeah. Is improving. It's getting better. Staying in the range, right? Um, so as long as that pivot is tightening, um, and and this is precisely where you on that where Bob's cursor is right there.
Speaker A
If I didn't own it, I'd be buying it there. And if I don't have my full allocation, I'm bumping to that level.
Speaker A
Or if things are going well, I'm going overweight. Yep. Exactly. And sizing was actually my next question. If you guys remember how you size this and a lot of folks just had questions in general, how you guys might decide sizing, whether that's um
Speaker A
you know, you buy a little bit at first, see if it works and add on like you said at that next spot. Uh but do you guys remember kind of what size in percentage of your portfolio you went in with this
Speaker A
name? Yeah, it was about seven and a half%. It wasn't even that big of a position.
Speaker A
Yeah, obviously I wish we could say we had our whole portfolio in it. You know, everyone wants to say that you have everything in in the biggest names, but memory serves me correct, at least this is a year ago. Um, we didn't get very
Speaker A
invested initially off that sort of Vbottom because precisely to Brandon's point, we didn't see a lot of bases yet.
Speaker A
It wasn't until you started getting traction in a few names like this, but this would be the type of name where, you know, the only reason we're smaller there is because we we weren't we weren't doing well. Um, but I look at a
Speaker A
this is where hindsight isn't isn't nearly as valuable a teacher as what's happening right now. If I have a tight entry and I'm I'm running racks, you know, I can't miss. I'm I'm coming in big right off the hop. If things aren't
Speaker A
working, I'm definitely going to be more incremental. I'm going to start smaller. I'm going to build up slower. Um, and it it's again, it's you got to be in your own lane in terms of how is the traffic
Speaker A
moving in your lane. If I'm flying, uh, then it's stay on the gas, right? So, and and that's, you know, again, just classic in terms of, you know, everything we preach and teach.
Speaker A
Yeah. One of the things I think that's important to add is uh how Mark earlier said how, you know, to stay in a name or how to not get shaken out of it or, you know, have it give it the time to let it
Speaker A
breathe in before it makes its move is is the fact that it didn't create any of what would be our violations. Mark's rules, violating his rules is what he's meaning by that. And without having any reason to sell, uh there's no reason to
Speaker A
get out. Now, at some point, there might be a time stop and and it's certainly more than 5 days worth. But without having any reason to sell, that's the whole point. We want to stay in a name that's acting normal as long as we can
Speaker A
only look to lighten up or even get out of a name, but just starts acting abnormal. That is a buildup of violations of Mark's rules. We actually have that uh sort of built into our software here. I'm not showing it right
Speaker A
now, but that is actually part of the nature of our charting is having Mark's violations and confirmations built in to these proprietary indicators, if you will, of his methodology.
Speaker A
And was the pivot for this one the uh Wednesday, August 13th high, or was it more that upside reversal day uh Friday, August um uh 15th, I guess. So yeah, through that prior red red bars high or uh through that last kind of range high.
Speaker A
I guess I don't remember. You can use either. You can be incremental. This is exactly what I would encourage folks to do. That that first uh reversal right there is a pullback buy. A valid pullback buy. You can start your position through that
Speaker A
high. Um and then if the distance between the two is, you know, 1 2 3% that's where I would just be buying incrementally, you know, as this as the stock is on the move. I'd much rather pay up uh to be right. Uh you know, it's
Speaker A
like look would who wouldn't pay up for a little assurance in life. So, but yet when the stock market, oh, it's up 25 cents, I don't want to buy it. Like I I completely think the opposite way. I'd
Speaker A
much rather I'd much rather pay up 1% to be sure that the stock is free and clear and on the move.
Speaker A
Yeah. One thing you may you may remember yourself since you've been to the master trader program. You've learned all this from Mark directly is we're not looking for the lowest price. We're looking for the right price. And the right price is when
Speaker A
you get more and more and more confirmations of meeting Mark's criteria, his rules. And that's why even you know it doesn't matter where you're buying to a certain extent it's the perfect opportunity for that lowrisk high reward opportunity. And you know,
Speaker A
as simple as it is to buy and sell higher is sort of as simple as the concept is. Doesn't mean it's easy, but that is as simple as the concept is. Buy and sell higher. And we want to be
Speaker A
buying at a lowrisk, highreward asymmetrical riskreward dynamic, which is what Markmania is famous for. Hey everyone, just want to jump in here real quick and let you know that this episode is brought to you by DFW, which is the
Speaker A
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Speaker A
That's dv.com/mpodcast. And with that, let's get back to the interview. Yep. And this is a great example of the VCP characteristics. Like Brandon, you pointed out the volume dry up as it tightens there and how even after that initial squat, it tightens up
Speaker A
further and still lower than average volume through that through that next tight range. Um, perfect. Um any thoughts on position management that you wanted to kind of double click on here?
Speaker A
Uh this had a beautiful trend. Uh you guys, you know, took took your partials off. Um I should I should just add the last piece I think was all the way.
Speaker A
We rode this for a long time. Rented mule. Yeah. Yep. So yeah, I mean let's let's go back Bob a little bit. So, like here here's another thing that that we've learned um through, you know, what most people
Speaker A
don't understand is Mark and I were subscribers to MPA for 10 years before we started to help out. And one of the things Mark talks about is selling into strength. So that first sell, I believe we sold a third of it of our position
Speaker A
there to lock in that 20% gain. That financed the risk. So now we had a free roll there and we kind of just lagged out a little bit by a little bit until we realized like okay we had the
Speaker A
smallest position left and we said we're going to basically use a back stop um you know with a close below the 50 and it just rolled the whole thing up and again that's one of the things that becomes a function of once you're you
Speaker A
know like even right there I think we we we decided to ratchet it up again at some point we don't want to ride that all the way to the 50 if we've made enough u but that last anytime we're
Speaker A
playing something of a bigger move It's always paid for upfront. So anyone who like I want to be really clear on this.
Speaker A
It's not like oh look at these guys they put on their full line put their whole account and wrote it for no like we're never doing that. Um because you have to reduce the volatility of your equity curve. Uh and to me per
Speaker A
performance is measured on return relative to risk. Everybody just wants to throw out the eyepopping return. They don't want to talk about the risk or you know how many times you had to hit the Pepto-Bismol or the bottle in order to
Speaker A
get that return, right? And this is where the only way to to have your cake and eat it too is to use strength for selling even so to Brandon's point as that stock is getting more and more stretched we all
Speaker A
right give them some okay give them a little more when and to Bob's point we we even got we've got this coded in monolert now where we can see historical extension levels the stock is telling you statistically it's very stretched
Speaker A
well and we're multiples and multiples of our risk. All right, we'll leak we'll we'll leak them out a little more and then, you know, at some point everybody's got to be, you know, happy with a profit and you use a back stop or
Speaker A
an extended, you know, as a stock go if it goes somewhat parabolic when it went into that earnings and got sort of what looks like if we had a weekly, you could see where the trend then starts to go
Speaker A
vertical, we're cinching up a back stop even further. Uh because now I know that inevitable pullback is I mean, you could probably measure it right there, Bob. I don't know, 40%. You know, it's it's getting it's getting to the point where
Speaker A
the rocket has to come back down. Well, I don't want to ride that rocket all the way down.
