@VWapTrader1 AKA JJ of Confessions of a Market Maker + Kim Offer Speed Coaching
Don’t miss this recording of a LIVE speed coaching event with @VWapTrader1 AKA JJ of Confessions of a Market Maker + Kim Ann Curtin!
If you’ve never checked out the Confessions of a Market Maker Podcast, please do so right away! It’s a killer podcast co-hosted by JJ, a former market maker has traded billions in dollar volume, and Ray, a trader and pro poker player.
Ray couldn’t join this session — he was at a poker tournament. However, JJ (who you may know by his handle @VWapTrader1) joins Kim to provide speed coaching to listeners in this recording of a live Twitter Space recording.
What To Expect in This Episode
JJ and Kim got a TON of great questions in this session. Here are some of the topics they tackle:
Fear of failure and how it affects traders. Learn how one trader “failed” at Kim’s homework to “fail at 10 things” — but how it prompted him to think about the right adjustments he needed to make in his trading. Often we attach our value to success and winning — that can create its own problems. It’s all about getting comfortable with your own humanity!
The importance of understanding what moves markets — not just supply and demand, but who and what is driving that supply and demand. As a former market maker, JJ can speak to the other side of the trade.
Can traders access historical float? It’s not as easy as you might think! JJ has some tricks for figuring it out, though…
The advice JJ wishes more people would heed: “don’t get starry-eyed about price action.” JJ talks about why people follow price and why it pays to be “a little bit paranoid” in the current market.
Self-doubt plagues many traders. Both JJ and Kim weigh in on quieting the “bad wolf” in your head.
The danger of being too early in a trade. Even if you’re right, things could go terribly wrong. In retail trading, it’s not always about getting a jump on the trade!
Manufacturing a short squeeze — how does it work? Get the dirt from the POV of a former market maker.
Follow @VWapTrader1 + Confessions of a Market Maker
Disclaimer: All information provided is for educational purposes only and does not constitute investment, legal, or tax advice, or an offer to buy or sell any security. For full disclosures: www.thewallstreetcoach.com
This time, Charles gets into the nitty-gritty of his winning trades on Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA). Be prepared to learn from his expertise and experience plus plenty of stock charts!
Charles Harris is a Portfolio Manager at O’Neil Global Advisors Inc. with over 20 years of experience in finance. Recently, he released a YouTube video of a 2019 presentation he made at the final IBD Level IV Master’s Program workshop in Santa Monica, CA entitled “A Trader’s Journey.” In it, he details his personal journey as a stock trader and shares his highs and lows, the many boom and bust cycles he’s experienced along the way, and the lessons he’s learned and continue to relearn. The video went viral — it currently has over 34K views. Legions of traders have been blown away by his vulnerability and the wisdom he has gained as a result of staggering losses and hard-earned lessons — including legendary big wave surfer and trader Shane Dorian, who joins Kim as a guest co-host for today’s episode.
Not familiar with Shane? He’s been on the pod before — don’t miss his episode here. As a refresher, Shane spent 11 years touring on the World Championship Tour as a pro surfer before quitting the pro circuit to focus on big waves. Now, he’s one of the best-known big wave surfers in the world. But that’s not all — he’s also an accomplished trader, with years of experience. Following the CANSLIM system, created by William O’Neil, Shane identifies as a swing/position trader and has seen massive upside in his trading for over a decade.
What To Expect in This Episode
In today’s followup interview, Kim and guest co-host Shane speak with Charles about his approach to trading TSLA. As Charles explained in Part 1 of the interview, a series of winning trades on TSLA helped him recover his account after losing 85% of his net worth on a series of drawdowns. Then, Kim and Charles head over to a live Twitter Space q+a session so listeners can join in the conversation. Here’s what to expect:
Why Charles has so much conviction in trading TSLA. As he puts it, he’s a “love-hate relationship with TSLA since 2013.” Yes, it was one of his biggest winners — but he’s also lost a boatload of money on it, too. Charles explains why “it’s been great but I’ve also had periods where I’ve done very poorly with it.”
A detailed powerpoint presentation where Charles explains his approach to the stock since 2013 when he started trading it.
A new way to evaluate disruptive technology and why, according to Charles, “position size mirrors conviction, at least for me.”
Why the potential for Tesla is “enormous” and why traders need to look past the divisive individual that is Elon Musk. Charles about near-term catalysts for TSLA and why he’s still so bullish on the stock.
What Charles learned from trading AAPL — and how it gives him an edge trading TSLA.
If you believe that you have something that has massive secular growth, you don’t want to lose your core position. Charles explains why.