Speaker A
Uh especially given how how much we were up on the trade. Yeah. Knowing where you're at on the mountain as well.
Speaker A
Exactly. That's what I was going to say. You can see how far this is getting now.
Speaker A
As you know, uh asym asymmetrical kind of move here. Uh and with that extension, you certainly want to give back to 30 35% before you take profits. Now, as it gets closer and closer, one thing, but you probably would be looking at something
Speaker A
that would be below this price action and and it looks like about where it was when it got out.
Speaker A
Yeah. Excellent. Any last um key takeaways on STX that you guys wanted to emphasize? Uh but there's a a great textbook trade.
Speaker A
All good. Yeah, I think that I think that uh Yeah. So, I think next perfect.
Speaker A
Um yeah. So walk me through guys again from the beginning. Uh first what kind of drew your attention to this name and I think um your buy was December 19th um coming out of uh this VCP base after
Speaker A
that momentum move up on on uh on earnings and and the like. So yeah, talk me through this um and Mark Brandon, whoever wants to kick it off first.
Speaker A
Go ahead, Marky. Well, I mean, this originally, you know, was on our radar just because of that that strength and that absolute, you know, rip in terms of earnings and was potential power play, you know, where the stock doubles in a
Speaker A
short period of time and tightens up, but then, you know, it got a little it tried to break out and failed there, uh, you know, and was that late in the year?
Speaker A
Uh, and and just needed a little bit more time where sometimes those, you know, the the high tight flag power play then just morphs into a base. But that strength, you know, you could see the whole time there's no selling. You know,
Speaker A
that that volume never there was no real selling in there. So, we're just looking, can we find, you know, a pivot to get on board? And this wasn't really the best pivot. It was just kind of a pause pivot after you had three lower
Speaker A
lows, which again, something, you know, we look at where stocks are under accumulation. After that third or fourth lower low is usually where you're going to find some sign of stabilization. I can't remember if we didn't buy it there
Speaker A
for a reason and then we sort of bought the pause the break out of the pause pivot two days later. Um, and it was just off to the races. Not not as clean or classic of a right side, but again, I
Speaker A
I want to say this was, you know, if it wasn't RPR 100, it was pretty you actually we can see 98. So, you know, you're still in the top 2% strongest stocks within the market. just classic in terms of sticking with the strength
Speaker A
and and it was one of those trades that just that we all want. It puts you under very little pressure right away, which is the best indicator. That's the best indicator that you won't get in, you know, until real time. Meaning, when you
Speaker A
buy a stock and it just comes charging out the gate, that's the first sign in my mind at least to say, hey, think about playing a portion of this for a bigger move. That's if the obviously if the price action continues to
Speaker A
corroborate. Um and then that's what happened here. Yeah, our RPR follow through. Look at that.
Speaker A
Our RPR which is our relative performance ranking is similar to that of a relative strength rating. So this is rating every stock against every other stock not the indexes. And this is the you know clear reflection of the
Speaker A
leadership. So 98 relative uh performance ranking is to say it's in the top 2% uh we go one to 100 and and even though as Marky is saying the uh little gap up here pause pivot not at the classic type of pivot set that would
Speaker A
be in our classic but sure enough proof is in the pudding stocks moving higher and then just sideways until it's ready for the next move. Volume is again not accelerating just yet. No reason to be getting out. Nothing, no violations
Speaker A
going on here, but a a perfect entry once again just from the standpoint of clearing this this whole previous price act.
Speaker A
And I think you guys sold right into that first real accelerated rally part of it.
Speaker A
Yeah. Correct. And like this is this is one like so here's another example. We we made I don't know threequarters of a billion dollars on this one. And I only say that because this was a smaller position and it's like, okay, we we just
Speaker A
showed you two stocks that accounted for a good, you know, those that's real money. So it's like you don't need too many of these if you just position size them right and you get on them in the right spot where you can ride them and
Speaker A
they really make your return. Um so yeah, we sold we sold a piece of this on one two um and then a little bit more on 15.
Speaker A
Okay. Yep. So when there as it got, you know, short-term extended, so back to back. Yep.
Speaker A
We got the first one and then the next day we sold another piece. Yep.
Speaker A
Um and then 225 we sold another piece. So we rolled it. Yep. There you go. You got those all those in there. So again, like because we had a cushion, we were able to hold into earnings which gave us that, you
Speaker A
know, we gave us a good reaction. And so, you know, we got one, two, three, four, five days of follow through, we sold another piece. And like, again, going back to where are we at on this mountain selling the strength like Marky
Speaker A
described before uh and then uh and because they derisked for one, I'm sure is why they weren't terribly panicked with the gap down here and it didn't even come back even to the break even level. So, even though
Speaker A
if memory serves me correct, that was one of those phantom phantom gap. It wasn't down there for more than a second kind of deal, you know. But to Bob's point though, when you've derisked you, you just I mean for people who
Speaker A
don't understand this, like look, when you're this is pros use the strength for selling because it it allows you to be able to not have to panic uh you know at on an open like that. And look in any
Speaker A
earnings because I I believe the expected volatility earnings was was was double digits. We're never going to hold a large position into something like that. um or one where we don't have, you know, something banked. Well, in this
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case, to Bob's point, we knew we had all that in spades. So, even if we'd had a really bad gap down, was going to turn into a losing. We did have a short gap down. Um again though, we had it paid
Speaker A
for profits up front and we had a plan going into that too as well. Richard, go ahead. Yeah, I was just going to ask like do you guys have a rule specifically or a guideline for for other traders out there? You know,
Speaker A
how much profit cushion you need to have going into earnings uh to look to hold through or at least a portion, right?
Speaker A
You can always like you did derisk so you can hold, you know, a portion uh through that event because it is binary.
Speaker A
It can gap up, gap down. You you don't know what's going to happen. But yeah, do you guys have a guideline there that you you like to use?
Speaker A
Well, ultimately you can use the options market to get what the market is, you know, expecting. Uh, but that's as good as like knowing the odds on a football game, you know. So, I've seen teams that were favored by a touchdown lose by two.
Speaker A
So, you know, it doesn't really matter, you know, for real for reality results, but to the extent that you can have an expectation, you know where your profit is currently, you know what profit already took off, you know, you know
Speaker A
what is your potential worst case scenario, so to speak. And as long as you're comfortable with that, everybody's a different risk tolerance.
Speaker A
That's what you determine how much of a position sizing you want to remain open and and obviously adjust accordingly. Um that's kind of an individual decision.
Speaker A
So it doesn't matter what Mark's answer is or Brandon's answer is or my answer is. You have to sleep comfortably at night on your pillow. We call it pillow factor for just that reason. You got to sleep comfortably at night with the risk
Speaker A
that you have exposed to the market. Yeah. And if there's one if there's one rule, it's never hold an overweight position into into uh into an announcement like that because you're you're guaranteed at some point to take a massive hit.
Speaker A
Yeah. How many times do you see, you know, record earnings, record revenues? I think Broadcom would be a classic example just recently with AVGO that we actually did have. Uh but we had we had this name and we derisked into
Speaker A
this rally right before the earnings debacle even though it was record cash flow record earnings record revenues and they up their guidance for next year but not good enough for what the market was expecting and that's all that matters
Speaker A
and the market said not good enough and we took the the remaining piece that we had off here pretty I think at a break even or thereabouts but it's because we had taken profits off that even allowed us to hold into but uh ultimately became
Speaker A
about a 15 or 16 or 18% gap. But but that that trade just highlights almost to perfection though the value of using the strength for selling even ahead of the okay maybe it wasn't earnings maybe it was a news
Speaker A
announcement something else when you use that strength for selling walk away with a winning trade. Uh while the person who's greedy and goes I I got to hold for the whole thing turned their profit into a loss.
Speaker A
Excellent. And a larger question folks had cuz I know Mark and Brandon you guys kind of operate as a team. I'd love to hear a little bit more about that dynamic. Do you both have kind of separate routines you do each kind of
Speaker A
present a few ideas each day and kind of um you know cross-pollinate ideas and kind of decide what's in focus you know the next day the next week. How do you guys decide which stocks to focus on of
Speaker A
that group? Walk me through that dynamic and how you guys um feel it really benefits you to work as kind of that partnership.
Speaker A
Go for it, Brando. Okay. Yeah, I saw the smile. Yeah. Yeah. Listen, we do we do the same work.
Speaker A
So, we're both running the same screens. We're both come, you know, it's kind of like he compiles his list, I compile my list, and then like that's the idea side of it, right? So, each morning we come to the table with, hey, what are you
Speaker A
looking at? What do you like? Um and then we talk about it. And then obviously on the positions we already own um it's it's more of you know how are things acting? Do you see anything you want to cut? Do I see you know we
Speaker A
kind of we always have a plan for something whether that's what we're buying, what we're holding, what we're selling.
Speaker A
Uh and that's really all we're doing all day long is just, you know, talking back and forth about different scenarios uh and and you know the risk we're carrying.
Speaker A
It's not as exciting. It's not as exciting as a lot of people would think. Uh, and there's there's almost no disagreement because we're cut from the same cloth.
Speaker A
Yeah. Right. Like [clears throat] we're both students of, you know, you know, of of the master trader program, Mark's books before there were books. We had the, you know, it's like this idea of the lowrisk entry. That's what we're living and
Speaker A
dying by. So, we may not all we may not identify the exact same name at the same time. This is where, hey, you know, teamwork makes the dream work. Multiple sets of eyes. you're less likely to see things fall through the cracks. There's
Speaker A
a lot of ideas out there. There's a lot of creative ways to express lowrisisk entries. Um, but you know, you do this long enough, your eye gets definitely keenly trained to looking at some of the same spots. And then in terms of, you
Speaker A
know, risk tolerance and and those things, it's just a function of, you know, math and what we're comfortable with.
Speaker A
Yeah. Excellent. Well, I'll say too, Richard, like it started out as like I just came to the office with Mark before we even partners and we didn't even know where this was going to go. It was more or less like he was paying for the
Speaker A
platform and I was paying for MarketSmith and it was like we just kind of collaborated. We were doing our own thing but also just talking through it like trying to learn and you know during those days the platform was just an idea
Speaker A
generation and then Q&A and that was it. Uh so it was kind of like learning on the fly with mini and that's a good point. we didn't have near the tools and bells and whistles and prefab screens and like that's it's a
Speaker A
good point because people think like oh you guys just decided to like partner up or whatever. It was like no it was a process like anything else and realizing hey uh we have the same sort of values and vision for trading uh that we
Speaker A
learned together uh because we're you know wandering around in the dark like anybody trying to figure this business out. Bob can you know adding I'm laughing hearing the story. So, for those that don't know, I've been with Mark for 22 years. And Mark and Brandon,
Speaker A
as mentioned, came to our very first Master Trader program in 2010, 16 years ago. And you know, these guys were as green as green can be. Uh, when I met them, if I remember, cuz I don't think Mark, you barely even traded a stock. I
Speaker A
know you have a background in futures and things of that nature, but stocks was very new for him. And you know to share Brandon's story who some may know but some may not is he literally sold his car to pay to come to the master
Speaker A
trainer program to get the education knowing a car may help you today and get you around but knowledge is what's going to stay with you forever and and provide a lifetime of value and nothing could be truer with these guys as far as what
Speaker A
they were able to do when they did collectively get together after about 6 months or a year after coming to the workshop pulling together about $100,000 and subsequently turning it into $20 million over the next 15 years. And
Speaker A
after 10 years of being a paying client of private access is where Mark and I uh you know Adam come on board as part of the team officially and working you know on the trading desk.
Speaker A
helping educate as well as you know being a director of trading because they have proven what their skill sets uh learning from Mark Menervini had allowed them to do and needless to say Brandon uh can buy many cars over and over now
Speaker A
with the money that he invested in that education. So look at this point though. Go ahead Bob.
Speaker A
Finish your point. I want to add. No, no, just just just but to see their maturation like any parent uh seeing a child kind of go from crawling to you know walking to jog over on the sprint is is sort of literally what you can
Speaker A
I've seen thousands of times over with the thousands of people come through the process to learn Mark's methodology. The ones who commit to it, the ones who stay with it, the ones who are focused on it, all seem to get to the same point of
Speaker A
being successful with this methodology that as alluded to earlier, wash, rinse, repeat, just do it over and over and over again. And position yourself for success over and over is what's going to lead to the long-term, you know, success
Speaker A
as a trader. Yeah, I was just going to add, you know, the one of the main reasons uh I keep doing this is because I know what it feels like to be on the other side where, you know, you wonder like, can
Speaker A
can anyone do this? Can people learn this? Is it a gifting? Is it a special talent? Obviously, I was, you know, from a trading family. uh and living proof that yeah it can all this information um and it's clear to be clear all of
Speaker A
Mark's work is based on what a hundred plus years of history and studying thousands upon thousands of you know charts and examples and these you know past precedents so and now yeah 16ish years later I can honest absolutely absolutely say unequivocally
Speaker A
it's doable. It's learnable. There's a lot of things you have to learn and and then there's a lot of things you got to internal you got to internalize all the stuff uh so that you can you actually act on these things in real time but
Speaker A
it's absolutely doable. Well, I'll just add too Richard like you know Mark was just as broke as I was when I you know we went to that thing.