Plus, Charles shares TSLA charts + gives plenty of details about his approach to trading TSLA!
Charles Harris’ Massive Trading Loss Recovery + Mindset With Special Guest Co-Host Shane Dorian
Charles Harris is a Portfolio Manager at O’Neil Global Advisors Inc. with over 20 years of experience in finance. Recently, he released a YouTube video of a 2019 presentation he made at the final IBD Level IV Master’s Program workshop in Santa Monica, CA entitled “A Trader’s Journey.” In it, he details his personal journey as a stock trader and shares his highs and lows, the many boom and bust cycles he’s experienced along the way, and the lessons he’s learned and continue to relearn. The video went viral — it currently has over 34K views. Legions of traders have been blown away by his vulnerability and the wisdom he has gained as a result of staggering losses and hard-earned lessons — including legendary big wave surfer and trader Shane Dorian, who joins Kim as a guest co-host for today’s episode.
Not familiar with Shane? He’s been on the pod before — don’t miss his episode here. As a refresher, Shane spent 11 years touring on the World Championship Tour as a pro surfer before quitting the pro circuit to focus on big waves. Now, he’s one of the best-known big wave surfers in the world. But that’s not all — he’s also an accomplished trader, with years of experience. Following the CANSLIM system, created by William O’Neil, Shane identifies as a swing/position trader and has seen massive upside in his trading for over a decade.
What To Expect in This Episode
In this unique two-part episode, Kim and Shane start by interviewing Charles about his exceptional trading journey. Then, Kim and Charles head over to a live Twitter Space q+a session. Here’s what to expect:
Not only will you learn about Charles’ recovery from a staggering drawdown that deleted about 85% of his net worth, but so much more, including:
The incredible reaction to “A Trader’s Journey.” There’s a perception that certain traders are successful and just make money but it’s not the case. The fact that Charles was willing to speak openly about his frailties makes his story exceptional — and it has clearly resonated with viewers.
How Brené Brown’s famed talks on vulnerability and shame inspired Charles to share his story and helped get him get to the root of why he had such a big drawdown. As he describes it, “I knew that I was out of control but I just could not get out of my way.”
When your vision of yourself doesn’t match reality and you feel unworthy, it’s a problem for your trading. As Charles notes, there are two potential outcomes: either you fix your psychology or you sabotage your success to bring it in line with how you really feel inside. Ultimately, the difference between people who have a sense of worthiness and those who don’t boils down to believing that they deserve it, that they are entitled to it.
How Charles came to grips with a massive drawdown that blew out 85% of his net worth. He explains what helped him recover and how much of a break he needed to get his mindset back.
The right thing to do when you’re on a losing streak is to take a step back, stop trading altogether, and figure out what’s going on. When you come back to the market, go really slow.
Charles talks about how he thought it would be 5 or 10 years to come back from his big losses but it actually took less than 2 years. A big part of that was his biggest winner — Tesla. Charles talks strategy — learn why he treats this stock differently, and why its performance reminds him of Apple.
0:25 – Kim’s FREE ebook ‘Discipline and Finding Your Edge’
1:10 – Introducing Lance Breitstein 4:15 – Stepping away from prop trading 6:10 – Combining hard work with smart work 13:25 – Growth mindset, playing strengths, and ridding yourself of limiting beliefs 20:05 – The importance of self-awareness and introspection to adapt and grow 29:40 – The advantage of maintaining a longterm perspective 36:10 – The paradox of struggle and adversity 41:35 – Reviewing “the most important moments” in your trading 43:18 – Identifying the nuances of what works for you and when to size into trades 48:05 – Breaking down theoretical discretionary trades through thought experiments 51:55 – The value in game planning the realm of possibilities 54:48 – The best trades have every trader on one side – TSLA and CVNA trade examples 1:00:20 – Emotional intelligence in trading and life 1:05:30 – The value of working with a performance coach 1:08:10 – Combatting scarcity mindset and greed with identifying personal values
1:15:25 – How the Impact Competition has a large scale impact 1:25:10 – Advice to the average trader
Lance Breitstein on Becoming an Elite Trader
Lance Breitstein joins The Wall Street Coach Podcast to discuss his incredible rise as a prop trader at Trillium, the importance having a growth mindset, and how to identify the nuances in both the market and your own trading to vastly improve your edge.