Speaker A
We actually ended we couldn't even afford to stay the last night at the hotel. We stayed at a days in in downtown Myrtle Beach, which was pretty scary. Yeah. And it was just like, listen, if we can do it, we really
Speaker A
believe that if you're willing to do the hard steps, like what a lot of people miss is they don't do the work themselves. And that's what Mark and I did for 10 years along with the, you know, Mark's teaching. Uh, just kind of
Speaker A
checking. And a lot of the times it it was more of a reflection of like, man, do we feel like we we know more than we did a year ago? And would it be foolish to give up or to keep going? And it was
Speaker A
always this idea of like, well, given the knowledge we know, yeah, we don't have the returns we want. But eventually, they showed up.
Speaker A
There's that classic cartoon of the miner who walks away. He's like chipping away, chipping away, chipping away, and he turns back right before that thin wall is going to release the diamonds or gold or whatever that. So then it buys
Speaker A
that perfectly. And this is a little bit different because we've got a little bit more of a pullback by uh type opportunity here. So talk us through, you know, this variation of of uh maybe an entry. Like you said, Mark, uh
Speaker A
there's many different variations of low-risk entries, and this is just kind of expressed a little bit more in a pullback setup than a pivot buy.
Speaker A
Yeah, exactly. I mean, look, you really had kind of a I mean, you shouldn't say that low cheat right there is, you know, not something I would normally play because it's sort of riding the 50 like that. But this was a
Speaker A
a pretty again a high RPR. I want to say 99 100. Um but it was under pressure right there. You can see how that see where Bob you move your cursor one bit left there Bob. Uh yeah, exactly how
Speaker A
he's showing you the stock is still under pressure. And I I'll I'll sometimes bottom fish or or bottom pick uh really high uh RPR situations off of uh a pivot like that. But when it rides the 50, I want some type of
Speaker A
confirmation. Well, it it came out strongly. And then of course I'm sitting there going, "Oh, shoot. I missed it." Right? Uh, well, now what do I need to see to get back on board? Well, we had a, you know, sort of one, two, three
Speaker A
pullback and lower volume pullback by right to that little cheat spot and then an inside day. That's that's where my antenna goes up to go. This is a type of situation where I it I'm I'm I'm either right right on the money, I'm going to
Speaker A
hit it right on the screws, or I'm getting out. Um, because that momentum is so strong, this is where it should find support and fast. Uh well, yeah, obviously we're we're going we're reviewing winners here. Uh we we all
Speaker A
pretty much all our losers look uh the same. It doesn't work within one to five days. You know, max probably 5 to 10 uh were gone. Um and you know, this turned right up and and then broke out. I think
Speaker A
we added a little bit on the follow that follow-up day. This is an example of the everything was looking great prior to our earnings conversation. You can see we just sort of leaked some out into the strength and then the earnings came out
Speaker A
and and the thing got torpedoed uh and we sold our our last piece. I think it was either right on that gap down or I can't remember. We had some type of back stop that I'm sure it went through. Uh
Speaker A
but again, we we sort of paid for that, but I don't even remember Brandon if you recall. This is one of those where implied ball was high and the gap was worse and we just on that last piece
Speaker A
just said get out. So we don't we don't always uh you know sell absolutely perfectly and in hindsight you can say well why why didn't you sell at all?
Speaker A
Well we don't have a crystal ball. We trade in real manage risk in real time like everybody else. So we derisked as much as we could into that and then uh you know gave back the what we did on
Speaker A
that last piece. Well I would say you did sell perfectly because once it hit your stop you're out and that is a perfect sell.
Speaker A
Well meaning is Bob. Everybody loves to share that, you know, they never want to share on any trade, but everybody wants to be perfect. Selling is at the absolute high tick of a trade in, you know, as good as anybody. Nobody
Speaker A
can do it. And if you did do it, it was it was almost blind luck because you'll never do it again. But the idea is look at the strength into it. And as Mark says, why are you such a fan of sewing
Speaker A
into strength? And I will tell you even though I worked side by side with Mark Mervini for 22 years, it took me probably 3 years to understand Sony industry. It was that difficult for me to process. And mind you, I've been
Speaker A
training for 38 years total. So 16 BM before mark, 22 A.M. aftermarket. It is night and day the difference of having a clear set of rules that you follow with discipline versus doing good and good at times but also bad at times and really
Speaker A
just realizing you're flying by the seat of your pants. And the thing that you know really made it clear for me and I'll try to explain it in the same way is your equity curve as your stock is
Speaker A
going up is only going up right up and to the right up and to the right. That's what you want your equity curve and ideally not some type of roller coaster where you might get up higher but you
Speaker A
had to go through this first to get to that higher point and that's where people miss the point you're you're and and Mark made the comment before your return against your risk is what is most relevant and so your equity curve is
Speaker A
going up to the right and even though you sold it it's still going higher your equity curve is still going up and to the right and here let's just say and I won't go forward here but let's just say
Speaker A
it goes all the way up to 50 after But that's not really worth having your equity curve look like that roller coaster to get up there because you could just find the next new opportunity which we always are going to have more
Speaker A
opportunities. And it might be a new setup that looks like this where you have a asymmetrical riskreward dynamic of a low risk with a high reward and that equity curve will continue just going up and to the right and that's
Speaker A
what people seem to fail. They all want to be heroes of picking the exact highs and having the 100% winner. That's not how Mark Mini Minvvini made his deck of millions. It's because he sells win to strength long before it typically will
Speaker A
ever, you know, you know, top out. But as he's famous for saying, he buys stocks that go to zero and he sells stocks that go to a million. It's nobody's going to know. And as Mark just referenced, every stock we buy is going
Speaker A
to meet our criteria what it looks like. And just like snowflakes, no two are exactly alike, but they're very, very similar looking. And the idea though is what becomes a winner, what becomes a loser is is to roll the dice. Nobody
Speaker A
knows exactly why one works and one doesn't. And that's why even to this day, if you're 50/50, that's all you want to be shooting for. But the ones that do work, we're looking to make that $2 of profit for every $1 we lost. Two
Speaker A
to one traders. And that is the, you know, uh, holy grail, if you will, of profitable trading is doubling your average wins versus your average loss.
Speaker A
Yeah. Excellent. Any last points on this? Because I know we got a few more to go through. So, um, any last key takeaways from FLNC or we're good to go. I think, uh, MOD is the next one. And this is also a more
Speaker A
pullback type uh, entry, I think. Yeah. Yeah. So, maybe Brandon starts us off on this one. Walk us through.
Speaker A
Yeah. So, we bought this one on 47 and we actually added to it incrementally on that gap. And again, this was coming out of I think what was the news that in the market wasn't this was the follow through day if
Speaker A
memory serves me correct. Yeah. Um yeah, is it was it uh the right off the war or something like that or something like that?
Speaker A
Something to do with the end of the war. Again, it was just like yeah and to Marky's point, it was the follow-through day and you don't know that ahead of time, but obviously you can tell through the action of what's happening in your
Speaker A
on your watch list of the strength and so we added to it incrementally. We didn't pay up a lot for it. However, we were going to be tight on that ad. Well, we got follow through. So, um again,
Speaker A
like to to to Bob's point, look again the volume. Look at how dry the volume is on that pullback, right? And again, look at the RPR, the the Fab the Fab Five as we like to call them. It's got
Speaker A
everything we're looking for. Okay. So, now Bob, go ahead and zoom out. As you can see, we got pretty good follow-through. We did get a pullback, a natural reaction that lasted a little bit of time, and we sat through that.
Speaker A
And typically what Mark and I like to do is, you know, as a stock's working in our favor, we we want to try and, you know, give it the benefit of the doubt and hold through the first natural
Speaker A
reaction to see if we own a tennis ball or an egg. Right now, if we're up 15 to 20%, we're not going to let that come all the way back to even. We're going to try and sell a piece into that because
Speaker A
that just gives us the ability to hold into a pullback without sweating too much. Um well this one continued to follow through and we sold the first piece uh there on 514 which gave us the ability then to sit
Speaker A
through a big bigger correction and hold through earnings and then as we got that earnings gap right. So you as you can see we sat through one two natural reactions and we had the earnings come out and then on that gap we sold another
Speaker A
piece uh and then decided to punt it the next day. So 526 we sold back stop. Yeah, I think we backs stop the remainder. Basically saying this is getting a little more getting a little more aber in the price action sort of
Speaker A
take take the take the gift if you will on the earnings and we I think we had a back stop that was nearly hit prior just below the 50 as well. So it was kind of one of those bailed out
Speaker A
you know and I think Marky what was what we did was we back stopped that gap day. So it was it was like, hey, if this wants to continue to go, fine, I'll keep us in it, but let's not give it to the the low
Speaker A
through that low. That's another really good tactic that's very subtle that again we we learned on the NBA platform of this idea because sometimes let's say you're happy with a profit. You you know, maybe you're you're at you were at two times your
Speaker A
risk the day before, stocks gapping up on news, and what is the over anxious trader just sells it. Nothing wrong with that, by the If you're at a multiple of your risk, taking profits is a good thing. But, you know, the the use of the
Speaker A
backs stop as a form of selling where you can sometimes, you know, sit right below uh, you know, where the market's trading going, I'll let the momentum take me out and then just kind of trail it up. Now, we don't use a resting
Speaker A
trailing stop. I know some traders who do, that's fine, too. But it's that idea of you'd be surprised if that gap had just gone uh, you know, which is how we handled say the situation in Micron earlier this year. uh you just keep
Speaker A
ratcheting up your back stop and then as the momentum finally waines or turns down, it takes you out. But that's once you're that's in profit protection management mode when you're well extended from your buy point and already you already know you're going to take
Speaker A
the profit. That's where we like to use that tactic. Yeah. Something to note. So here before the earnings, of course, it could have been just as much down, but they were still at a 20% profit from their purchase. they already derisked the part
Speaker A
of the trade. So, and and after the natural reaction, they probably had their break even moved up or the stop loss rather to the low of the natural reaction. So, as mentioned, got close to it but didn't actually touch it. And
Speaker A
then certainly when you get the gap, you know, off the earnings, you're going to definitely take the more off table and then, you know, once as as I think statistically speaking, about 50% of gaps fill the other 50 don't. you know,
Speaker A
a classic back fill of the gap and and that's where you just got to take the risk.
Speaker A
Uh, one thing that stands out for me, uh, if I before you jump to the other one, Bob, if you go back to mod for just a second.
Speaker A
Um, this and Vicker both had a little bit of a similar larger setup where you've got a pretty big base, a momentum move out of that base, and then you had the consolidation that setup that then you guys traded. So, Vicker had um, you
Speaker A
know, a larger pattern. Yeah. kind of from September to here, gap up, strong push higher, and then it calmed down, tightened on the 50 as you guys bought it. Um, yeah, and Vicor Mod kind of kind of shared that uh that aspect. Uh, but
Speaker A
yeah, sorry. So, let's jump to MU. Just wanted to add that point. Well, that's a good point, Richard, though, because I think look, this is the whole reason why you don't have to chase.
Speaker A
I do not understand this. I mean I understand it but this need everybody wants to chase whatever is moving uh versus just wait for it and you know I think it was Bob was you know quoting Mark Mervine he's saying we don't want
Speaker A
the high price want the right price the right price is when the stock has gone through that proper VCP characteristic where strong and weak hands are changing and you can then align yourself to know and the way I like to define the lowrisk
Speaker A
entry is so I can know in relatively short order if I'm right or wrong.
Speaker A
That's what I want. I want efficiency on my capital. I don't want to have to wait around for weeks and months. And what do you always hear when the stock's going down? Then you'll hear all the fundamental stories about how great it
Speaker A
is. If it's so great, why isn't the price moving in your direction? Well, I I I'm willing to wait for that price point even if I'm wrong because then I can quickly move my capital to somewhere else. And I that may sound, you know,
Speaker A
crazy, but this is precisely how you can compound returns very quickly uh if if you do the work right.
Speaker A
Somebody might say, why not buy it just on the gap as it's clearing whole base year uh right at that point because this gap is about 12 or 13% and as we just said half the time gaps are going to
Speaker A
fill. So could you hold through a 13% pullback and fill that gap before it might do this? No. That's not a risk that Mark Man is willing to take. in there for you just got to let it go and
Speaker A
that's okay. Sometimes they it will go and it'll go straight up for a,000% doesn't matter. But the ones that do come back and meet our criteria and set up properly that's where we have a low risk high reward entry point. That's
Speaker A
where we have the benefit of that sort of uh we can lean on that again historical precedence of knowing what you know we're looking for to meet Mark's criteria and is a good example though where we did it did gap and but that was a
Speaker A
reasonable gap that was only about you know 3 or 4% uh if I'm not mistaken and coming right out through the pivot as you can see clearing all this price action be behind here which is as as textbook as an entry would be if it
Speaker A
didn't have the gap and sure enough we took that profit or you guys took the profit fairly quickly in this trade just as any again learning from Mark Manini you were up here already a good 15% or so I guess y partial profit yep
Speaker A
yeah we had overweight on we sort of reduced there um six train days again it's the same the same uh same tactics you know just another example you know is this is where as the stock then started gapping. Uh I think it was that
Speaker A
uh 3 days prior to that one, the first gap there, right? We were thinking we're going to take a profit there or at least sell a little more, but we sort of used that gap and said, "All right, well,
Speaker A
we'll use a back stop at the low." Well, then the next day and the next day and then we gap and then we used it again that day and sort of cinched it up intraday going, "All right, this is
Speaker A
going into the nosebleleed section." Um we're happy. Yeah, exactly. 470 in 3 weeks, you know.
Speaker A
Exactly. And and you know, you you'll hear people on different places, oh, you guys screwed up. You didn't It's like screwed up. We made whatever was 60% and you know, Yeah.
Speaker A
I don't know. Brandon's probably got the dollar dollar amount. A lot of money. It was almost a million dollars. Yeah.