In this episode Lance dives deep into what he believes are the reasons that he has found such success as a trader, including his tremendous work ethic, maintaining a long term perspective, and reviewing what he describes as “the most important moments” in his trading. As Lance puts it, it’s not enough to just work hard at trading by looking at charts or reading analyst reviews all day. In order to make it, a trader must really dig into working smarter by identifying and refining the nuanced aspects of trading that will compound and pay out exponentially over time. Lance gives a number of detailed examples of how any trader can accomplish this during their review process with examples of watching back how they traded, journalling, and doing a daily report card.
How Lance Identifies Great Trades
Lance also breaks down few different real world and theoretical discretionary trades and how he would approach them. In one example of a theoretical capitulation trade, he outlines how he would capitalize on a panic if a “boring” mega cap stock like Bank of America (BAC) dropped +20% in a matter of minutes. Other examples that Lance speaks to are real world trades that have happened recently, including catching the recent lows of Carvana (CVNA) and buying the breakout of Tesla (TSLA) from last fall. Beyond outlining how these trades worked, Lance dives into his thoughts and conviction behind these big trades. He describes the thought process and stock selection by specifically identifying stocks that he believes every trader is wanting to be on the same side of the trade.
The Roadmap to Becoming a Great Trader
The roadmap to becoming a wildly successful trader is outlined from virtually A to Z by Lance. As he says multiple times, there is no magic formula or secret to becoming successful. It takes committed, deliberate work to refine the craft of being a trader and this is done by removing limiting beliefs, being self-aware, staying objective and honest with yourself, being ready for any given outcome, giving back and being a contribution, living in accordance of your values, and committing to a growth mindset in order to improve every day.
0:25 – Kim’s FREE ebook ‘Discipline and Finding Your Edge’
0:45 – Introducing Brice Foose 3:50 – Conversations with the average person informs emotions in the market
6:00 – How curiosity and neutrality serves as an edge 7:55 – Brice’s main focuses and style of trading 10:45 – How Brice got into trading 12:00 – How having a second income as a pharmacist has helped Brice
18:30 – Being a patience and self-awareness to trading 21:55 – Digging into Brice’s instinct in trading
26:50 – How mentors can actually help your career 32:15 – What Brice wishes he would have learned early in his career 33:45 – Advice for experienced traders – keep surviving 38:15 – What propelled Brice’s career the most
Brice Foose on Part-Time Work and Full Time Profits
Brice Foose joins The Wall Street Coach Podcast to discuss the importance of balance and how he benefits from from part-time as a pharmacist and sees big profits as a full time trader.
Most traders dream of the day that they can quit their day job and focus solely on mastering their craft as a trader – that’s not quite the case for Brice Foose.
In this interview we dive into how Brice got his start in trading over a decade ago – fittingly so, while he was in school to become a pharmacist. With more market experience than many traders out there, Brice has a humble demeanor, an incredible passion for trading, and a healthy curiosity.
Brice’s primary focuses are small cap biotech companies – an area that he uniquely understands better than most. Brice understands his edge and capitalizes on it.
Brice’s approach to trading is refreshing and unlike many traders that feel the need to give up their day job as soon as they are profitable in that he has kept his part-time job as a pharmacist, even though he is a full time prop trader at Seven Points Capital.
As he puts it in this interview, “I don’t know if you’ve ever really made it in trading…I’m a big believer in multiple revenue streams, even if trading is 99.9% of it.”
Beyond just having the financial benefit a part-time job allows him to fall back on, Brice points out the psychological benefits a lot of traders overlook, saying, “It helps my mindset a lot, even if it’s a small amount of money…it gives me a good sense of balance, regardless of the paycheck, I’m still able to help people with my knowledge and it’s something totally different. It gets me out of the house and [gives me] interaction with people.”
Zach Schellhaas on Making an Impact with Traders4ACause
Zach Schellhaas joins the Wall Street Coach Podcast to discuss how traders can find community, be a contribution, and make an impact with Traders4ACause.
With his dynamic background, ranging from marketing and advertising to trading and account management, Zach has flourished in his role as Executive Director at Traders4ACause.
In this episode Zach dives into what makes Traders4ACause so unique, including creating a community for traders that often work in isolation and encourages these same traders to be a contribution to society. As Zach describes, some of the most profound benefits he has seen in traders is their shift from a “scarcity mindset” to a “mindset of abundance.” As Zach points out, this mindset shift is invaluable for traders and making the shift is often what allows traders to take the next step and become more successful than they could have imagined.
Traders4ACause supports numerous charities, including charities on the local, national, and international level. If you’re a trader looking to give back, consider making an impact with Traders4ACause.