Speaker A
Yeah. Very short period of time. Uh and didn't have to give to Bob's prior point about the equity curve and using strength for selling. Didn't give back a almost a penny. uh of that move because once you get that stretched you know
Speaker A
Richard as you know that 15 20% pullback is a lock uh at some point especially in a name like Micron u that equity curve would have to go through this before it might go higher and even though it did
Speaker A
go higher you don't know it's going higher everybody's a genius after the fact but your equity curve took a 20% you know correction here and incredibly extended from the 50-day uh even though it does of course go on to be you know
Speaker A
going through, you know, the next level higher and and probably it'll go higher again.
Speaker A
And if it rebases, we'll get back involved. Yeah. And more importantly, how many other trades have you been able to get into, Marky and Brandon, since you got out of this and and you went through this? You avoided this 20%. You might
Speaker A
have missed that, but Jim avoided this 20%. Uh, you know, how many other opportunities did you get into with a lowrisk high reward opportunity, right?
Speaker A
And then I think we also just quickly can show ARM which was another one. Um I don't know if I marked this one up.
Speaker A
Yep. Uh it was May 13th I believe. Um yeah right here just a little bit before that actually it pushed up pulled back in tightened again rewent and then this is just exactly when we want to see a breakout
Speaker A
when when it after it pulled back in and burst out. I mean this this is a great one.
Speaker A
Just classic. And this is also coming out of a big base, right? Is that some that's that's got to be one of the characteristics you guys look for like all-time high breakout base above that and then you've got you've got kind of a blue skies
Speaker A
ahead if it actually pushes out. Yeah, that's a good point. You know, one of the one of the criterias for, you know, power play is is it coming out a period of dormcancy or I like to see sometimes, you know, if you looked at a
Speaker A
weekly to, you know, Richard's point, you know, this stock had been in sort of a wide loose base for, you know, a number of years and, you know, that power took it to new all-time highs.
Speaker A
When a stock makes a new all-time high, uh, again, this is right out of the pages of the Master Trader Program, that that gets my attention. Uh but we don't just buy it there now. Now now we got to
Speaker A
look for some type of lowrisk spot to get on board. In this case, it was a little bit wonky in terms of u you know the pivot there. Uh but you know our our thought was and and we didn't we did not
Speaker A
put on a big position. Uh full disclosure it was quite small and we were hoping this is where I think the market was getting a little squirly here too. But I was expecting if this strength is going to remain I think the
Speaker A
stock's going to quickly move into new high ground. So, we were just buying that first. I think it was after again sort of three lower lows um you know following that pullback uh from from new highs.
Speaker A
I was going to say you could you know easily have looked at it at this point too coming off of the cheat area of this this prior base but I think it was an early turn there. Bob, you're right. Uh because I remember
Speaker A
looking at it, but yeah, just didn't quite didn't quite meet the, you know, that that would be going uh you you can buy an early turn if it's, you know, if it's a power play type or big base. And this was,
Speaker A
you know, he's right right here. Look at the trend stage up top. when I move my mouse it's going to look but when you see the trend stay st stay st stay st stay st stay st stay st
Speaker A
stay st stay st stay st stay st stay is red and that's exactly the reason why it's not quite yet meeting the criteria that would make it in a pronounced uptrend like it is over at this point and you can see the fab five all green
Speaker A
across the board um exactly right one thing uh that lower area there on uh March 25th they had a a news cat callus basically they had their own AI chips created so that got it on my radar there
Speaker A
and And then it tightened up nicely in in that spot there. This has been a one of the best semis to uh to to focus on for sure. But I love the explosion coming out of the base that you guys
Speaker A
got. I mean, talk about time value for money. That's like 60% in 4 days, whatever it is.
Speaker A
Yeah. Rinse and repeat momentum. One of the things we have is a a news count. So, it just is showing you exactly where you do have news on and if you're uh you see the number here. So the news count on that day, you can see
Speaker A
18 versus only nine or versus only two. So clearly some date that has 18 news stories, it's something really significant going on. So that's one of the nice things about just having that round the chart so you can see that was
Speaker A
something that's going on or what might be causing that. But um did we have a sell date, guys?
Speaker A
Yep. Um so the first one we sold on 520, Bob at 17 3/4%. Yeah. Right. We actually sold only a quarter position. Quarter of the position here to finance the risk.
Speaker A
Yeah. And then another and then we sold um another 25% on 521. Is that right day after day? Yeah.
Speaker A
Yep. And then we punted on 522. So that last piece we sold that to your point, Richard, up 40 over 40% y in a matter of days. So yeah. And and again, people could say, "Oh, but why'd you sell it there? it's
Speaker A
doing so well. You'll learn. You'll learn. [laughter] Uh yeah. So I think that's that's really textbook examples of how you know now we have trades that of course we recommend on the service as part of the service.
Speaker A
These are the trades that Mark uh Richie and Brandon are doing themselves with their own real money. But as far as trades that we do on the service, you know, we we do provide that as well. And for example, right now, you know, we
Speaker A
have these names uh currently. Now, of course, this is being recorded, rich, and it's the middle of June here, June 15th, as as we know, but ultimately, you can just see very quickly, these are names that we, you know, where we bought
Speaker A
them. And and you know, when we overlay, uh, uh, you know, this FRST as an example, and I just bring up the S&P, which I like to see on top of it, you can see where the market there on June
Speaker A
2nd. This is also where Mark Mervy, you know, tweeted that we shorted the SPY on this day, right at the absolute high before this very quick 8% kind of pullback on the SPY. That was when we were buying the stock. So, you can see
Speaker A
while the market's going through a correction, this stock is breaking out and moving higher. And this is classic example where, you know, focus on the stocks. It doesn't really matter what the market's doing. The stocks are going to tell you what you need. And we're
Speaker A
buying that on the day that the market at the same day that we're shorting the market. And not to say that we had a big bearish conviction on the market. It was uh uh due to the fact that as much of
Speaker A
the fact that we had a lot of long exposure at the same time Mark who is you know throughout his career on kennoly uh calls these tops in the market and we shorted the QQ's you know just a day or two later as well. Um, but
Speaker A
ultimately it's just offset some of the long exposure that we've had. And as you see with a lot of the names that we have, look what they're doing while the market's going through a correction. And this is classic textbook leadership
Speaker A
profile of a stock. While the market's going through an 8% correction, just going sideways and biting time. And when the market, the pressure comes off the market is rallies, so do these names.
Speaker A
And and that's what you're going to see. Look at this. While the market's going through a correction, this is actually inching higher. Uh this is classic example of why we don't really focus on the indices. We don't really focus on
Speaker A
what the market's doing other than have some context. But the stocks, if you just had to focus on your stocks, it wouldn't matter what the market's doing.
Speaker A
And these stocks prove it doesn't it doesn't matter what the market's doing. And that's kind of one of the nice things to see just uh how the setups are going to, you know, dance to their own.
Speaker A
Yeah. Perfect. Do you want to jump to Iron? Uh I think we've got time for just a maybe one or two more.
Speaker A
Yeah. And then this was back in 2025 I think um August 15. Yeah. So one of the things that we talked about with the original STX trade was where all this whole a AI data center trade really started in earnest
Speaker A
right at the first week of August. uh this is where in three months of my 115% return last year in the three months of August, September, October I made uh 70 almost 80% of my gain. So 90 plus
Speaker A
percentage points was in just three months and it's a classic example where you don't have to be in the market every day all the time. Uh in fact that's not how Mark Mervini won his US investing championships. He was famously in cash
Speaker A
for half the year in 1997 when he won with 155% return. Uh but when the market becomes easy dollars, which these names did certainly with these August, September, October runs, uh you know, iron was mine, one of my bigger ones.
Speaker A
But just to be fair and to be uh transparent, what I was doing last year was not so much swing trading, which is what we do focus on primarily as Mark Mervini's methodology, but just to prove the timelessness of his. I was doing
Speaker A
more short-term trading. My average whole time was about four to five days. Uh but they work on all time frames. The setups are going to look identical whether you're looking at a daily, an hourly, a 15 minute, a five minute,
Speaker A
doesn't matter. And that's kind of what uh the notion was here. Uh again not necessarily uh as it turns out this theme was very uh popular and got very big with the AI but I also do trade a little bit more
Speaker A
thematic myself just because I am very knowledgeable about the AI data center Bitcoin kind of sector. So I do know these names and for a long time these names were doing very little of anything but right here on the 15th was where you
Speaker A
know I got into this particular name. uh nice, you know, classic. And I'm buying this off of uh a first screening on the daily, but then buying typically on the intraday setup, just so it's clear, which is to say, uh I might have stops
Speaker A
that that aren't going to be off of the daily chart, but still commenure with looking for that 2:1. as it turns out uh you know phenomenal move in just a matter of for for a short-term trade for four or five days to get like you know
Speaker A
the 10 12 15% that I got in this particular name. Uh I mean that's as that you you couldn't go to Vegas and do any better. Uh it was as classic as you get as far as uh right out, you know,
Speaker A
quick little pullback, but held the stop even on the daily basis. So what held the stop and and sure enough following through. Uh wasn't willing to hold through the earnings. Uh so unfortunately didn't get this part of the move, but did get enough of the move
Speaker A
that that uh for again my my time perspective that was perfect. And then the other one NBIS just comes to mind as a clear uh another name in this sector as well uh with the benefit of what was
Speaker A
uh yeah and I did mark this window properly. So, in this one, I had traded it a little bit after this this earnings event. As you can see, wasn't ready.
Speaker A
Then they had this huge announcement with the $20 billion contract with Microsoft and that's what popped the stock uh significantly. As you can see, the new scout popped to 14. And so in this kind of uh you know really was a
Speaker A
power play but from 50 to 100 uh off the power play again using a smaller time frame because this really on a daily chart we would not be trading a power plays perhaps as quickly as this was.
Speaker A
But this is almost more of a you know that bottom fishing pivot kind of concept where just using the low of this setup day taking the breakout you know again in just a matter of four or five days. I mean, you're making 15 points uh
Speaker A
20 points and you know, so 15 20% in just four or five days. That is a proverbial grand slam for me as a short-term trader and turning over my money. You know, I'm not going to have the 60 70% kind of wins that a swing
Speaker A
trader can have when things are really doing well. Uh because I'm turning my money over much more quickly and then getting that compounding benefit much more quickly. Uh so that's kind of that.
Speaker A
Yeah, two observations on both iron and um NBIS is if you zoom out, you're buying those patterns right at the top of big bases. So, this is like a a year-long base. If you go to a weekly chart and it it gapped up on that news,
Speaker A
pulled in right to that pivot level. Uh and that's where you bought it. So, on a weekly, you're buying like that hammer candle. Um if I'm looking at this right, it's usually see Yeah.
Speaker A
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, again, that's exactly what we're looking for. We're looking for strength. We're looking for stocks that are obviously exciting the market to the point that they're taking this stock to an all-time high. That's one of the most classic examples of
Speaker A
what's going to cause it to come onto our radar. And I'll go back to the iron one real quick, but that's exactly right. We're looking for big moves out of bases. That's the soundness of our methodology. Even though you can
Speaker A
certainly have u uh uh uh oops, let me just go to the weekly here.
Speaker A
Yeah, it's a little squished. And you can see, you know, just doing nothing, right? Doing nothing. And as a data miner, which is what this used to be, it was doing nothing then. You can look at Marathon, you could look at
Speaker A
Blockchain Ride. I mean, all these names, but look where it became interesting right here. right when it finally broke out of all this cleared all this price action going back all the way three years and that's that's too
Speaker A
far back it doesn't matter. So once it finally got interesting, has your nice breakout, comes back and sets up here, right? Look at that. Right in the middle of August. And again, don't even need to to see the daily to just see clearly
Speaker A
what I'm looking for when you're screening. And and sure enough, uh that August 15th date was just, you know, a classic kind of uh setup and entry point for for uh for me once once uh yep went to go right here. And just to prove the
Speaker A
point of the timelessness, you know, of course we all know SpaceX which just uh IPOed yesterday. And if you just look uh maybe I'll go down to too bit, but on its IPO day uh which was again Friday,
Speaker A
June 12th here, you can just see what is a classic textbook DCP right here. just classic one, two, three contractions, nice pivot with with, you know, relatively tight volume drying up relative to the morning. And even though this is on its
Speaker A
IPO day, which is something we don't normally trade, I actually did trade this. And you can see just one, two, three candles, just three time periods.
Speaker A
Actually, uh, yeah, three time periods, you're making two Rs. You know, the distance from here to here, this is two Rs, that distance. And if you held to the natural reaction, which I didn't, but if you did, you would have gotten it
Speaker A
up to a nice three or four hours, you know, right after your next thrust up after your natural reaction. So, as classic as a, you know, stock can be, whether you think it's overpriced or not or whatever, it's meeting the criteria.
Speaker A
It has the same textbook setup and, you know, very tradable, which which I did.
Speaker A
It even had another one today. You can, you know, spot these things. Bob pings me all the time and goes, "Hey [laughter] he's he's spotting this on the five minute all the on the regular." Yeah.
Speaker A
So, updated this out today, too. So, I sp I was spotting the same thing right there. Exactly.
Speaker A
There you go. Well, you have you have the same teacher. Eventually, you have similar eyes, right? And Yep. Yeah. And you can just see like it just shows to Bob's point that supply and demand doesn't know time frame. Uh
Speaker A
so it it's and there's a lot of uh there's a lot of lanes on this highway in terms of you know, art and expression.
Speaker A
And look at the volume, you know, on those two bars. There's two big breakout bars clearly and uh, you know, obviously got all the way up to here before it reversed. But if you're taking it at 174 and change, you stop here at 172, you
Speaker A
got $2 and you got, you know, $4. So there's your two RS right there. And if you didn't happen to sell there, you know, you never got stopped out, never even came back to the breakout, but barely. And then you got certainly in
Speaker A
the next three bars here, you're you're too short. And then if you held through the natural reaction, yeah, you definitely made three if not four hours.