30:30 – Anthony’s lesson from being fired from The White House
Anthony Scaramucci and The Sweet Life with Bitcoin
Anthony Scaramucci joins The Wall Street Coach Podcast to discuss his book The Sweet Life with Bitcoin and ways to capitalize on Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and other blockchain technology by holding a longterm perspective.
In this conversation Kim and Anthony both reminisce about their first introduction to Bitcoin. Kim’s first real impression being in 2008 as she was coaching for free on the street outside the New York Stock Exchange and Anthony’s being when the Winklevoss twins brought it it his attention.
The Mooch discusses his new book, The Sweet Life with Bitcoin, and shares how resistant he was to even consider Bitcoin when he first learned of it and how his attitude toward Bitcoin has changed from skepticism to opportunity when he saw the cryptocurrency begin to be adopted by the masses. Anthony makes it clear that he and SkyBridge Capital believe that Bitcoin is still in its infancy and discusses how they began building a position just a few years ago. With a longterm outlook on Bitcoin, Anthony makes it clear that SkyBridge doesn’t plan on just doubling their money with their Bitcoin investment but are in it for the long-haul.
Scaramucci’s attitude toward intellectual curiosity and challenging his own beliefs and preconceived notions is something we could all learn to practice more – it’s one of the things that has separated him from the pack in every endeavor he has pursued. Anthony touches on neuroplasticity and the importance of consciously forcing himself to get out of his comfort zone and think about things differently. This is undoubtedly influenced his ability to quickly pivot with new information and is something we can all practice more.
Ellen Rogin on Your Relationship with Money and Prosperity
Ellen Rogin joins The Wall Street Coach Podcast to discuss how to evaluate and nurture your relationship with money, wealth, and prosperity. Ellen’s career began as a financial and investment advisor nearly three decades ago and has been helping her clients achieve abundance and prosperity ever since.
As an experienced financial advisor, Ellen says that she can speak to someone and be able to tell within a few minutes if they will be on track financially. Beyond this, she has developed an intuition with money and is able to use this intuition to help clients shift their relationship with money from scarcity to abundance.
Ellen is the author of Great with Money and Picture Your Prosperity and in this conversation we touch on topics covered in her books, including creating a Prosperity Picture, noticing your beliefs about money, and how generosity proceeds prosperity.
Tom Sosnoff joins The Wall Street Coach Podcast to discuss trading, entrepreneurship, and how he lives his bliss by doing what he loves everyday.
Now considered a top trader and businessman, Tom got his start as a floor trader at the CBOE. But trading is just one of Tom’s great skills, as he went on to co-found thinkorswim, which was sold in 2009 to TD Ameritrade for approximately $606M. Since then, Tom left the company to start tastytrade, which was recently acquire by IG Group for over $1 billion. Tom continues to trade and host live shows for tastytrade everyday.
In this episode we dig into some of the incredibly unique perspectives that Tom has on risk taking and long term investing. As he explains, he believes that we’ve become far too risk averse as a society and would benefit from not being so afraid of risk in general.
He also has a controversial take on trading psychology, which we get into with Tom – but in the end, I believe we both agree – the market is a place that you need to leave your emotions at the door.
If you’re a serious trader, I encourage you to really listen to Tom’s words. Tom thinks differently and sees opportunities everywhere he looks. He takes risks and he trusts himself. We could all benefit from living a little more like him.
4:20 – Having an unconventional background is an edge
8:05 – Confidence in independent thinking by searching for truth 10:10 – How to find neutrality 13:00 – Introduction to the Stray Reflections community
16:45 – The importance of knowing oneself in trading and investing
18:50 – The genesis of the Stray Reflections community and book
24:10 – The importance of faith 29:30 – How to come back center
31:45 – What Jawad would tell his 25-year-old self
33:30 – How Jawad filters out noise and focus on his process
39:45 – The connection between emotions and spirituality
Jawad Mian’s Stray Reflections for Investors and Traders
Jawad Mian joins The Wall Street Coach Podcast to discuss his book Stray Reflections, his thoughts on the current market, and how he finds clarity for himself through spirituality.
Jawad Mian is the founder of Stray Reflections, a global macro research firm and trading advisory with a focus on major investment themes. His clients include some of the world’s largest and wisest hedge funds, asset managers, family offices, pension funds, endowments, sovereign wealth funds and institutional investors in the world. He is the author of the book by the same name, Stray Reflections which digs deep into his own journey and the universal journey we all take while weaving in eternal truths from poets, saints, and philosophers. Mian’s work is prized for its staunch independence, clarity of thought and courage to push clients outside of the manacles of conventional thinking. He is devoted to the pursuit of truth – in life and in markets.