Speaker A
I mean, at no point are you under pressure or feeling pressure this this purchase. And that's that's the Mark intervening way. You get into the profit right away. Never under pressure. You hold through a natural reaction and and
Speaker A
you know, you're one, two, you know, three punch. Excellent. Well, this has been great getting to see kind of case studies, how you guys each kind of apply the methodology and and add your own spin and and twist to it. Um, for each of you
Speaker A
guys, um, maybe one last kind of lasting bit of advice for folks on applying the methodology, um, learning about trading, studying, you know, both Mark and Brad, you guys mentioned, you know, putting in the work. How did you guys actually put
Speaker A
in the work after you went to the MTP and and really wanted to focus and improve on this? Um, so maybe one last bit of wisdom for folks watching this and uh, uh, Brandon, not to put you on
Speaker A
the spot, but do you want to go first? Yeah, sure. Yeah, absolutely. Listen, so it started out as like, you know, after the first MTMP, we got went through the screening, right? Screening, find the setups, and then along with the
Speaker A
platform, it was kind of like we were comparing our work to MarkX. So, we did that for a long time where it was like we were making trades. We weren't just piggybacking on the platform, even though the platform gives really, you
Speaker A
know, gives great ideas. Those are Mark's ideas. So, it was kind of like we were constantly comparing our analysis to his. And as we did it long enough, we got better. And even to this day, Mark's been doing this now 43 years, and Mark
Speaker A
and I have been doing it, you know, 16. Um, you know, with this this methodology, it's like we're getting better. And we got the best version of Mark today than we even had back then.
Speaker A
And to Bob's point, you know, with the tools and everything with the platform, I mean, the fact that it's the same price as it was back then, you know, as it is today, you know, versus today, you get so much more. It's it's powerful.
Speaker A
But there there's something about when you make your own trades, right? You're making your own decisions. Your trading is telling you a lot about you. And it's really important that you go back and look to see what you did, what you did
Speaker A
right, what you did wrong. And you got to correct the mistakes. And I think a lot of people miss that, especially beginners, because they don't want to look at it. But that is the most valuable information. You got to see
Speaker A
what you're doing wrong. Because we get questions and comments all the time like, "Well, I don't know why I'm struggling." It's like, well, did you go back and look what you're doing wrong?
Speaker A
Well, I did everything but that. It's like, well, that's what you got to do.
Speaker A
Like, and I get it. And it's like, you know, doing the hard work is it's called that for a reason. It's because most people don't want to do that. So, if you can do that and and I, you know, if you
Speaker A
want to be successful at this, you have to do that. Um, I I I highly encourage it. And, you know, again, the platform has made it easier than ever to do that.
Speaker A
And then two, study and model book. um you know from William O'Neal's book to Mark's books um you know just getting those those uh VCP um you know patterns ingrained in your mind yeah get your reps in like Bob and
Speaker A
listen um if you think you know Bob sold me on this a long time ago. Mark started with nothing, right? And Marky and I pretty much did the same thing. And we were told when we first started, ah, that was
Speaker A
in the '9s. No one can do that again. But we did it. And you know what? I'm more excited for the next 20 years than I have been for the last 20 because we're just getting better at this. So,
Speaker A
start putting in the work. Yeah. I don't think I can say it any better, but you know, I'll just add that look, the the learning curve is as short as ever. Uh but to Brandon's point, the you know, people's ability to
Speaker A
internalize those things, it still takes time. Uh you're still there. Uh and you know, all traders have to go through that, you know, their own version of, you know, working through weaknesses in their own game. And the only way you're
Speaker A
going to get there is by rolling up your sleeves and doing some work. um and not paper trading and you know getting in the ring, getting pushed around a little bit, feeling like feeling what it feels like to to lose real money. Um but yeah,
Speaker A
I would say, you know, get a coach, get accountable, and um and and and then do the work. Uh because that's that's the only way we improve. So um but yeah, I guess my my last parting word would be,
Speaker A
you know, discipline in the end is is what separates. Um, so surround yourself with like-minded people too that have the same, you know, goals. Um, and I think you'd be surprised, uh, you know, how how good the results can be.
Speaker A
Excellent. Bob, to finish this off, Yeah. Uh, the thing I would say again with the benefit of having helped thousands of people come through this process and what I've seen over those years is, uh, you know, the stock market
Speaker A
is the greatest wealth creating mechanism ever invented by mankind. Nothing can make you more wealth unless you're a rock star or a professional athlete. Presumably, you're not one of those. So, if that's the case, you know, the stock market is it. And with that
Speaker A
said, you don't need to reinvent the wheel. So many people have, you know, unfortunately an ego that they want to prove they can do this and themselves they don't need help and things of that nature where I would tell you just the
Speaker A
opposite. You are going to do this yourself. But it doesn't mean you have to reinvent the wheel to do it. You have to learn, master, and as we say, you know, internalize that information, get it ingrained in your brain. That's only
Speaker A
half the process. So, you still got to use it, execute it, apply it in a real world environment, all in real time. And that takes practice. And as Vince Lombardi famously said, it's perfect practice makes perfect, not just
Speaker A
practice makes perfect. So you got to have the benefit of having, you know, perhaps a mentor or a guide, a a tutor who is going to show you, hold your hand through the process while you perfectly practice dozens of dozens and dozens of
Speaker A
trades. But after you do it, you know, 100 times, 200 times, 300 times, and you start getting this down, the competency and the skills again, you will now have this for the rest of your life to use it. And you will and can do it all by
Speaker A
yourself for the rest of your life. But you got to go through the learning curve to do it in the most expeditious and efficient pro process possible. Learn from somebody who's already achieving the success that you're looking to do.
Speaker A
Of course, you know, Mark Benerveni we feel is the best one to choose from, but certainly uh there are others. But you know with that said uh you know Mark has broken down his process to a very learnable coachable uh process and a set
Speaker A
of rules which is clearly proven with the fact of our uh members have been the winners of the US investing championship beside yours truly. But five of the last seven years have been our members.
Speaker A
That's not a coincidence. That's not a random fact. That is just demonstrating you know repeatable performance repeatable results from multiple different people.
Speaker A
because of the simplicity of once you learn it and are competent with it, you'll have the benefit of it for the rest of your life. So, you know, stick with it, stay committed, be focused, then live with passion.
Speaker A
Excellent. Well, great closing thoughts from all three of you. The the synthesis there is do the work, put in the effort, and and good things will happen over time. Uh Mark, Brandon, Bob, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate
Speaker A
you uh guys sharing your knowledge and everything. Uh, if you guys enjoyed, please like, leave a like down below, subscribe to the channel, and uh, we'll be right back. Cheers.
Speaker A
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Topics:VCP strategyTraderLionstock tradingrisk managementposition sizingtrade entriesvolatility contraction patterntechnical analysisstock market educationMinteri Private Access
